I love that Microsoft and Google are embracing jQuery but is this good? How can I deal with the possible problems when I code?
The embracing of jQuery
Is it good or bad that the likes of Microsoft and Google are embracing jQuery?
In the case Microsoft & Google they are both providing free hosting on their CDNs (awesome) and in the case of Microsoft they are submitting features (maybe cool?)
Upside or Downside
However think about this … by packaging jQuery with Visual Studio (for example) very quickly you might end up with sites relying on rather OLD versions of the library …
In my case I’ve already run into clients running 1.3 code, when my work relied on 1.4’s much improved features. Yet these clients don’t have the resources to update their old code …
This has long been a marginal drawback of JAVA and .Net … but mostly jQuery has avoided this …
The Question
Will the community benefit from this “embrace” or be hurt, and stuck with old versions?
What do you think?
If I’m totally honest, I’m not keen on jQuery getting too cosy with Microsoft. For one, the improvements that Microsoft have been suggesting are somewhat bloated and IMO should not be added to the jQuery core. Some of them are simply unnecessary and go against quite a few JS best practices: E.g. their datalink solution, which they want added to the jQuery core, is both bloated, badly implemented and not addressing the needs of 99% of jQuery developers.
I’m happy that developers at MS are embracing jQuery but I don’t see why they need to add all this crazy stuff to the core. Are they not satisfied with anything less than permanent inclusion in the core? How about a simple plugin?