So I've started working with the Dojo Toolkit -- mostly because I ran the demo for it, and I was impressed by what it could do out of the box. It does have a very nicely featured demonstration set.
I've mentioned this to some friends and colleagues, and instead of thoughts or experiences with this toolkit, I got back a whole bunch of comments about why I chose to work with Dojo and not "
my favorite toolkit, x,
" where X is either a larger distribution that includes Dojo, or a smaller, more specialized distribution that I've never heard of. The other suggestion I keep hearing is "Prototype".
That I've never heard of 'x', shouldn't be surprising. While I've been doing web pages and light web programming for some years, I've only done very lightweight JavaScript. I've never done anything with Ajax, for example. I've done pre-load and post-load things, but none of this requires a toolkit.
Anyway -- it's not that I don't want to hear about toolkits, but there is a certain undeniable power to a decent demonstration set -- not just a verbose description. And THAT is what got me to actually give Dojo a serious look.
http://dojocampus.org/explorer/
Once I get what I'm trying to do fully functional, I'll be sure to post it here. So, far, I've only played around on my home computer.