Snofs

I have been thinking a lot lately about why some open source projects gain momentum and some, though the quality is very good, do not.

jQuery is a typical example of a open source project that has gained enormous momentum the last year. It started out as a good idea, merged from other good ideas in other similar projects. Now, hundreds of developers, architects, designers and other web professionals helps the project, making it bigger, better and faster.

I tried to understand why jQuery achieved this kind of momentum the last year. I put down a list for myself trying to pinpoint the things that forms a good open source project.

10 reasons why jQuery will be the de-facto JavaScript library late 2007

1. John Resig

   I believe that in order for an open source project to succeed it is crucial to have a front figure that is focused, talented and driven. John is all that. John is a big factor in jQuerys success.

2. Marketing

   For an open source project to gain momentum, it has to draw attention to the product. This is crucial since attention makes interest bigger and bigger interest makes more intelligent people wanting to share their knowledge, thoughts and help in the future roadmap of the project. jQuery has really been good the last 4-6 months within this area.

3. Community

   From the beginning it has been easy to get answers from other users of jQuery. jQuery do not have a forum, and thats a good thing in my opinion. Forum tends to create an elite and that makes user with less cred or knowledge more likely to not join the discussion. jQuerys main discussion is done on the discussion e-mail list together with the wiki. And the jQuery-community is a friendly community, no question is left unanswered. There is also a development list for project discussions.

4. Architecture

   jQuerys architecture has evolved. It is easy for developers to get into the architecture and start developing plugins and add-ons to jquery. The architecture has evolved since its early releases. Add-ons and plugins must use the correct (according to coding-standards) namespace (jQuery), in order to attach to the architecture. I believe that the current architecture will benefit the evolution of the jQuery library.

5. Library

   jQuery is a library, not a framework. Framework decides everything for you, libraries exposes solutions to you, but doesnt say anything about your potential implementation of the problem. Libraries gets more users in the developer community.

6. Documentation

   jQuery has a great set of documentation. You have the wiki, the jquery e-mail list and the jquery developer e-mail list. Above that, you have a community that is focused on showing the rest of the world the power and potential of the library, it doesnt get any better than that.

7. Configuration Management

   The releases of jQuery is very well communicated in the blog, community and e-mail-lists. Minor version updates is minor version updates and major updates is major updates. As a site-owner you do not have to worry that jquery 1.8 is totally different to 1.9. John takes good care of the users he has.

8. Team

   The users developing jQuery are a group of people enjoying what they are doing, and they are good at what they are doing. I know a couple of guys in the team, and I have 100% confidence in them doing the right thing.

9. Joint Ventures

   The jQuery inner circle (John, Rey ++) connects to the correct people, maing the library even stronger. Drupal, Jack Slocum and other software developers big in the open source community.

10. Focus

    John Resig has not lost focus. I think it is important to see where the open source project you are promoting is aiming. John has had a great focus for jquery, it is a JavaScript library focusing at making it easier for developers and designers creating DOM-scripts that creates a greater and richer experience to the end-user.

Choosing the correct JavaScript Library is one of the important thing that has to be taken into account when building your front end architecture. Choosing jQuery is from our point of view, the future friendly way to go.