Libraries and frameworks

Browsing the Web for JavaScript-related topics often yields results with jQuery mentioned in the subject or in the article itself. At one point, I was almost convinced that JavaScript started with $, followed by a dot, and then a function to perform. It turns out that this is not true. jQuery just happens to be one of the most popular libraries out there when performing web development. It puts in place abstractions for parts that are different between the browsers, but most importantly, it gives you a powerful way to query the Document Object Model (DOM) as well as modify pick it as your application runs. A lot of the things jQuery has historically solved are now solved by the browser vendors themselves by being true to the specifications of the standards, along with the standards. Its demand has been decreasing over the years, but you will find it useful if you need to target all browsers and not just the modern ones. Personally, I would highly recommend not using jQuery as it will most likely lead you down the path of breaking the SOLID principles and mixing up your concerns.

Microsoft's web story consists of two major and different stories at the root level. One of these is the story related to web forms that came with the first version of the .NET Framework back in 2002. Since then, it has been iteratively developed and improved with each new version of the framework. The other is the MVC story, which was started in 2007 with a version 1 release in 2009 that represents something very different and built from the ground up from different concepts than found in the web forms story. In 2014, we saw the release of version 5 with quite a few new ideas, making it even simpler to do the type of decoupling one aims for and also making it easier to bring in things (such as SignalR). We will use ASP.NET MVC for the first samples, not taking full advantage of its potential, but enough to be able to show the integration with SignalR and how you can benefit from it.

It seems that over the last couple of years, you can pretty much take any noun or verb and throw a JS behind it, Google it, and you will find a framework at the other end of it. All these frameworks often play as a part of the puzzle. Google introduced AngularJS a couple of years ago to cover more than just a little part of the puzzle, but it rather provides a broader perspective on client-side development on the Web. AngularJS consists of a core and modules that cover different aspects. With AngularJS, you get the opportunity to separate your code into smaller parts, promoting separation and lending itself to MVC and to a certain extent MVVM. Throughout this book, we will be using Angular for the web solution.

In the interest of saving time and focusing more on code, we will "outsource" the design in this book and layout to Twitter Bootstrap (which you can access at http://getbootstrap.com). Bootstrap defines a grid system that governs all layouts and it also has well-defined CSS to make things look good. It comes with a predefined theme that looks great, and there are other themes out there if you want to change the themes.