There’s a new article on xml.com: ExplorerCanvas: Interactive Web Apps. It’s all about chasing squirrels with a web page. So far so good.
But I noticed that the author is using Prototype. Good stuff! Great way to cut down on having to do a lot of stuff yourself.
Yet reading through the article, it seems that the only thing it’s being used for is the $() function and the Ajax bits. I base this on the fact that on page 2, the wheel (in the form of event handling) is completely reinvented. Why bother including all of Prototype if you’re going to ignore large bits of it? You can cut’n’paste $() in a few lines of code instead…
Personally, I’d spend a short amount of time reading a couple of the really good articles on Prototype:
- Painless JavaScript Using Prototype
- Working With Events In Prototype
- Developer Notes for prototype.js
Remember: Prototype isn’t just for Ajax.
Jabbering Giraffe 