Thread: Dojo: The JavaScript toolkit

Variations among Web browsers have made developing applications for the Web really messy work. Working around subtle variations in JavaScript implementations, wrangling the Document Object Model (DOM) and normalising content rendering across browsers can be downright tormenting at times, and unfortunately, a non-trivial portion of the investment in developing a solid Web application is spent reinventing this kind of brittle boilerplate. Although many technologies have evolved to mitigate these types of issues, one you especially should be aware of the next time you decide to build a Web application is Dojo, the industrial¬strength JavaScript toolkit.



In short, the Dojo toolkit is a liberally licensed client-side technology that can supplement virtually any aspect of Web development. It features a tiny, but fully featured, JavaScript standard library that insulates you from the bare metal of the browser, a large subsystem of widgets that snap into a page with little to no JavaScript required, and a suite of build tools for minifying and consolidating resources as well as writing unit tests.

Knowing that industry giants like AOL, IBM, BEA and Sun Microsystems, are on board with Dojo should give you a boost of confidence if you're leery of trying something else in an ecosystem that's littered with half-baked inventions that don't always come through on their promises to deliver all-encompassing solutions.
This article works through the bulk of the toolkit's most fundamental JavaScript programming constructs that will benefit you regardless of the size or scope of your project.