iUI Design Philosophy

The forthcoming release of iUI (version 0.40) is going to be the first release of iUI that add significant architectural changes.  iUI today is not that different from the original release of iUI over 2 years ago.  The major reason for lack of change has been simple: lack of human resources on the iUI team.

There have been many great contributions from the community, from simple bug fixes to beautifully crafted patches that add multiple features and almost double the size of the codebase.  I have also read and heard many opinions on the value of iUI, both positive and negative.  I'd like to write a formal statement defining the design philosophy of iUI so that users, developers, and even critics can better understand what iUI is and what it wants to be when it grows up.  This philosophy comes from three sources:

1. Joe Hewitt's original vision and source code
2. The experience and feedback of the community as it has developed applications with iUI
3. My understanding of the above sources and desire to move the project forward while staying true to its roots and to the loyal community.

Here are some of the key points in outline form:

1. iUI is a micro-framework (small, no underlying framework)
2. iUI is standards-based, but Safari focused (no IE)
3. iUI is lightweight.
4. iUI is a great starting point for any iPhone-optimized mobile site
5. iUI is a great starting point for those who want to learn modern mobile Web Dev.
6. iUI provides a functional core that is extensible through plugins
7. iUI is independent of server side technology.

I'd like to add a little more detail on these points (and was holding off on blogging this until I did) but I'm going to publish it now as it may answer some questions I've received recently.  Comments are very welcome.  This should eventually end up on the iUI project site.

Goal: I Wanna Be a JavaScript Ninja

I've wanted to create a blog that focuses specifically on software development, with a focus on JavaScript development for some time now.  Since Apple's introduction of the iPhone and initial announcement that all iPhone applications would be Web Applications, I've been interested in improving my knowledge of JavaScript and have made solid progress, but still have much to  learn.  Someday I hope to be a JavaScript Ninja (I bought the early access edition of the book, last week.)


I became involved in the iUI project over two years ago, and offered my skills as in the areas of revision control,  release management, and documentation.  I had hoped to learn more about JavaScript by assisting other experts on the project where I could.  Joe Hewitt, who created iUI had moved on to Facebook and was working insane hours on the initial Facebook iPhone Web Application.  A handful of other developers made contributions to the project but it didn't turn out to be the apprenticeship opportunity that I had hoped.  I used iUI on several consulting projects and over time learned much more about JavaScript and came to understand the iUI code base quite well.  Recently, I've decided that I have the expertise and can make the time to begin moving iUI forward and have made a few releases, fixed a few bugs, and added some minor features.  I'm hoping to get more developers involved with iUI and I'm also hoping to interact with and learn from the wider JavaScript community.


I've also had an interest in teaching JavaScript programming.  JavaScript is the de facto language of the Internet and is (at least indirectly) a part of everyone's daily online life.  In some ways it is well suited for beginners, in others it isn't.  I would like to write some posts for beginners or new developers as well.


I've debated whether I should use Apache Roller, Wordpress, or Blogger to do it.  Apache Roller is a great piece of software, I have a server side Java background, and there is a great team of helpful developers working on the project.  But ultimately, I didn't want to commit to maintaining a blog on an instance of Tomcat or on a hosted Java Servlet environment.  I may revisit this in the future, as I'd love to be able to be able to get under the hood of the blogging software I am using.


Blogger is overall the quickest and cheapest way to get started and now is the time as I have several subjects I want to discuss.