List the pros and cons of each app and/or UI framework under consideration.

[kdbanman]

Keep in mind our constraints/requirements from the milestone:

Constraints

Our server (at disquo.io) will only serve the client app - there should be no further interaction between the client and our server. This means disquo must be pageless, with application state mutations navigable with browser forward/back buttons.

The client should pull its own data from sparql endpoints with cross-domain requests (ideally handled by an already-written sparql client library like Jassa).

Notes

The simpler and "lower level" the libraries, the better. Dealing with complexity that exists because of features we don't need is evil. If everything we need for UI and app logic can be handled by jQuery and vanilla HTML and CSS, then great!

[kdbanman]

Ember.js

application framework

pros

• fairly lightweight
• very thorough documentation
• designed primarily for long running applications/many states
• Auto binding is sweet
• Ember Inspector ( Chrome Extension )
• Will most likely require the least amount of code

cons

• bit of a learning curve to properly use the templating and binding system properly
• very strict MVC relative to other frameworks
• must use handlebars.js for templating
• probably has the steepest learning curve
• largest size relative to other frameworks

[kdbanman]

Backbone.js

application framework

TODO: figure out if backbone can use something like Jessa to pull data from cross-domain servers.

pros

• very lightweight
• annotated source code :)
• freedom to choose, mix and match other framework

cons

[kdbanman]

Polymer

UI framework

Allows custom HTML elements, even in browsers that don't support them.

TODO: figure out if HTML5 custom elements and Polymer custom elements are interoperable.

pros

• provides a rich set of out-of-the-box UI elements
• more readable html
• more modular and maintainable html

cons