Has anyone used Sproutcore?

Question

Has anyone used Sproutcore for a web application? If so, can you give me a description of your experience? I am currently considering it, but I have a few concerns. First, the documentation is bad/incomplete, and I'm afraid that I'll spend lots of time figuring things out or digging through source code. Also, I'm a bit hesitant to use a project that is relatively new and could undergo significant changes.

Any thoughts from people who have developed in Sproutcore are appreciated!

EDIT/PS: Yes, I've seen this post: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/370598/sproutcore-and-cappuccino . However I'm interested in a bit lengthier description of Sproutcore itself from someone who's used it for a significant project.

Answer 1

Just browse through the sproutcore group posts at google groups to get a feel for what's going on.

Some weeks ago someone complained about the docs, being a newbie, and basically what he got was: "if you don't like it, why don't you help create the docs"... well duh!!

You'll see issues like this since it's inception. Also a few weeks ago someone asked the group how to create a hyperlink using Sproutcore. I mean, LOL, it takes hours to create a simple hyperlink apparently.

Sproutcore doesn't advertise who's using their framework in the wild: usually not a good sign.

It is claimed (not by sproutcore itself afaik) that Apple uses it, but if you look closely you'll see that Apple has it's own codebase.

I personally found sproutcore to be riddled with bugs, the lack of a simple tableview annoying, incomplete or non-working examples, and the absence of documentation and even the absence of complete TESTS is just not a good base to build upon.

Answer 2

We are using sproutcore for 10 months.

First I developed using version 0.9 which was excellent but had performance issues, related to KVO, Large datasets etc. But since SproutCore is Javascript (close to javascript) we were able to solve them for our application. For me actually, SproutCore taught me proper way of javascript coding. I was learning Javascript and SproutCore same time.

Somewhere around July they released SproutCore 1.0 pre-alpha. API was changed significantly so converting our application to newer version was a project in itself. And documentation was zero at that time.

Now things are changed, There is documentation and very nice wiki. New tutorials and documentation added each day.

If you thinking to use/evaluate SproutCore this is right time. And each day SproutCore amaze me with capability and power it contains. Still there is lots of rough edges, which reduces everyday.

Some Resources:

SproutCore Wiki

API Docs

Recent addition for data store API (which is very important part)

Answer 3

I am using SproutCore and it is simply great. We switched from jQuery to SproutCore, since jQuery offers a small set of utilities and SproutCore offers a nice high-level architecture.

We evaluated these Javascript libraries in the following order:

1. Prototype, which felt ok but jQuery has more support and books etc.
2. jQuery, which felt great but it didn't have any support for a nice high-level architecture and we started to build one, but it took too much time.
3. Cappuccino, which has a nice high-level architecture but lacks roadmap and documentation
4. SproutCore THE SOLUTION, since this offers a nice high-level architecture and it has a nice built-in build system

Our top list:

1. SproutCore is the WINNER
2. jQuery is a good toolkit
3. Cappuccino looks promising but is not quite yet there
4. Prototype is ok, but in my opinion not as good as jQuery

Of course there are more toolkits, but these are the ones we evaluated. As a conclusion I can highly recommend SproutCore to anyone who is building a desktop class applications using Javascript. If you just need some simple Javascript, like date pickers etc., I recommend jQuery.

Just one more tip. At the time of writing this answer the SproutCore 1.0 is the latest stable version. Unfortunately it is quite old and we are using the latest version that can be found from the SproutCore's Github page. I can highly recommend that.

Answer 4

If you are trying to get into SproutCore I recommend that you dig into the SproutTweets sample application. Many of the more powerful constructs (states, dynamically loaded frameworks, a useful example of a datasource) are in there.

You can find the SproutTweets application on github http://github.com/sproutit/sproutcore-samples/tree/master/apps/sproutweets/

• Also be aware that running the sample in Safari with the web inspector gives a more useful set of error messages.
• The sc-server contains a proxy which can be used to access your own REST data source running on a local web server. Refer to the buildfile in the sprouttweets sample app above to see how that works.
• The included proxy in the sc-serve is pretty limited. If your having issues with your data layer requests give sc-build then deployment on your local web server a try instead of the proxy. We found issues with our 401 authentication loops and streaming of large dataset responses (chuncked encoding).

Even if you have no intention of using SproutCore in a production application you owe it to yourself to explore it further to see a powerful approach to javascript application programming -- especially the KVO and mixins (aspects) stuff. Lots of great architecture to ponder and learn from.

Last point -- the IRC channel can be far more helpful than other sources of information, second only to some deep diving in the google group discussions.

Answer 5

SproutCore is a great framework for easy maintanable web applications. But my concern is how can we host a sproutcore application? is there any web hosting services that provides SproutCore hosting ? If yes then i am sure sproutcore will rule the world for the years to come.

If Apple uses it, then its going to be a hit in near future.

Answer 6

I worked with a company using SC for their flagship app redesign. Here are my thoughts:

1. I really like the MVC layout of an SC app. It is something I think other JS frameworks lack. Their binding framework makes updating views a snap.

2. The best documentation was in the code itself.

3. The need better documentation/more examples. Their examples are enough to get you started, but advanced things will stump most users.

4. The data access layer is too complicated. Its a huge mystery. They need to really shore up documentation or provide more examples to pave the way so people can use it properly. On the other hand, it seems to be a really powerful almost ORM framework.

5. I like the fact that they stress testing.

6. Lack of a grid is a real drag. Many if not most apps need grids. That said, SC is a fully featured MVC framework, not a framework of widgets(components) list EXTJS.

7. A lot of the code seemed overly complex. Anytime a method gets to be longer than 10-30 lines it should really be broken up to increase readability.

8. Perhaps the biggest consideration is this: if you are working a project and considering SC, you are going to have real trouble finding competent developers to work on it. So it might be good for a small personal project, but you are taking a risk with a large project that will need maintenance.

9. The IRC support was phenomenal. The guys on that channel are really helpful.

Answer 7

"SproutCore hosting?" I always wonder why people talk without knowing what they say... just for the sake of saying something? Regards..