Dustin Diaz recently posted about Rolling out your own javascript interface in his blog.

http://www.dustindiaz.com/roll-out-your-own-interface/ 

While his code is nice and clean and it does provide what he was hoping to achieve:

There are times when using a JavaScript library is called for. Building large web applications that use a wide array of utility functions that help aid in developing multi-tiered class systems, advanced UI components, complex event models, and heavy use of DOM scripting helpers. Yep. Those are all great.
However, there are other times when you don’t need all that. And often what we end up doing is just importing a few of our favorite functions as globals, and work off those. But what ends up happening in this case is that we lose the particular style that these libraries offer.

In essence, he’s offering a light weight solution to the fundamental issue persistent to all javascript development: (“javascript sucks”). His solution is to coble together a light weight version of prototype containing only what he needs.

My questions are three fold:

1. Is rolling your own framework worth it? The new generation of code profilers for the various toolkits can dramatically decrease download size and focus on the functionality needed.
2. Is there sufficient demand for a new ultra light weight toolkit to address these issues?
3. Why not use full toolkits:  Many of them are small enough in compressed form not to make a noticeable difference in load times.

• Standardizing On A Framework
• What To Expect From An AJAX toolkit
• Cross Site Scripting – the new old way
• Using the jQuery data method as a local datastore
• Implicit Vs. Explicit Conversion in Javascript
• Taking the Web to the Desktop, Part 2: Mobile Sites
• Backup Systems
• Great Article on Ajax Interface Construction & Best Practices
• Why WebRunner Should Be On Your Radar.
• Milescript: Compiled, Strongly Typed Javascript