Microsoft to Expand its Collaboration with the jQuery Community

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The jQuery Project is excited to announce that Microsoft is expanding its support of the jQuery JavaScript Library through new initiatives, to include code contributions, product integration, and the allocation of additional resources.

Building on two years of collaboration with the jQuery Project, Microsoft announced today at MIX 2010 that it will be working with the jQuery Core Team and community to provide source code that will help to further advance the jQuery JavaScript Library. The planned contributions target specific functionalities in areas of mutual interest. They include:

  • Templating
  • Script Loading
  • Data Binding

The initial focus will be on a new templating engine that will allow for easy and flexible data rendering via defined templates. Microsoft has submitted a proposal for public review along with an experimental plugin, and is actively collaborating with the jQuery team and community on a unified implementation. The templating engine will be reviewed and considered for inclusion into the jQuery JavaScript Library or maintained as an official jQuery plugin.

Microsoft will also ship a current release of the jQuery JavaScript Library in both Visual Studio 2010 and ASP.NET MVC as well as continue to host current versions of the library on the Microsoft CDN.

Lastly, Microsoft will be providing resources to assist in QA testing of jQuery in new environments to ensure continued stability and longevity of the library.

We see these contributions as a tremendous benefit to the jQuery effort and community and look forward to continued collaboration with Microsoft.

64 thoughts on “Microsoft to Expand its Collaboration with the jQuery Community”

  3. John Resig on said:

    @Will: No. jQuery is not becoming a part of Microsoft at all – Microsoft is contributing to the jQuery project, much like other projects and companies do as well. The jQuery library will continue to remain open and under the control of the jQuery project (and will be hosted on Github for the foreseeable future).

  5. Bramus! on said:

    The Templating plugin looks very promising, yet the syntax used in it has ASP written all over it. Hoping this will change to both an easier/accessible (looks difficult at first, although it’s not) and a more genuine jQuery/javascript syntax or – true jQuery (plugin) style – give one the ability to change the formatting used ;-)

    Regards,
    Bram.

  6. Oskar Austegard on said:

    Was the template a MS project or one of John’s creations? I see the nje project is a fork of John’s jquery project (http://github.com/jquery/jquery-tmpl)… ?

    Not that it matters a whole lot, if in either case this becomes the de-facto template engine for jquery.

    And any word if MS also is intending this to replace the current MS Ajax template?

  8. John on said:

    Is MS going to contribute it as part of JQuery core, or is this going to be a plug-in and when will all this be available?

    Looks very promising.. :)

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  12. jethro larson on said:

    I think the template is best when kept simple. Increasing the applications just seem to complicate the usage, the api, and decrease performance.
    The plugin works great language agnostic, but if you must I have a suggestion: $.tmpl = tmpl;

    I’ve taken Resig’s template and simplified it even further. http://github.com/jethrolarson/zentmpl
    It only returns the template function and takes the template text as only param. It also uses .call() to set the context of the template rather than using “with”, which I hear is to be avoided.

    Examples can be found on the github page.

  16. Ufi on said:

    # tfosorcim Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 9:57 pm

    jqeury sucks. Use asp.net ajax

    jQuery is the best thing since backed bread :)

  17. deef on said:

    I prefer the {{…}} delimters instead of the {%…%}.
    Those with % are bit confusing if you ask me.

    PS: To the Microsoft-bashers, grow up!

  19. Lysander Gray on said:

    I sincerely hope all future contributions will be met with the same scrutiny and quality standards regardless of its source, be it jQuery contributors or MS.

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  23. Karl Swedberg on said:

    @Lysander Gray – Yes, of course. Nobody gets a free pass. The contributor’s employer is irrelevant when determining code quality and whether it makes sense to integrate patches or features into core.

  24. Jonathan Crossland on said:

    I hope jquery can remain true, independent and not become overwhelmed and overshadowed. At the moment jquery is elegant, I hope it remains so. Personally I think it’s doing fine by itself.

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  27. Stifu on said:

    Dave: no, it’s “extinguish”, not “destroy”. Else it wouldn’t be EEE, but EED… Get it?
    Anyway, what deef said.

    If the code is good and plays by the rules of the jQuery team, then who cares where it comes from? The fact it’s Microsoft is actually a good thing, as it will also ensure jQuery will get more testing.

  28. Zachary Scott on said:

    First, MVC with ASP.NET is fantastic. Scott Guthrie and his team have really listened and produced. I think they sacrificed Microsoft Ajax to the JQuery gods, which probably didn’t make Stephan Walter happy, but the end result is fantastic.

    Long live JQuery!

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  32. Eliazer on said:

    Please drop Microsoft now!

    They are known to destroy every good thing….
    Don’t let Microsoft cash in on your hard work
    I know many people that are very unhappy with this announcement.

  33. Enon on said:

    Wow,

    jQuery team, hasn’t the world learned its lesson, haven’t you realized the unfortunate facts about Microsoft?

    It is unfathomable that you are letting a company with a history of rotting everything it gets its hands on not only partake in the development of one of the web’s best technologies but “contribute” to it?!

    Dave Conger, I’ll too miss jQuery when it’s gone. And it will be gone when Microsoft injects its toxic web philosophy into javascript’s best designed library.

    Please, jQuery team, please consider this move more carefully – perhaps more that you already have. And if you choose to not listen to the outcry of jQuery users in response to this statement, please be extremely cautious when implementing Microsoft’s ideas.

    [Not] looking forward to a gloom future,
    Enon.

  34. dixie on said:

    Hope somebody will make a fork, and start a jq rebelion not cooperating with m$ as*holes..

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  36. reza on said:

    why anti microsoft persons angry!!!
    this is a shame for microsoft i am an asp.net developer but not using
    asp.net ajax library just use jquery so microsoft knows that very asp.net developer exist like me so they just write a jquery plugin for templating
    so don’t angry
    I thanks jquery developers and ask jquery developer that keep it open source and free and let microsoft just write a plugin for it!!!!!!

  37. Gilles on said:

    I am not sure if I should look forward to that or not.

    Like many here I have my doubt on Microsoft and I agree that they tend to break what is working already (and keep building on that) BUT that said Microsoft did also provide the Java script programmers with some interesting ideas and new object.

    Let’s not forget who bring us the XMLHttpRequest object (AJAX) and to me it is still one of the best if not the best addition ever made to the Java script language.

    So also I have my doubt my trust in the jQuery team give me hope that good can actually come from this.

    Also there is always the possibility that Microsoft get interested enough and buy off jQuery.

    But hey everybody is free to fork at any time and continue the road they like if they do not agree with actions.

    for the minutes I’ll say let’s just enjoy jQuery and keep our trust in John and his team.

  38. Michael Kozakewich on said:

    People doubt Microsoft too much. It’s an enterprise company, which means the leadership switches hands so often that you really can’t say “MS is like this.”

    As long as the jQuery team holds firm in their ideals, this project will flourish with the help of Microsoft — and all those other companies contributing.

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  43. Jazzen on said:

    Great news, two thumbs up!

    John, please ignore all the negative comments from the anti-MS zealots. They always seem to claim that they talk on behalf of all the community and such nonsense. Fact is they are the minority, but unfortunately like most zealots, the most verbal.

  44. Tony on said:

    As long as the code remains a plugin. jQuery is getting too big in size now. It doesn’t need more bloat. Half the functions I don’t even seem to use and I use jQuery a lot.

    I’m not saying whether I would upgrade to a version with this included in the library but I can predict a community fork without it included if you do. There are many people who do not trust Microsoft, the quality of the code they push, do not need this template method and won’t want anything to do with it.
    Adding this code to jQuery’s core will divide users because there are plenty of people who have learned their lesson there and want nothing more to do with that company. Many more will also wise up over time.

    It’s dangerous when Microsoft come over to your open source company with a suitcase full of money. Look a Novell for instance. Not doing so well now are they? And they got lots from Microsoft.
    I’m sure it’s a good move financially for jQuery in the short term but I doubt it is ethically at all.

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  47. wkmanire on said:

    Microsoft support should be provided as a server-side control library, better JSON support in their web services API and better integration into the event handling for web forms. I know the shift is towards MVC (as it should be), but I still believe that web forms have their place for simple data collection purposes. I really appreciate that Microsoft took the time to write intellisense documentation into the source, but I firmly believe that any editions that Microsoft makes to the actual jQuery source should be done using the plugin pattern that everyone else does. Keep jQuery pure, keep Microsoft contributions optional.

  48. Daniel Dotsenko on said:

    My ASP.Net hat:
    These things “in” jQuery – ASP-style Templating, Script Loading, ASP-themed Data Binding – are awesome things for any APS.Net dev. These would make some of our .Net devs marginally happier and slightly more adventurous into client-side programming.

    My jQuery hat:
    I hope that platform-specific crap sits in plug-ins and never moves anywhere close to jQuery proper.

    There are already palf-a-douzen templating plugins for jQuery. A few are arguably better in concept that what {%..%} heritage brings.

    Data-binding is a tentacle old-style view-and-state-managed-on-the-server mentality. Better solutions, like in-browser state storage and having in-browser generic DataStores (like ExtJs) that talk REST / SOAP / JSON to WebServices is a much more flexible pattern to go for.

    Script-Loading is something interesting, though. So far had to manage the dependencies by hand. If i heard correctly, and this feature brings script dependency management, could be of some use to someone.
    However, this is not where dependency management should really sit. Dependency management really only belongs in build-scripts that minify all or most of the scripts into minified and gzipped bundles. So, there is marginal utility here for production0-minded people.

    Overall, however, I – a simple jQuery user – really hope the jQuery band-aids Microsoft is trying to put in place to keep their platform pleasant will not bleed into jQuery proper and will not task the community with useless extra maintenance and baggage.

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