Why JSLoader?

Ultimately, if all library owners structure their assets with a "package" file, such as a "version.js" we will allow for:

1. rapid adoption, and easy prototyping from a hosted location (zero-install)
2. shared sourcing of files in an enterprise setting (which helps caching, and version control)
3. a dead-simple way for developers to include the assets, which will drive adoption and give them just enough value to not want to download static copies of the code (a maintenance nightmare)

Does that mean you should use this if you have a single purpose website? Probably not, but if you have a lot of sites, or teams, and want to encourage them to share their code, and want to make it easy to understand your dependencies, and track usage, this might realize some value for itself.

I'd rather write one line of code, as a developer, than have to install a library on my server which involves downloading a zip file, unzipping it, figuring what i need to include, etc just to use it.

If our friends at (name your CDN here) hosted all of these for us, there would be little resistance to adopting new libraries, as there's nothing to do but use them. It would help developers identify who's using their libraries, and make it very easy to upgrade.

Of course, this is not always realistic... Fortune 500 companies will not host their intranet infrastructure from a free CDN, but if we all agreed on a directory structure for our packages, we'd benefit from easy install of new libraries into our local repository, and the enterprises can host the repository in-house.

The loader itself is merely the bait for making it super easy for developers. It will drive adoption while at the same time enforce best practices in an enterprise setting.

What Else's out there?

Theres OpenJSAN and there's OpenMV's demo of the RegisterResource proposal from Open Ajax Alliance.

What I needed when I was tasked with this is a production-ready developer-friendly solution for an enterprise environment. My main goal was to make it easier for developers to use scripts that they should not be installing on their own. Until all scripts were ready for use via OpenAjax's Hub or OpenJSAN, the JSLoader system provided enough benefit to allow us to proceed in an enterprise-grade production setting. -- DovKatz - 22 Oct 2007