JavaScript Plugins; The beauty of loosely coupled code
Date : 2008 07 03 Category : Tech & Development
AjaxianJames Coglan wrote a piece on There is no such thing as a JavaScript plugin that uses jQuery as a use case for how simple it is to have a plugin contract.
When you think about plugins in many environments, you have strict contracts through interfaces that you have to implement. With jQuery, you can just add on to the jQuery prototype, normally seen through the alias $.fn.
James shows the simple example of:
PLAIN TEXT JAVASCRIPT:$.fn.makeThemRed = function() { this.css({color: 'red'}); return this; }; $('p').makeThemRed();
I read this as the power of the simplicity, but John Resig, again in his three parter saw it a little different, I think by thinking too much about the title :)
I will contend that such a thing as plugins exist and are logically distinct from "random JavaScript code that manipulates other JavaScript code" as long as the following points are met:
There have to be explicit points upon which a plugin can attach. James notes the most common one in jQuery (jQuery.fn) but we have tons more - events, animations, selectors - all over the board for developers to snap in to. Even more importantly: Those points have to be documented or, at the very least, be under some sort of agreement that they will be treated like a normal piece of the user-facing API. In jQuery we treat all plugin extension points as "user-facing API" and only ever change them in major releases (if at all) and always provide an alternative for authors to use. Finally, there has to be some sort of repository for navigating these plugins. This is a huge differentiator. Simply referring to "code in the wild" as plugins doesn't really cut it if there's no commitment to hosting them and keeping their documentation and examples alive.