----- isHidden: false menupriority: 1 kind: article created_at: 2010-07-05T13:49:04+02:00 title: Cappuccino vs jQuery author_name: Yann Esposito author_uri: yannesposito.com tags: - Cappuccino - iPhone - web - javascript - jQuery - Cocoa - programming ----- begindiv(intro) tl;dr: * Tried to make [YPassword](http://yannesposito.com/Softwares/YPassword.html) in jQuery and with Cappuccino. * Cappuccino nice in desktop brower but 1.4MB, not compatible with iPhone. * jQuery not as nice as the Cappuccino version but 106KB. iPhone compatible. * I'll give a try to Dashcode 3. enddiv --- begindiv(intro) Before start, I must say I know Cappuccino and jQuery are no more comparable than Cocoa and the C++ standard library. One is oriented for user interface while the other is and helper for low level programming. Nonetheless I used these two to make the same web application. This is why I compare the experience I had with each of them for this specific task. enddiv I made a web version of my dashboard widget [YPassword](http://yannesposito.com/Softwares/YPassword.html). It is a simple widget to manage your online password with a *strong* security and with a totally portable way. It is not intended to replace a *keychain*. It is more a password generator. The first was made from the code of my dashboard widget and with some jQuery. You can try it [here](http://yannesposito.com/YPassword.old). I then made a second version with the [Cappuccino](http://cappuccino.org). You can try it [here](http://yannesposito.com/YPassword). ## What this widget do? begindiv(intro) If you don't mind about what does my widget and just want to know how the two frameworkcompare, you should go directly to the [next part](#cappuccino). enddiv I manage my password on many site with a simple method. I remember a strong master password. And my password is mainly hash(masterPassword+domainName) In reality I need a bit more informations to create a password: * A master password, * an URL, * a maximal password length, * the kind of output base64 or hexadecimal, * how many times my password could have leaked. The result password is this: domainName=domaine_Name_Of_URL(url) hash=sha1( masterPassword + leakedTimes + domainName ) if ( kind == 'base64' ) hash=base64(hash) end return hash[0..maxlength] In fact depending of websites, some give some strange constraint to your password: * minimal length, * maximal length, * must not contain a special character, * must contain a special character, * etc... And if you want to change your password the *leak number* is here for that. All informations such as user name, maximal length can be stored in a public file. The only real secret is the master password. If you want to know even more details you can always look at some of my old blog entries: * [simple portable password management](http://yannesposito.com/YBlog/Computer/Entr%C3%A9es/2008/7/30_Easy%2C_secure_and_portable_password_management_system.html) * [base64](http://yannesposito.com/YBlog/Computer/Entrées/2009/3/15_Shorter_Password_with_the_same_efficiency.html) * [change your password](http://yannesposito.com/YBlog/Computer/Entr%C3%A9es/2009/4/11_Be_able_to_change_your_password.html) ## Cappuccino First, I'd like to say Cappuccino applications look simply awesome. It is like having a Cocoa application in your web browser. And this is *great*. I also must admit I enjoyed making my application with Cappuccino. It is like programming for an iPhone application. If you are a bit familiar with Cocoa, you feel at home. If you don't know anything about Cocoa, I suggest you to look at it. This is a really _great_ framework to make User Interface. I am not a specialist, but I have done some MFC, java Swing[^1] and WXWindows User Interfaces (some years ago). And I must say, Cocoa is far better than those. [^1]: If you are interrested you can take a look at [SEDiL](http://labh-curien.univ-st-etienne.fr/informatique/SEDiL/). I am proud of the tree drawing view made from scratch. Cappuccino is a great web application oriented development. But there was also some drawbacks Things I liked: * It looks great * It was fun to program * It was like programming a Mac application * I could have done the User Interface using [Interface Builder](http://developer.apple.com/technologies/tools/xcode.html). Some things I didn't like: * I made some time to understand how to handle the `onChange` on the text fields. * Documentation lacked a bit of organisation. * It doesn't work on iPhone. * It weighted 11MB to deploy. * It weight 1.3MB to load. I didn't use bindings because I believe they are not ready by now. ## jQuery The jQuery version of YPassword is not as finished as the Cappuccino one. Because, there is no *slider* directly with jQuery. I'd have to use jQueryUI. And I believe, using it will make the application weight far more than the today 106KB. To make this version I simply copied my widget source code and adapted it. It was straightforward. But jQuery is not an *application oriented framework*. It is more a "*darkside* javascript animation framework"[^2]. [^2]: I don't want to feel like a *troll* I use jQuery to make some *darkside* animation on this blog. But the javascript on my blog is not needed except for commenting. I don't have too much to say about the jQuery version. But this was way more *low level* programming than Cappuccino. ## My conclusion If you want to make an iPhone compatible web application just don't use Cappuccino yet. If you want to make *simple* application like mine, I also believe, Cappuccino is a bit too much. If you want to make a complex web oriented application, Cappuccino is a great choice. But you may have some difficulties to begin programming with it. Finally, to terminate my web version of my widget, I'll give a try to Dashcode 3. It seems to be a good alternative to create web widgets. I don't know if dashcode 3 is portable on non webkit browser. But if it is, it could be the end of projects like Cappuccino and Sproutcore.