jQuery adopted by Microsoft and Nokia

It's developers-developers-developers in Monday's IT Blogwatch: as Richi Jennings marvels at Microsoft and Nokia adopting the open source Ajax tookit, jQuery. Not to mention how the Japanese advertise milk...

Adam DuVander bites:

Could Microsoft be learning the way things work on the web? That big software company in Redmond will include JavaScript framework jQuery in its development environment. At the same time, Nokia announced that it will use jQuery for its mobile browser development. That’s two more big companies to join Google, Amazon, and thousands of other sites using jQuery.

Microsoft has long struggled to keep up with advances in JavaScript. In July the company announced an Ajax roadmap, which looked like Microsoft was going to eventually re-create all the features already in popular frameworks. Instead, Microsoft is going to incorporate someone else’s code, and it’s open source code at that.
...
This is a great move by Microsoft to avoid creating its own jQuery-like framework. The company that seems to always require others to change is adapting to the way things already are on the web. It couldn’t have made a better choice in jQuery, which is a fast, nimble framework, two adjectives not often used to describe anything related to MS web development.

Dare Obasanjo adds:

jQuery is an Open Source Javascript framework that is very popular among Web developers ... This is great news for Web developers everywhere. Kudos to everyone involved in making this happen.

Mark McAulay blogs from bonny Scotland:

We love jQuery ... We use it whenever we need a bit of magic to extend websites for our clients and because of the success we’ve had with it, we look to use it to compliment all of the backend and frontend technologies we work with. First up for the treatment were our php projects, we built our applications as normal and quickly started adding bells and whistles with jQuery…it just seemed so intuitive to work with ... nice and easy and super lightweight.
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[This] announcement ... means that we can use a consistant JS library accross all our development…the fact that the library is our favourite one only makes this announcement all the sweeter for us.

The jQuery project's John Resig grins foolishly:

Fantastic, albeit serendipitous, news ... Microsoft is looking to make jQuery part of their official development platform. Their JavaScript offering today includes the ASP.NET Ajax Framework and they’re looking to expand it with the use of jQuery ... Additionally Microsoft will be developing additional controls, or widgets, to run on top of jQuery that will be easily deployable within your .NET applications. jQuery helpers will also be included in the server-side portion of .NET development.
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The whole jQuery team is quite excited by these prospects and wishes to take this opportunity to welcome both companies to the jQuery community. It’s phenomenal to see these two, major, corporations take the large step of using jQuery as a base for their, and their developers, future development.

Akash Mehta looks towards Finland:

Similarly, Nokia will be making jQuery available on their Web Run-Time platform. The library would be distributed on all phones that include the run-time, enabling developers to use jQuery when building applications for the platform.
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Drupal adopted jQuery a while back, and with Nokia’s announcement, the library is becoming increasingly popular in platforms. Whether you’re developing a CMS plugin or a mobile web-app, there’s now a pretty good chance that jQuery’s around — and there are countless other examples. As a framework, jQuery is something of a mature Visual Basic — it solves the problem of developing interactivity for the web, and while it may not be the most powerful option around, it’s arguably the most popular choice. If you’ve been considering your JS framework, maybe it’s time to give jQuery a go.

Dion Almaer notes the timing:

Just as jQuery kicks off its first jQuery conference adjunct with The Ajax Experience in Boston tomorrow, it gets an energy boost from some big double-barrel news.
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Here is [some] sample code that shows the weaving of jQuery and Client template APIs. The script src at the top is to an "intellisense" version of jQuery, which includes the addition of special comments to make Intellisense work. The Open Ajax Alliance is trying to standardize on this metadata so we can share it between the various tools.

Microsoft's Scott Hanselman has some more "sloppy" code:

This is cool because we're using jQuery just as it is. It's Open Source, and we'll use it and ship it via its MIT license, unchanged. If there's changes we want, we'll submit a patch just like anyone else. JQuery will also have full support from PSS (Product Support Services) like any other Microsoft product, starting later this year. Folks have said Microsoft would never include Open Source in the platform, I'm hoping this move is representative of a bright future.
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My [is] code clearly sloppy, but this is a good example of how jQuery provides functionality that the Microsoft libraries don't. Things are better when the libraries are used together. JQuery complements ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX and ASP.NET MVC nicely and jQuery already has a large following within the .NET community. That's why we're going to ship, support and promote jQuery in ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC and Visual Studio going forward.

[Hat tip: Techmeme]

And finally...

• Ask Milk!

Buffer overflow:

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Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 22 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You can follow him on Twitter, pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• It's Google Moderator (or "I'm Dory!")
• Seeking Windows 7 alpha at PDC (and WinHEC)
• Google's G1 smartphone breaks cover