I'm not a rubyist, and I can see how this can be nice for ruby developers, but IMHO, if you need javascript - use javascript.
Why add another layer of complexity and error proneness?
What happens when a different js programmer needs to review your code? Or when you need to write some Node.js code and forgot all about syntax?
"The main motive is to have a decent standard library for JavaScript" - jQuery works just fine.
Clearly jQuery isn't providing a lot of the things they are looking for in a standard library, as it is focussed on DOM manipulation and Ruby.js attempts to provide core types like Enumerables and Time.
I've never considered jQuery as a standard library, more of an interface for the DOM, especially considering that 99% of it is at most 2 steps away from the DOM.
Prototype, Underscore, jQuery, Coffescript, .... RubyJS - nobody love pure JS, when you've got a chance to write nice code(short and descriptive) - why don't use this ability? And about "different js programmer needs to review your code" - if you don't know smth then you need to study it. That's a fundament of programming world(probably not only programming))
Untrue. The ES5 standard contains most of the features required for any application (my main issue being the Date prototype which could easily be improved).
jQuery, Prototype and afaik Underscore helper functions have been wrote when the standard wasn't ready. Now that it is, developers should start using them.
This is js, just extended with some extra functionality. No different than jquery, underscore, etc. I don't see any reason for the harsh criticism, remember js is a very dynamic language that's in constant flux... We're not coding in C here.
Actually, even without jQuery, the native library for strings, arrays and numbers is usually more than enough. I might have needed something like `capitalize()` once or twice but would probably not include a whole library just for that.
Agree to disagree. The JS native library is incredibly rudimentary by "modern" standards. Even something as basic as comparing two arrays requires either hand rolling a solution or reaching out to a separate library.
A thousand times this. Javascript as a modern language for non-web things is not mature at all. The amount of date/time, string, and hash utility functions that JS simply does not have is staggering.
Why add another layer of complexity and error proneness? What happens when a different js programmer needs to review your code? Or when you need to write some Node.js code and forgot all about syntax?
"The main motive is to have a decent standard library for JavaScript" - jQuery works just fine.