What are pros and cons of having a layer for .NET that generates javascript code for Dojo/ExtJs (or any other similar javascript UI framework) - something like RichFaces for .NET? For example one of the pro is that in theory you only need to know .NET (C#), but the cons is that you need to maintain more code, becaus you still need to know JS and Dojo/ExtJS and at the same time you need to maintain the .NET layer. What do you think about this?
1 Answers
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Ext.NET offers this wrapper for ExtJS.
The upside are as you say, that you theoretically only need to know C# and you can make changes on the server side for creating controls, binding data etc. It's also a quick learning curve to use aspx markup to create layouts that learning ExtJS and creating pages in JS for people coming from a webforms background.
The downside is that you do still need a pretty good JS knowledge to perform client side operations as many things don't require a round trip and don't need SS code.
Things like hiding/showing controls on the serverside are fine, but there are times when the server side methods need a helping hand from the client (store manipulation for example), so there isn't really way to totally remove the need to learn methods to interact with the widgets client side.
