I've been touring the world lately, doing huge amounts of drugs, destroying hotel rooms, having sex with random hordes of hot women, and making giant piles of money. Given that lifestyle description, I think it's pretty obvious what I do for a living, but in case you're still wondering: I'm a JavaScript Rockstar. And yes, I use jQuery.
Seriously. I'm getting far more than my money's worth from jQuery; they can be as silly as they like.
If you desperately want a jQuery site that looks like Oracle.com, or Jacob Nielsen's site, or whatever, ask John Resig for permission to mirror the content and then reskin the thing.
No, it's just that this design is lame and obnoxious. Look at Why's (Poinant) Guide to Ruby (http://poignantguide.net/ruby/). That's an example of a design that's kinda wacky and out there, but also good.
I owe the guys behind jQuery a lot, they've saved me so much time by preventing cross browser issues (eg. they saved me a lot of debugging time in IE).
What about taking the Code Igniter approach of "in your face." Their banner reads: CodeIgniter is an Open Source Web Application Framework that helps you write kick-ass PHP programs."
How about something like that? Aggressive, confident, in your face, and it's not too silly. Just direct and to the point.
"jQuery is an Open Source JavaScript Library that helps you write kick-ass web applications."
Then again, if anyone revives the term "___ rock star" it would probably be the jQuery team. They have done some uber amazing work on this library.
Perhaps it would be better to have four cream-colored info circles bubble up from a puke-green background while your difficult to type url/logo zips on a diagonal!
With a list of "who's using jQuery" that includes Google, Bank of America, Dell, CBS, NBC, Netflix.. your boss might not be the sharpest tool in the shed if "be a javascript rock star" bothers them..
What does that actually mean, tho'? That they're running mission-critical apps on it? Or that some third party ad agency they subcontracted something to happened to use it on one project? Or something in between?
I'm always suspicious of client rosters like that because in a big enough company, pretty much everything is being used in one way or another, even if it's only for someone's pet project. It doesn't mean a thing.
It's not hard to find out, go to the app, click view source and search for a jquery import. I just checked dell.com and they are using it on the front page.
If I remember correctly a company has to give them permission to use their name on the client roster, which leads me to think that most of the time it's more than someone's pet project within the company.
I agree, this is a legitimate problem for those of us who have to evangelize to get good technologies like jQuery past the gatekeepers at work. I'm considering starting an online petition of sorts, because I can't afford to have a library I depend on, and which has high visibility, to look like immature crap.
if you have to explain why you should use a certain technology to your boss and he balks because of some lighthearted fun on a web page, either you or he should not be working there.
If you need to convince your boss, just say: 'look boss, on the front page, see all those logos... Google, Dell, NBC.. recognise those brands? Well they're using it, so should we.
If the jQuery people, who produce this great framework at no cost AND under an open source licence, want to put flashing yellow polka dots in a marquee tag on their site, then that's fine with me.
If this disturbs you so much, then you have two options: don't use it or fork it. They won't loose a penny by you doing so.
I had to check the URL to make sure it didn't end in /thisisajoke. I guess if you got rid of the illustration banner it wouldn't be that bad. Whose idea was it to use My Chemical Romance to market jQuery?
They seem just as readable to me color/font-wise, but the width of the content definitely bothers me.
I realize there is a maximum width the human eye can easily read, but the docs seem much narrower than before, and over half my browser window is wasted with empty space to the left and right.
As for the design itself, I enjoy project sites with a familiar style, but this looks like something out of a commercial for Fruit Roll-ups or something. Very appealing to a 10-year-old I'm sure, but kind of garish.
Oh well, at least jQuery itself is still great. That's all that really matters anyway.
Well, I love it. Sure, the "rock star" thing is a little edgy and not to everyone's taste, but with the comments here, you'd think the design were truly bad. It's not.
It's worthwhile to distinguish between designs that are not to your aesthetic and designs that are poorly executed.
The problem I find with illustrations of that size and in that position on the page is that I have to scroll down before I get to anything meaningful. By the time I've reached any content the website has already frustrated me as a browser.
I agree, it looks more like an actual product, more polished and professional. People need to lighten up a little bit. Rock Star aside, I think the site looks pretty nice.
Why do code/opensource/... sites had such a serious designs?.
I think JQuery site design is great, it will take a while to get used to it but surely others will follow.
(In any case, what we have to really care is about the library itself)
I'm shocked. Really. It's breathtakingly awful. And as I asked in the Scribd thread below, why, oh why, would you put resources into creating this abomination rather than into improving and expanding the framework itself?
edit: On second look, it would be dramatically improved if the "rock star" conceit were replaced with something more professional.
Love the design, the rockstar toon is badass. Certainly doesn't tie in with the geeky/professional stereotype designs these frameworks are subjected to, but fuck it, who says the site needs to look square.
Too bad their 'documentation page' is wrecked on IE7. They could also improve on the page load times.
I think jquery site now looks different from all other javascript frameworks...If I was a new comer, I would immediately prefer jquery over other frameworks
questionable design aside, i'm just happy the documentation is back up and loading quickly. without that, i don't know if i'd ever be able to achieve javascript rockstardom.
Excuse me, I have to go have more sex.