Lavaca is the only sane HTML5 mobile development framework out there (povolotski.me)

7 points by dannypovolotski ↗ HN
A few weeks ago I found myself on a journey to find the best go-to framework for HTML5 mobile development. The objective: develop a cross-platform mobile version of an online digital store. Having some (extremely frustrating and negative) experience with Sencha Touch, and having an overwhelming desire to avoid being put in a situation where I’m swearing at my screen at 3am while going through painful, agonising debug sessions of the Sencha Touch core I was determined to find a better alternative.

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Lavaca is not really a framework. To be a framework you kind of can't be some of the things that makes Lavaca not entirely suck. But Lavaca really only makes sense if you have users with no cache accessing your stuff via Modem. Let me explain.

To be a framework you can't be Modular. The whole point of a framework is it is all there, and it is always there. Because then you can cache it the same for everybody, and because everybody has it, no one has to download it so you get it for "free".

Ok, so a Framework can be modular, but making it so negates all the benefits of using the framework.

It bundles things that should be frameworks in a way that doesn't let you cache those frameworks. So all those bits of Cordova, and Jquery and backbone that Lavaca borrows from... Now you don't have those, and they aren't being pulled from your cache, they are being sucked down when you get Lavaca.

Notice I said sucked down. That's what it is. No one has Lavaca in their cache, there isn't a universally hosted by Google version of it. Danny says why "There is still practically no community around the project" and that is why no one sane will use Lavaca.

It sucks. It doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up. And it borrows from a bunch of other frameworks that do have communities. If you want your framework to get traction, suck less, steal less, have a plan, and be a cache friendly framework with really great CDN's serving your bits.

Sencha Touch doesn't suck - it actually works as advertised and has a company that does seem to care about its customers behind it. There's also numerous other HTML5 Mobile UI's libraries he could have tried like Lungo or even JQuery Mobile for example.
I'm actually gearing towards a more comprehensive overview of the current options for HTML5 development including more detailed comparison on size , intended use, e.t.c