Yahoo! open sources JavaScript framework Mojito for cross-platform development

When you’re a developer, you’re faced with a whole host of challenges and concerns based around who you want to develop things for. You have to figure out what audience is best for an app or site as well as decided to pick which platform to build it for. Luckily, there are technologies out there that will help you build things that can build thing for multiple devices and browsers, and Yahoo! is releasing a framework to the open source community to assist in that goal today.

The framework, Mojito, is a “JavaScript-centric presentation platform for connected devices”, built by Yahoo! developers to bring content to customers no matter what platform or device they’re on.

Here’s how Yahoo! explains Mojito:

If you want to build apps that reach all your customers, anywhere and everywhere, this might ring a bell. Today you have to make hard choices, mutex choices – I hate those. Build a desktop Web site? Build a mobile Web site? Build an app? Translation: an iOS app? Or an Android app?

Mmmmh. Must I pick one?

Here’s an idea: build a standards-based application, and tailor it to the device it runs on. Make it degrade nicely, on all the devices. Easier said than done, for sure, but having a solid framework in place helps a lot. That’s Mojito (and YUI3). We’ve been working with Mojito for a while internally, building hybrid apps like Yahoo! Livestand. Or Fantasy Finance, a Web site. Or Fantasy Premier League Football, a mobile Web app. All three are built using Mojito because it lets you develop one codebase for any type of device. Think of the reduced effort!

By having one codebase from which to work, the need to have multiple developers stepping over one another to port versions of your app to say, Android, is not a problem any longer.

Letting this framework go into the wild for developers is an extremely smart move by Yahoo! as more companies are starting to give back to the community to build their brand and remain relevant. While developers might not use Yahoo! products specifically, being able to identify the company with a tool that can save them a good bit of time is a way to create goodwill and remain a part of the ecosystem.

In addition to making Mojito available for use, Yahoo! is hoping that the developer community can take the framework to the next level by adding its own nuances and features. This of course is also a great thing for Yahoo! in that it gains access to fresh new ideas and developers without having to pay for it.

➤ Mojito on GitHub