Durandal - Finally a SPA Framework that Works!

I have tried several different ways to build single-page web applications over the last 3 years. I started with iUI. The concept was cool but I quickly ran into road blocks. I tried jQTouch and got a little farther but again ran into road blocks. jQueryMobile had just come out and I though finally jQuery will get it right, but I spent all of my time fighting the framework. Then Knockout was released and it made things a lot better, but there were still issues like url routing. I started using a library called SammyJS and that solved the routing issue. My app was better, but I still wasn’t happy with my view models. They were way too big. It seemed like everything was happening in the view model. When I was finally able to get my app working I started having trouble managing all of the JavaScript dependencies and getting them loaded in the right order! It was all just a big pain! Then along came Durandal.

Durandal has solved all these problems and many more that I didn’t even realize were going to be issues like JavaScript packaging and minification, and application messaging just to name a couple. Durandal accomplishes all of this and it is fun to use. In this talk we will dive into Durandal and the libraries that it sits on top of: jQuery, RequireJS, Knockout, and SammyJS. At the end of this session you will walk away with the tools you need to build an enterprise quality single-page web application.

About our speaker:

Michael Dudley is a senior consultant for Improving Enterprises in Dallas, TX. He is also a husband, father, musician, carpenter and foodie. He graduated from the University of North Texas with a degree in music, but providence had different plans for his career. His journey started with automating TPS reports in VB6, then on to Java, and finally to C# and the .Net stack. He feels blessed to be surrounded by passionate programmers who are continually Improving.