OpenJS World

Started in 2004, Dojo Toolkit was a large collection of JS modules to handle app development. It implemented many features we take for granted in the language today, years before they were standardized.

Frameworks struggle with longevity, but apps authored in 2007 with Dojo still work today. Over time the technical debt of old approaches led to a decline in interest as the industry transforms with the death of IE and the rise of ES2015+ & modern browsers.

Dojo struggled with a path forward. We loved some features of modern frameworks, but felt that most required a Ph.D. in the modern JS ecosystem to be successful. Our journey includes many rewrites, resulting in a progressive, lean, modern, reactive TypeScript framework with an incredible amount of default functionality and flexibility.

We'll explore some of the challenges, decisions, and results of this long journey to reinvent Dojo.