Modern Javascript libraries

Javascript has come a long way. It used to be a tool to do simple things, such as giving you an annoying alert if you have not entered a required field (now that's considered a poor way to handle validation). Now there are compact powerful libraries that do things I didn't even think was possible before.

I've heard people talk about knockout.js and Angular.js. Going through the tutorials can be an entertaining experience. Basically these libraries let you do Model-View-Controller things all on the client side. Impressive! Of course, there is also the dollar-sign-everywhere jquery that just about everyone uses.

Ok, this can be debugging/programming nightmare if you forgot a $, and {} here and there, and there is some learning curve. Usually I prefer SIMPLE client side code. I prefer to sprinkle logs and invoke the debugger on a real language such as java instead of fighting javascript issues (that may or may not be available on that ancient browser you may be dealing with)... But the javascript libraries and crispy fast because no network trips needed.

See wiki's List of javascript libraries. There are so many out there.