I’ve completely abandoned using Prototype/Scriptaculous in favor of JQuery.
I simply prefer the way JQuery does things:
- Simple syntax
- No more in-line JS
- Lots of great plug-ins
- JQuery UI has some very nice widgets
- Lightweight
In terms of CakePHP it means that I can no longer rely on the built-in AJAX helpers. No big deal, I find that manually writing JQuery is not hard at all (and I’ve never really done any JS programming). And the helpers are actually lacking in some more complex features.
So bottom line is that you should at least spend a few hours to see what JQuery is capable of and how easy it is to use it. It might be a great benefit in the long run and chances are it will open up some great possibilites for your next app.