Jason Pearce

For my 2007 New Year’s Resolution, I vow to adopt and frequently use the Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI).

I learned about Yahoo’s YUI while reading 24 Ways over the holidays. Once I got over the disbelief of having not learned of YUI until now, I couldn’t wait to use it in an upcoming project.

Why YUI Will Change My Life in 2007

There are so many things to like about YUI. Here are the features that excite me the most.

YUI Grids CSS

Grids blows me away. In less than 2.5kb of CSS code, YUI Grids offers almost 200 preset layouts and a great deal of customizations. Grid layouts can be fixed or fluid and columns are source-order independent. It’s everything One True Layout hoped to be, but done so much better.

YUI CSS Grid Builder

Dav Glass built a tool that allows you to try out all 200 Grids wireframes in seconds. What a great time saver.

A Grade Browsers

Another great thing about YUI is that Yahoo’s developers are committed to making it’s code work for what they call A Grade Browsers. By focusing on progressive enhancement, Yahoo builds a rich experience on top of an accessible core, without compromising that core.

JavaScript Library

The heart of the Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) Library is really a robust JavaScript library. While I was already tinkering with other JavaScript libraries, the YUI Library is so well documented I can no longer resist.

Will others adopt YUI?

I’d really like to see MediaWiki skins and WordPress themes that are based on YUI CSS and JavaScript libraries. My first YUI sandbox project was to try to make my FratMan MediaWiki Skin adopt the YUI framework. While I ran out of time to complete the project during the holiday, YUI sure provides a more stable skin.

YUI has renewed my passion for good web design. It provides a very flexible — yet sturdy — foundation for me to construct all of the web development projects I’m bound to face in 2007.