Yahoo! released a preview of the Yahoo User Interface library version 3.0 yesterday. While I haven’t yet delved into the new package myself, it looks as though the new YUI will follow on the footsteps on other JavaScript packages like jQuery instead of following its own namespaced model. The preview code in the announcement on the YUI blog shows heavy use of YUI() and Y objects instead of the bulky YAHOO.whatever.whatever naming convention in use now and jQuery-esque selectors. It also says that the YUI team has “paid attention throughout the new architecture to the return values of methods and constructors” to allow developers to use chaining syntax in their code.

I have always preferred the maturity, robustness, and consistency of the YUI library, but the long naming conventions and poor selector support has often lead me to other packages for simple jobs. While the new YUI will be backwards incompatible with current code it looks as though the YUI team is taking a step in the right direction. I’ll definitely be watching as this new version develops.