We are looking at using combination of MVC4 and JavaScript libraries like Knockout and/or Breezejs for providing SPA or better navigation and performance within SharePoint 2010 environment. I am studying Breeze and Knockout.
Is there any such good performing library/framework combination that might prove to be good in long term?
Primary objectives are:
Lots of good answers to this. Angular JS and Durandal JS are the most popular SPA frameworks. If you like Knockout take a look at Durandal JS, a simple SPA framework built using KnockoutJS for all the MVVM features. The SharePoint JS client object model will give you most of what you need with regards to SharePoint, but you can use Jquery to make most AJAX calls to a MVC hosted application.
Its important to keep in mind that the SharePoint JS client object model doesn't allow cross site collection queries. If that's a need take a look at utilizing SPServices or building your own MVC endpoints. If using the SharePoint JS csom fulfills you business needs its best to stick with that though.
John Papa has an extensive course on utilizing Durandal JS, with knockout and BreezeJS with the .net Web API as a backend. He's created a Visual Studio project template.
There are lots of SPA frameworks available and I found AngularJS as the quickest and easy to learn Also, there is a good documentation and support on this technology. I performed the same actions using
Andrew Connell is pretty keen on SharePoint 2013 SPAs.
He has several blog posts about his experience with Breeze + Angular such as this one "Getting BreezeJS to Work with the SharePoint 2013 REST API". His PluralSight course on the subject will be published very soon along with a sample. There's a "Breeze.Angular.SharePoint" nuget package that loads your project with the goods to get going.
I'd say this SPA approach is looking pretty bright.
