Simplifying duties reminiscent of HTML doc traversal, animation, and occasion dealing with, the stalwart jQuery JavaScript library modified the face of net growth. As of May 2019, jQuery continues to be being utilized in 74 % of recognized web sites, in line with net know-how surveyor W3Techs. Nevertheless, the jQuery library, which debuted in August 2006, is now being seen by some builders as an older know-how whose time has handed.
Alternatives to jQuery have emerged lately, such because the Cash library and even simply fashionable, vanilla JavaScript, now that net browsers all deal with JavaScript the identical manner and jQuery is not wanted to resolve compatibility points. Arguments on Reddit and movies on YouTube make the case that jQuery has grow to be out of date, or at the least just isn’t as important because it as soon as was.
Why jQuery is not wanted
In one YouTube presentation, “Is jQuery still relevant in 2018?,” net growth educator Brad Traversy acknowledges that jQuery might be the perfect generalized JavaScript library ever created. It is simple to be taught, cross-browser appropriate, extra concise than older vanilla JavaScript, and wealthy in plug-ins providing particular performance. But JavaScript has superior far since ECMAScript 6, and jQuery is not wanted in lots of conditions, Traversy concludes.
In one other video, coding educator Kenneth Lowrey argues that turning into fluent in jQuery is a waste of time. In the present net growth panorama, fashionable browsers deal with JavaScript the identical, for essentially the most half. In most circumstances, native JavaScript code is best than a “bloated legacy library like jQuery,” he says.
While jQuery had been the selection for making HTTP requests, for instance, ECMAScript 6 introduced forth Fetch, a promised-based API that makes HTTP requests simpler. And the development doesn’t cease with HTTP. Where jQuery has utilities for duties reminiscent of manipulating arrays, vanilla JavaScript now has improved lodging for these operations, too.
