Part I – JQuery – What ? and Why to Use?

Introduction

JQuery is one of the most popular JavaScript libraries – in many ways it helps increase the productivity, minimize the code and most importantly help solving cross browser issues. Starting we would be learning all about JQuery. The below articles / post are based on my learning, my experience in projects and my reference from stack overflow, various blogs and books ( reference for the same have been provided in the post or at the end of the post)

So let’s start.

First question that arises, or lets say – most popular interview question – What is JQuery and why to use JQuery?

Formal definition of JQuery is as below

“JQuery is an Open source JavaScript library that simplifies the interactions between HMTL document – more precisely interaction with the DOM (Document Object Model) and JavaScript”

In simple language, it means – JQuery is a single JavaScript file, free to use under GPL (General Public License). You can JQuery to traverse through and / or manipulate an HTML document, handle Browser events, make Ajax calls / interactions and most importantly you need not worry about cross browser coding (JQuery will do the heavy work of figuring out which browser it is and accordingly deal with it, you need not code for browser specifics).

Why to use JQuery ? lets see point by point as below.

1. It’s an open source JavaScript library. Its licensed under and MIT and GNU and a General Public License (GPL). Its free.
2. It’s a single JavaScript file and extremely small in size (18kb minified version ).
3. Using jQuery Selectors – you can traverse through the DOM and make changes in the DOM.
4. It’s able to figure out which browser it is and how to deal with it, so you don’t need to the code for different browsers.
5. You can make Ajax calls using JQuery and also invoke Browser Events.

Happy Learning