Should you use JQuery less and do more raw Javascript?

Yo!

Not strictly PHP … actually, this is not PHP at all! But it is still relevant to any active PHP coders because you will need to use JavaScript with PHP – that is almost a certainty.

Someone put this question to me recently:

What’s your opinion on using pure JavaScript over that of Jquery and other libraries, do you think having a strong understanding of pure JavaScript is vital when using Jquery and other libraries?

My Personal opinion is that you should use pure JavaScript regularly because more likely then not you are going to be doing either edits to Jquery or making custom Jquery plugins. I ask this because i feel we are becoming dependent on Jquery and missing the point that it is just JavaScript at its core. 

My answer:

That’s a great question! My instinct is to say we need to know mechanics of things and so it makes sense to not rely too heavily on JQuery. But the reality is different!

You see, just about every language and framework we use today, builds upon some lower level base that most of us are not even aware of. So for instance, Ruby and PHP are written in C, so shouldn’t we go down to C and learn that? No!

Back to JavaScript; you need to know basic JavaScript and how to manipulate the DOM without JQuery. But in day-to-day coding work, you SHOULD use JQuery and other libraries because they’ve been debugged and handle a bunch of boilerplate tasks … things that you should not have to deal with.

If by chance you see a need to create a JQuery plugin or you need to do some highly custom JavaScript … then go deeper into then. For now though, you have too many things on your plate to worry it!

Stef

I am not sure if I should be quoting myself?

😉

Stefan Mischook
killerPHP.com