jQuery: The JavaScript Developer’s Best Friend

From its beginnings in 2006, jQuery has given developers of all stripes a convenient yet powerful way to make any browser sing. As 2006 turns to 2010, the variety of clients has only increased, and jQuery has become an essential element of just about every Java developer’s toolbox. In fact, jQuery is used by over 27% of the 10,000 most visited websites.

What Is jQuery?

jQuery is a concise, light-weight JavaScript library designed to enable rapid development of scripts that run across multiple browsers and other clients. Known for its speed and dense coding, jQuery simplifies some of the most time-consuming and code-heavy tasks, such as HTML document traversing, event handling, animation rendering and AJAX interaction. jQuery developers can also create plugins to vastly extend the library’s functionality.

Getting Started with jQuery

You can download the library yourself from jQuery.com and enable it with:

<script type="text/javascript" src="jQuery.js"></script>


You can also utilize Google AJAX Libraries API:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>


<script>google.load("jQuery", "1.4.2");</script>

Or The Microsoft Content Network:

<script src="http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jQuery/jQuery-1.4.2.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Ready to dive right in? Well, you’re in luck. jQuery tutorials abound, including many from the development team itself. You’ll find them at: http://docs.jQuery.com/tutorials/. jQuery.org is the newly released jQuery project site, containing a huge body of reference information and documentation.

The History of jQuery

jQuery was originally released by John Resig at a conference in January of 2006. Developers quickly saw the possibilities it represented and development proceeded quickly. The first stable release, version 1.0 launched on August 26, 2006. Barely two weeks later, jQuery had its first sponsored developer. Two weeks after that, it had its own magazine, Visual jQuery. After three bug fix releases, planning for jQuery 1.1 began in December of 2006.

On January 14, 2007, jQuery 1.1 saw the light of day, along with a brand new site and new documentation. On March 1, the first jQuery Meetup was held at SXSWi, with 11 people in attendance. July 1 brought jQuery version 1.1.3, a blistering 800% faster than the original while maintaining its tiny 20 KB size. jQuery 1.2 was released on September 10, 2007. One week later, jQuery’s new UI, jQuery UI Interactions and Widgets, became available. Development continued at this pace through several minor versions and version 1.5 of jQuery UI. On September 28, 2008, Microsoft and Nokia officially announced support for jQuery at the 2008 jQuery Conference in Boston, MA.

On jQuery’s third birthday, January 14, 2009, the team released jQuery 1.3. March 6 saw a long-awaited update to jQuery UI, version 1.7, with a new domain and a new CSS framework. jQuery held its first online summit on November 19, 2009.

2010 began with the release of jQuery 1.4 and the launch of jQuery.org with the Fourteen Days of jQuery. The current version as of this writing is 1.4.2.

Who Uses jQuery?

Everyone! Well, almost. You’ll find the jQuery library running on sites as far-flung as Bank of America and Major League Baseball. Closer to home, however, we use jQuery in two sections of WebmasterFormat:

• The Featured posts carousel on the homepage, which is based on the JCarousel Drupal plugin, and
• The expandable menu below the header, based on the Superfish jQuery plugin.

Stay Tuned

This was just an intro. Look for content-rich articles on more advanced jQuery topics in the future.

• Fixed and Fluid Website Design: Benefits and Drawbacks
• 11 Innovative HTML5 Websites
• Is Your Website Viewable with Any Browser?
• Better Loading Times with CSS Sprites – What, Where, Why, and How
• Understanding the Importance of HTML5 and Making It Work for You
• Five Retro Web Design Elements We're Glad To See Gone