jQuery vs document.querySelectorAll

Question

I heard several times that jQuery\'s strongest asset is the way it queries and manipulates elements in the DOM: you can use CSS queries to create complex queries that would

Answer 1

To understand why jQuery is so popular, it's important to understand where we're coming from!

About a decade ago, top browsers were IE6, Netscape 8 and Firefox 1.5. Back in those days, there were little cross-browser ways to select an element from the DOM besides Document.getElementById().

So, when jQuery was released back in 2006, it was pretty revolutionary. Back then, jQuery set the standard for how to easily select / change HTML elements and trigger events, because its flexibility and browser support were unprecedented.

Now, more than a decade later, a lot of features that made jQuery so popular have become included in the javaScript standard:

• Instead of jQuery's $(), you can now now use Document.querySelectorAll()
• Instead of jQuery's $el.on(), you can now use EventTarget.addEventListener()
• Instead of jQuery's $el.toggleClass(), you can now use Element.classList.toggle()
• ...

These weren't generally available back in 2005. The fact that they are today obviously begs the question of why we should use jQuery at all. And indeed, people are increasingly wondering whether we should use jQuery at all.

So, if you think you understand JavaScript well enough to do without jQuery, please do! Don't feel forced to use jQuery, just because so many others are doing it!