When to use Vanilla JavaScript vs. jQuery?

Question

I have noticed while monitoring/attempting to answer common jQuery questions, that there are certain practices using javascript, instead of jQuery, that actually enable you

Answer 1

If you are mostly concerned about performance, your main example hits the nail on the head. Invoking jQuery unnecessarily or redundantly is, IMHO, the second main cause of slow performance (the first being poor DOM traversal).

It's not really an example of what you're looking for, but I see this so often that it bears mentioning: One of the best ways to speed up performance of your jQuery scripts is to cache jQuery objects, and/or use chaining:

// poor
$(this).animate({'opacity':'0'}, function() { $(this).remove(); });

// excellent
var element = $(this);
element.animate({'opacity':'0'}, function() { element.remove(); });

// poor
$('.something').load('url');
$('.something').show();

// excellent
var something = $('#container').children('p.something');
something.load('url').show();