Most efficient way to find elements in jQuery

Question

If I have a CSS class which I only ever apply to form elements, eg:

Which of these two jQuery select

Answer 1

The first example goes a LOT faster when used with a context. The second example goes faster as well, but not by much. I expanded your example to compare with a context:

http://jsbin.com/uluwe

Answer 2

form.myForm IMO is much quicker as it only needs to be look at a subset/filtered set of elements and would not need to iterate the whole document.