jquery is awesome, go for it! (I don't consider jquery a framework, though you can use it like one. Back when browser compatibility was a much larger headache

jquery is awesome, go for it! (I don't consider jquery a framework, though you can use it like one. Back when browser compatibility was a much larger headache it was a requirement for being productive, but nowadays most browsers implement ES5 reasonably uniformly. Particularly notable are its succinct shortcuts for CSS manipulations, AJAX, and running code on-page-load) The only real gotcha is that jquery DOM manipulation is not really compatible with native DOM manipulation, but you can get to one from the other Re: overhead criticisms: the base jquery "runtime" is a pretty reasonable size for the functionality it provides, and the accoutrements are completely optional.