9 ms·

Is jQuery still relevant? (2014)

36 points by thelgevold 10y ago

tim333 10y ago
Still seems to be #1 in useage by a long shot https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/javascript_library/all https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/javascript_library...
- apineda 10y ago
  Although I admit I couldnt be bothered to look at their methodology, it could be the case this is marketing type sites and not web applications. Doesn't make it any less valid, just less valid for SPAs perhaps.
- lucideer 10y ago
  I think a much more relevant (but ultimately completely unmeasurable) metric is the number of websites currently rolling out (i.e. "upgrading to" or building afresh on) jQuery. The vast majority of sites in any statistic like the above are always going to be older no-longer-very-actively-being-updated-beyond-maybe-some-security-patches frontends. An interesting indicative stat would be number of installs of the very latest jQuery versions.
- mtrpcic 10y ago
  The thing to note is that just because a large number of sites are still using it, doesn't mean that it is relevant. There are probably tens of thousands of stale sites that don't get regular updates using jQuery, since it's been the "standard" for so long. That will inflate the usage numbers, and competing solutions (Angular, React, Vue, etc.) don't have 5 years worth of free growth under their belts to equalize that inflation. A truer metric of "relevance" would be "How many new sites are showing up with each technology?"
edgarvm 10y ago
Most of problems pointed by the article are related to javascript and the DOM model, JQuery just provides a very useful function set and interoperability between browsers.
meesterdude 10y ago
I love me some jQuery. While I don't ALWAYS reach for it in a project - I usually do. It can add nice behavior to webpages with just a sprinkling of JS, and not a lot of boilerplate, and not having to worry about browser edge cases. For the two dozen or so various medium/large sites i've worked on; Jquery, underscore and d3 give me everything I want and then some. But it's certainly not the "cool" kid anymore. It's an important fundamental that you can use to do a lot with - but sites with more heavy use of JS will probably gravitate towards a more structured framework like angular
AznHisoka 10y ago
If i had to build an app in a week and my life was on the line, i would use Jquery and ignore any other javascript frameworks.
- foota 10y ago
  I think react makes a good case for the `kidnapped by Jeff Bezos to work on applications` situation. I find the simple way that you can just render things and not have to worry about DOM manipulation to be very freeing.
  - untog 10y ago
    Agreed. Once you know React it's incredibly quick to throw something together (especially if you use Material UI or similar). jQuery is definitely simpler but the props/state model of React means fewer bugs slip through the cracks when you're in a hurry. (and my usual disclaimer - if you're going to use React for a quick project, you can probably use Preact and save the extra bloat)
    - sAbakumoff 10y ago
      Top 100 run-time dependencies of react apps in terms of number of usage : https://airtable.com/shrfmD9l5rAW4Z03N/tbls8DesxQZT7VH0p/viwpuP25nIgGBO9eV https://airtable.com/shrfmD9l5rAW4Z03N/tbls8DesxQZT7VH0p/viw... jQuery is in 15th position.
      - untog 10y ago
        Hey, I never said people are doing it right. React completely removes the need for jQuery if you're using it correctly, because you should rarely if ever touch the DOM, and jQuery is... a DOM manipulation library.
        sAbakumoff 10y ago
        jQuery nowadays is much more than DOM manipulation lib. In the latest version it gives the promises that are compatible with Promises/A+ spec. It has the powerful ajax calls functions.
overcast 10y ago
I've moved away from jQuery for most everything, because I was really only using it for selectors, and various other things that can be done in vanilla browser JS. However if you want to play with UI frameworks like Bootstrap and Semantic UI, you're going to be using it, and that's not a bad thing. Time and place for any library. Out of fashion, doesn't mean out of relevance.
yichi 10y ago
If you are planning to ditch jQuery, make sure you consult this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LPaPA30bLUB_publLIMF0RlhdnPx_ePXm7oW02iiT6o/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LPaPA30bLUB_publLIMF0Rlh...
- nostrademons 10y ago
  Make sure you also consult browser marketshare numbers and decide exactly what you need to support: http://caniuse.com/usage-table http://caniuse.com/usage-table Many of the examples in that doc are Android < 4.1 (0.06%), IE < 9 (0.48%), Firefox < 24 (~0.1%), etc. Even IE 9-11 is only 4% of the market these days. The browser-compatibility story is dramatically different from when JQuery was created in 2006. All of the major browsers have been auto-updating for several years now.
redthrowaway 10y ago
Will jQuery ever not be relevant? It's still the easiest way to accomplish most basic tasks, and 90% of the websites out there make use of it in some fashion or another. There are now a plethora of frameworks for building front end web apps, but for basic scripting I don't see anything replacing jQuery anytime soon.
- wongarsu 10y ago
  jQuery was built in a time when doing a simple ajax request required 2-3 code paths just for cross-browser compatability, and some of those code paths fairly verbose. Today most basic tasks are short and easy with just standard APIs that every browser understands out of the box. The need for jQuery has certainly diminished (usage not so much).
  - chenster 10y ago
    Not just for cross-browser compatibility, it's other main benefit is a DOM manipulator.
wwweston 10y ago
jQuery may not be enough to structure your application. This is actually debatable -- there's many applications for which treating the document as your model is a perfectly acceptable approach, and it can scale just fine assuming some thoughtful discipline -- but some applications don't lend themselves particularly well to the kind of resource-oriented practice involved and having a separate model can make sense too. jQuery is less necessary than it used to be in order to get reasonable tools for working with the DOM and other browser APIs... but then again, depending on your need for marginal utility and tolerance for personal attention to corner cases, you never really needed it. If you were determined, you could always custom code a micro library that covered most of the overlap between what jQuery did and what your app needed. It's just that it often gave you the gift of not having to pay attention to those cases. It still can. Things jQuery will always be relevant for: an example. It might be the single most thoughtful yet pragmatic abstraction that I've had the pleasure of regularly working with in the last decade. The basic idea of using selectors to navigate the DOM was a key jump in productivity, the fluent-chained interface was thoughtful and a massive boost. It almost never leaked -- I can count on one hand the number of times in 10 years something weird was going on underneath the hood that I had to pay attention to (Angular exceeded this measure inside of a few months). And strangely enough, every other library that was its contemporary when it was born seemed to think that the problem with front-end development was JavaScript's lack of classes & traditional OO, if the amount of library that was focused on adding them was any indication. jQuery recognized how much of the pain was really coming from bad browser APIs, and how much productivity could come from building better ones, combined with idioms/concepts from the functional side.
franciscop 10y ago
I created a library to manipulate the DOM in a simplified way inspired by the question, how would I build jQuery if I had to do it today? Superdom https://superdom.site/ https://superdom.site/
chenster 10y ago
Outside the framework, jQuery also has tons of free and powerful plugins that we can't simply overlook in our day to day application development. We used jqgrid for all of our datagrids. It's insanely powerful.
- vinhboy 10y ago
  datepicker... for me.
  - sAbakumoff 10y ago
    jquery also gives me promises and ajax calls.
mattezell 10y ago
Perhaps I'm just lazy or missing something... While I don't often use it directly, I do find that adding a ref to it makes my life easier when I'm working in AngularJS.
scarface74 10y ago
I have a situation where a full framework was overkill but using Jquery was causing an unmaintanable mess when creating a dynamic UI. I took a middle ground. I came in and introduce Handlebars to the work flow. We still use Jquery, but our ui is created with simple intuitive handlebar templates/compiled functions. When we do start building more complex web apps, we decided on Ember since it uses Handlebars as its templating engine.
supersan 10y ago
Not to mention that even AngularJS 1.x still bundles jqLite and switches to full jQuery if you include it first.
aforty 10y ago
"None of the popular patterns promote the tight coupling between view and code." Not sure how relevant this is either. React barely differentiates between view and code, opting to put everything in one place.
sebringj 10y ago
I don't think so. jQuery was intended to be a cross-browser approach to JavaScript that just works. It does but if you check out MDN docs, you'll find that now days, vanilla just works really well and ES6/7 have great features. Modern browsers have aggressive updates that are simple to apply. It isn't the same anymore. Also, doing actual apps is way easier with React or Vue, even on small scales.

36 points by thelgevold 10y ago

Still seems to be #1 in useage by a long shot https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/javascript_library/all https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/javascript_library...

apineda 10y ago
Although I admit I couldnt be bothered to look at their methodology, it could be the case this is marketing type sites and not web applications. Doesn't make it any less valid, just less valid for SPAs perhaps.
lucideer 10y ago
I think a much more relevant (but ultimately completely unmeasurable) metric is the number of websites currently rolling out (i.e. "upgrading to" or building afresh on) jQuery. The vast majority of sites in any statistic like the above are always going to be older no-longer-very-actively-being-updated-beyond-maybe-some-security-patches frontends. An interesting indicative stat would be number of installs of the very latest jQuery versions.
mtrpcic 10y ago
The thing to note is that just because a large number of sites are still using it, doesn't mean that it is relevant. There are probably tens of thousands of stale sites that don't get regular updates using jQuery, since it's been the "standard" for so long. That will inflate the usage numbers, and competing solutions (Angular, React, Vue, etc.) don't have 5 years worth of free growth under their belts to equalize that inflation. A truer metric of "relevance" would be "How many new sites are showing up with each technology?"

edgarvm 10y ago

Most of problems pointed by the article are related to javascript and the DOM model, JQuery just provides a very useful function set and interoperability between browsers.

meesterdude 10y ago

I love me some jQuery. While I don't ALWAYS reach for it in a project - I usually do. It can add nice behavior to webpages with just a sprinkling of JS, and not a lot of boilerplate, and not having to worry about browser edge cases. For the two dozen or so various medium/large sites i've worked on; Jquery, underscore and d3 give me everything I want and then some. But it's certainly not the "cool" kid anymore. It's an important fundamental that you can use to do a lot with - but sites with more heavy use of JS will probably gravitate towards a more structured framework like angular

AznHisoka 10y ago

If i had to build an app in a week and my life was on the line, i would use Jquery and ignore any other javascript frameworks.

foota 10y ago
I think react makes a good case for the `kidnapped by Jeff Bezos to work on applications` situation. I find the simple way that you can just render things and not have to worry about DOM manipulation to be very freeing.
- untog 10y ago
  Agreed. Once you know React it's incredibly quick to throw something together (especially if you use Material UI or similar). jQuery is definitely simpler but the props/state model of React means fewer bugs slip through the cracks when you're in a hurry. (and my usual disclaimer - if you're going to use React for a quick project, you can probably use Preact and save the extra bloat)
  - sAbakumoff 10y ago
    Top 100 run-time dependencies of react apps in terms of number of usage : https://airtable.com/shrfmD9l5rAW4Z03N/tbls8DesxQZT7VH0p/viwpuP25nIgGBO9eV https://airtable.com/shrfmD9l5rAW4Z03N/tbls8DesxQZT7VH0p/viw... jQuery is in 15th position.
    - untog 10y ago
      Hey, I never said people are doing it right. React completely removes the need for jQuery if you're using it correctly, because you should rarely if ever touch the DOM, and jQuery is... a DOM manipulation library.
      - sAbakumoff 10y ago
        jQuery nowadays is much more than DOM manipulation lib. In the latest version it gives the promises that are compatible with Promises/A+ spec. It has the powerful ajax calls functions.

overcast 10y ago

I've moved away from jQuery for most everything, because I was really only using it for selectors, and various other things that can be done in vanilla browser JS. However if you want to play with UI frameworks like Bootstrap and Semantic UI, you're going to be using it, and that's not a bad thing. Time and place for any library. Out of fashion, doesn't mean out of relevance.

yichi 10y ago

If you are planning to ditch jQuery, make sure you consult this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LPaPA30bLUB_publLIMF0RlhdnPx_ePXm7oW02iiT6o/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LPaPA30bLUB_publLIMF0Rlh...

nostrademons 10y ago
Make sure you also consult browser marketshare numbers and decide exactly what you need to support: http://caniuse.com/usage-table http://caniuse.com/usage-table Many of the examples in that doc are Android < 4.1 (0.06%), IE < 9 (0.48%), Firefox < 24 (~0.1%), etc. Even IE 9-11 is only 4% of the market these days. The browser-compatibility story is dramatically different from when JQuery was created in 2006. All of the major browsers have been auto-updating for several years now.

redthrowaway 10y ago

Will jQuery ever not be relevant? It's still the easiest way to accomplish most basic tasks, and 90% of the websites out there make use of it in some fashion or another. There are now a plethora of frameworks for building front end web apps, but for basic scripting I don't see anything replacing jQuery anytime soon.

wongarsu 10y ago
jQuery was built in a time when doing a simple ajax request required 2-3 code paths just for cross-browser compatability, and some of those code paths fairly verbose. Today most basic tasks are short and easy with just standard APIs that every browser understands out of the box. The need for jQuery has certainly diminished (usage not so much).
- chenster 10y ago
  Not just for cross-browser compatibility, it's other main benefit is a DOM manipulator.

wwweston 10y ago

jQuery may not be enough to structure your application. This is actually debatable -- there's many applications for which treating the document as your model is a perfectly acceptable approach, and it can scale just fine assuming some thoughtful discipline -- but some applications don't lend themselves particularly well to the kind of resource-oriented practice involved and having a separate model can make sense too. jQuery is less necessary than it used to be in order to get reasonable tools for working with the DOM and other browser APIs... but then again, depending on your need for marginal utility and tolerance for personal attention to corner cases, you never really needed it. If you were determined, you could always custom code a micro library that covered most of the overlap between what jQuery did and what your app needed. It's just that it often gave you the gift of not having to pay attention to those cases. It still can. Things jQuery will always be relevant for: an example. It might be the single most thoughtful yet pragmatic abstraction that I've had the pleasure of regularly working with in the last decade. The basic idea of using selectors to navigate the DOM was a key jump in productivity, the fluent-chained interface was thoughtful and a massive boost. It almost never leaked -- I can count on one hand the number of times in 10 years something weird was going on underneath the hood that I had to pay attention to (Angular exceeded this measure inside of a few months). And strangely enough, every other library that was its contemporary when it was born seemed to think that the problem with front-end development was JavaScript's lack of classes & traditional OO, if the amount of library that was focused on adding them was any indication. jQuery recognized how much of the pain was really coming from bad browser APIs, and how much productivity could come from building better ones, combined with idioms/concepts from the functional side.

franciscop 10y ago

I created a library to manipulate the DOM in a simplified way inspired by the question, how would I build jQuery if I had to do it today? Superdom https://superdom.site/ https://superdom.site/

chenster 10y ago

Outside the framework, jQuery also has tons of free and powerful plugins that we can't simply overlook in our day to day application development. We used jqgrid for all of our datagrids. It's insanely powerful.

vinhboy 10y ago
datepicker... for me.
- sAbakumoff 10y ago
  jquery also gives me promises and ajax calls.

mattezell 10y ago

Perhaps I'm just lazy or missing something... While I don't often use it directly, I do find that adding a ref to it makes my life easier when I'm working in AngularJS.

scarface74 10y ago

I have a situation where a full framework was overkill but using Jquery was causing an unmaintanable mess when creating a dynamic UI. I took a middle ground. I came in and introduce Handlebars to the work flow. We still use Jquery, but our ui is created with simple intuitive handlebar templates/compiled functions. When we do start building more complex web apps, we decided on Ember since it uses Handlebars as its templating engine.

supersan 10y ago

Not to mention that even AngularJS 1.x still bundles jqLite and switches to full jQuery if you include it first.

aforty 10y ago

"None of the popular patterns promote the tight coupling between view and code." Not sure how relevant this is either. React barely differentiates between view and code, opting to put everything in one place.

sebringj 10y ago

I don't think so. jQuery was intended to be a cross-browser approach to JavaScript that just works. It does but if you check out MDN docs, you'll find that now days, vanilla just works really well and ES6/7 have great features. Modern browsers have aggressive updates that are simple to apply. It isn't the same anymore. Also, doing actual apps is way easier with React or Vue, even on small scales.