I know exactly what you mean. I recommend learning JavaScript itself very well before you choose a framework. I wrote pure, vanilla JavaScript for everything f

I know exactly what you mean. I recommend learning JavaScript itself very well before you choose a framework. I wrote pure, vanilla JavaScript for everything for almost a year. I wrote a small library of helper functions. After a year or so of trying to avoid "investing" myself in a JavaScript library, I chose jQuery, and I have not looked back since. I really cannot recommend jQuery enough. Not to be a fanboy or anything, but it seems to have largely won the JS library war, for the most part. You really can't go wrong with it.