JQuery is still javascript, so there's no worry there. JQuery is an abstraction of the DOM (a light one), not an abstraction of javascript. I don't think you'

JQuery is still javascript, so there's no worry there. JQuery is an abstraction of the DOM (a light one), not an abstraction of javascript. I don't think you're losing much by not having to know document.getElementsByTagName. Coffeescript is an abstraction of JS, however, so I don't understand why the author wants to go there (considering he wants to move away from JQuery because of fears that he doesn't know JS).