I don't think the philosophy of "I need to know what X does before I use it" is extrapolatable. With jQuery, your frustration is mildly justified, in my perspec

I don't think the philosophy of "I need to know what X does before I use it" is extrapolatable. With jQuery, your frustration is mildly justified, in my perspective, as jQuery is in constant development, has bugs and breaks stuff. But consider the number of times you've used systems and libraries that you do not understand beyond the subset of its API that interests you. I do not understand the details of my computer's microprocessor's architecture, yet through several layers of abstraction it is a useful tool for me to get my job done. There are other systems, too, like processed food. Traffic control. The power grid. The military-industrial complex. Whole industries have their internal workings abstracted out but for the tiny intersection between them and our individual lives. Sometimes the guy who's using the jQuery library is, say, running a startup that has other, more pressing priorities, and has no time to learn anything beyond .ajax() and .append() . So while your specific example makes sense, I don't think the point you are trying to get across is extrapolatable beyond it.