JavaScript Workshop » March 08 Meeting - jQuery Basics pt1

A relative latecomer to this world of JavaScript libraries, jQuery has taken the web development community by storm, quickly winning the support of major websites such as MSNBC, Google Code, and well-regarded open source projects including SourceForge, Trac, and Drupal.

Compared with other toolkits that focus heavily on clever JavaScript techniques, jQuery aims to change the way that web developers think about creating rich functionality in their pages.

Rather than spending time juggling the complexities of advanced JavaScript, designers can leverage their existing knowledge of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML), and good old straightforward JavaScript to manipulate page elements directly, making more rapid development a reality.

Today I covered the background and basics of this library with emphasis on its "chainability" of objects, lanching code on DOM ready, $() - factory function, and the different types of selector expressions such as CSS, attribute and custom.

Checkout this article (.pdf) by Dan Wellman covering most of the topics that were discussed today.