[brlewis]

Yes, it's definitely worthwhile moving past jQuery, but no you don't have to do everything described in this article. There's a lightweight framework called Mithril that when used with MSX will give you the feel of React, i.e. the state of your app flows in a straightforward way from the state of your objects, rather than from a series of imperative jQuery operations.

Just start with this example and customize to what you want to do:

https://github.com/insin/msx/blob/master/demo/index.html

[skipants]

This comment is kind of ironic, isn't it? OP asked whether he has to use a framework (albeit a seemingly-complicated one) and you suggest another framework for him to use. Not saying you're wrong, or anything. I just found it kind of funny.

[brlewis]

What comment are you referring to where someone asks whether he has to use a framework? The comment I'm answering is this one:

I guess I'm behind the times in that I still use jQuery. Is it really worthwhile to go through everything described in this article to create a simple filterable table?

There's a vast difference between everything described in this article and using a framework.