[cloverich]

Where the OP falls off is with stuff like "OMG don't use jQuery" or "no one uses HTML anymore". There's nothing wrong with using those -- and frankly using plain old javascript and HTML is fine. Remember we reached for jQuery in the first place because the browser lacked features we wanted, and because it handled cross browser stuff for us. That is, it simplified things we were already doing manually. So the trap is bad advice like "use these 58 libraries" combined with an inexperienced person making the architecture choices. I'd say instead (if you're the inexperienced person) just start building stuff. Then every time you said "this is repetitive, I wish there was a library that did this for me" -- there will be. Go out and get it, and you'll then understand why it exists.

[mathgeek]

I've been to more than one interview where I defaulted to jQuery and was immediately disqualified, based on the looks on the interviewers' faces. As a ruby developer, it certainly feels like keeping up-to-date on JS takes more work than the other 90% of languages that I'm familiar with.

[sangnoir]

> I've been to more than one interview where I defaulted to jQuery and was immediately disqualified

Was the role more biased to front end development? Speaking as someone who has been on the other side of the interviewing table, you won't believe the number of people who can use jQuery but are otherwise unfamiliar with vanilla Javascript. I suspect the question itself could have been solved by via plain JS, and you did the equivalent of $('#id') instead of document.getElementByID('id')

[mathgeek]

> Was the role more biased to front end development?

These were Rails positions, which in my experience almost always equates to the same skillset expectations as a front-end engineer.

[SZJX]

That probably depends. If the company is really small then you may end up doing quite some frontend work but there can still be significant backend logic going on in Rails.

[raverbashing]

Oh I'm sure that's not what they mean. 100% sure

While knowing how to use vanilla js is important, nobody uses getElementByID anymore, unless you're doing something very, very simple (or building a library yourself)

[jerkstate]

You sound like the article

[snlacks]

Yeah, it's true, but I've also been in interviews where I told them I was using a tool that I think they thought was too hipster and ended up just being ahead of the curve (Babel or TypeScript, don't remember which one, both were just picking up popularity) while still being looked down on because of jQuery.

These interviews usually end and then when I look up the company 3 months later they don't exist anymore or have pivoted.

[morsmodr]

As was said earlier, finding the right tool is essential. jQuery can still be used if the problem you are solving is limited and confined in scope. We had a website where angular is almost everywhere, we created a new page where there is just a list of check boxes, and another dev did that with Backend code. I just added a small jQuery event listener as the page needed nothing more than to disable a certain set of buttons when one from a set is selected. I could have re-written the entire stuff making angular get the model from server and then using angular in the view. But no, it was just not worth it. If you see that your jQuery component is building up (adding more functionality) then it gets messy/spaghetti etc. But if the interviewer straight away dismissed you at the sound of jQuery you are better off not working there.

[lloyd-christmas]

Interview question: "iterate over an array":

  angular.forEach([1,2,3] ...

  $.each([ 1, 2, 3 ], ...

  [1,2,3].forEach(...

One of these things is not like the other. I hire people that know javascript, not ones that only know the tool we use. The tool we use today may not be the tool we use 6 months from now. I've never asked a javascript question that required framework knowledge unless it was explicitly about concepts of the framework. Someone taking the time to include jQuery is instantly out the door. Walking through people's code demonstrates whether or not they default to other people's solutions than their own.

This isn't to say your experience didn't happen, I'm just pointing out that there is a lot more that goes into it than just which framework the cool kids are using nowadays.

[dasil003]

> Walking through people's code demonstrates whether or not they default to other people's solutions than their own.

Sorry, what does this even mean? When we consider it bad to use an external solution we call it Introducing Unnecessary Dependencies, when we consider it good to use an external solution we call it Not Reinventing The Wheel.

What you're doing here is fetishizing some arbitrary knowledge that you've set up as a litmus test. I've hired probably close to a hundred engineers by this point in my career, and I have to say, unless you are hiring for specialists to fill a very specific purpose, the only test that matters is Joel Spolsky's smart-and-gets-things-done test. There are plenty of web developers out there who only ever used jQuery and thus never learned javascript properly—that says nothing about their talent. There is a good portion of them who, upon being told, "we don't use jQuery here, just raw javascript" will learn and be better at it than you in a couple months. Even more importantly, any good engineer is going to have a lot experience which you don't have, and which to you is an unknown unknown. The best team is made up of diverse backgrounds and experience, not a bunch of people who managed to pass through a series of arbitrary knowledge gates.

[marrs]

I have to say, this strikes me as an odd way of filtering out bad developers. jQuery is a time-saving library.

It seems like you're presuming that they must lack proficiency in the DOM if they're choosing to use jQuery. Perhaps you're trying to say you want to see them demonstrate that they're not just copy/paste coders.

Given your code example above, I wouldn't want a candidate to know the difference between each `forEach` method, but I would expect them to know that each provides a means of iterating over a set of values.

[lloyd-christmas]

> I have to say, this strikes me as an odd way of filtering out bad developers.

I don't use this in my interviews, and I'm surprised everyone took this literally given that we have a weekly blog article about the villainy of technical interviews and how they destroy the very fabric of software development. I'm using a hyperbolic example to demonstrate what I perceive as a negative trait; A reach for unnecessary tooling to solve simple problems. My hiring experiences have pointed towards it being indicative of a comfortable one-trick-pony.

> Given your code example above, I wouldn't want a candidate to know the difference between each `forEach` method, but I would expect them to know that each provides a means of iterating over a set of values.

Likewise. However, if I'm hiring someone for a back end role, I'd expect them to be able to know basic SQL and not just their language's ORM. I'd expect them to be able to type `cd` and not just navigate through their IDE. I don't think there is anything different between that and the relationship of jQuery/angular and vanilla js. jQuery isn't written in jQuery. Debugging rarely stops at the script tag/require statement.

[mathgeek]

My original comment was actually in the opposite direction: the interviewers were looking for comfort with a framework other than jQuery that showed that I knew more than vanilla JS. That was the frustrating part.

[lovich]

@cloverich I think this comment is showing exactly how the author of the article wasn't exaggerating

[lloyd-christmas]

I don't follow. Are you saying _I_ demonstrate why the article isn't exaggerating, or that some of the people I've interviewed are?

[lovich]

I am saying that you demonstrate why the article wasnt exaggerating. Cloverich stated that using jQuery was fine and the article was exaggerating how far it has fallen out of favor, but you have stated that anyone using jQuery is out the door when interviewing with you. Therefore theres at least a group of people that article is accurately describing

[lloyd-christmas]

> Cloverich stated that using jQuery was fine and the article was exaggerating how far it has fallen out of favor, but you have stated that anyone using jQuery is out the door when interviewing with you

That isn't what I said in the slightest. My criticism had nothing to do with jQuery. Go back and replace jQuery with underscore, lodash, ramda... I'm not saying that I would turn away a jQuery developer when interviewing for an angular position. I said that a negative defaulting to a framework/library to solve a vanilla problem is a problem in and of itself. "One of these things is not like the other" is the native Array.prototype.forEach(). It's literally built into the language, and the person added a script tag to include an 85kb file just to run a loop over 3 elements. THAT'S the problem.

[tomatsu]

> Interview question: "iterate over an array":

  for(let thing of things) {...}

forEach only obfuscates the imperative nature of your loop.

[raverbashing]

Good, but that's more modern

for in, on the other hand is wrong

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/JavaScript/Referen...

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/500504/why-is-using-for-...

[badthingfactory]

This is where OP lost me as well. "Oh my god no, no one uses jQuery anymore. You should try learning React, it’s 2016."

The appropriate response is "Yeah, your problem seems simple enough. jQuery should do just fine."

But that article would be boring and not on the front page of HN.

[ci5er]

> "Oh my god no, no one uses jQuery anymore..."

I've been told that within the last month, almost in those exact words, here on HN.

I asked what one should use instead and the answer was React. It felt like one of those "no one goes there anymore, it's too crowded" kind of moments.

[moosey]

The official react tutorial uses jquery for $.ajax[1].

I'm really not well versed in any of these technologies (but came up with a fun personal project that might end up using them) so I'm assuming that using both together is tame, and that the venn diagram for the two projects doesn't overlap too much.

[1]: https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/tutorial.html

[cloverich]

Effectively React replaces (in many cases, simplifying) the base DOM manipulation aspects of jQuery -- but of course it does not replace the other useful utilities jQuery provides, nor the many DOM manipulation plugins in the jQuery community. When I first started with React I was able to use those libraries without issue -- you do have to learn how (when) React allows you to access the DOM and when it expects you to clean it up but for an experienced dev, its a short learning curve. Over time, I've seen many libraries similar to those jQuery plugins arise (or transition) into React components and its been fine to slowly phase in / out as I please. Lastly, its been mostly straight forward to encapsulate jQuery (or other) DOM manipulation libs within a React component, such that consumers need not even know its being used internally.

[moosey]

After a local tech demo with some CSS3 stuff included, I was amazed by how much could be left out of javascript entirely. My goal with my next project is to learn when to use React vs. jQuery vs. CSS3 for various events that will occur on screen.

I'm excited about it, and I appreciate your explanation. I've never been a front end guy (all devops/scripts and some crud type stuff), so this helps me greatly.

[ci5er]

I'm lead to believe that either jquery isn't useful for dealing with virtual DOMs, or that it does screwy things when working together with a virtual DOM system (like react) or both.

I've also heard claims that React's theory of slow DOMs is wrong. Which doesn't make it a 'bad' framework to make use of, just optimized on the wrong thing. I haven't had time to suss this out. I spend a lot of time in "good enough for now" mode because I'm not a dedicated front-end person.

[clifanatic]

> using plain old javascript and HTML is fine.

It's fine if it's a single-person's decision. If two or more people are involved in any sort of standardization process, you're going to go back and forth until you land on the most complicated possible approach like in the article.

[marrs]

that depends a lot on how well they can work together. This is also where good team leaders add a lot of their value.