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by wolfspider 2945 days ago
I think there is some confusion comparing jquery with frameworks in general heh- time for a history lesson! So back in the mid-aughts right before jquery there was prototype. I got hired into a job where I had to maintain sites written with both in the past and they were very similar to each other. Ajax was new and so was the class based handling of JS to make it more object oriented. It could be done but prototype made it convenient. It was possible to manipulate objects before applying them to the DOM however it was really verbose...academic I would call it. Then prototype’s cool younger brother arrives (jquery) and it became so easy to pull this stuff off it was like a giant party. Learn jquery? Your hired! Ahh the halcyon days ;) Anyhow- if you’ve lived through things like CGI and DHTML (and java servlets to a lesser extent) they were like the malaise era of web dev but jquery flipped the tables there has been NOTHING like it to date. We’ve gone back to academic with colorful packaging (I’m lookin at you angular!) and react coupled with redux just isn’t the same- it’s interesting but not a quick study. So..back then we could pick up a program in 24 hrs book and land a job. Today we can read 24 books and scratch the surface. Jquery was a movement not a framework and the statement being made was life is too short to NOT be incredible, we can all be incredible with jquery so why not? More comparable to the Misfits showing up to a Johnny Cash show than just another framework...just my two cents.
2 comments

There were also mootools and dojo.

I was more into those two but jQuery made everything dead simple.

Mootools was great! They took what was good about mootools and built that into React.

A lot of the mootools team moved into React. At least the ones I was familiar with.

and dont forget scriptaculous :)
I'm having flashbacks to 2006! mootools, dojo, prototype, scriptaculous, jquery.
Sometimes all on the same page!
To be fair, the things we create today are often far more complex or at least are done in far less time than back then.