[vezycash]

>cant even name a similar piece of software in web development history that is as important as jQuery.

Php?

[irrational]

Nah, there were always tons of alternatives to PHP. What real alternatives were there to jQuery? There were none.

[molf]

I know this is a rhetorical question, but Prototype.js was pretty similar to jQuery; although jQuery won the popularity contest.

[jexah]

I don't presume to be an expert on history (only entered the webdev domain in 2010), but didn't prototype come out at least a couple of years after jQuery?

[FroshKiller]

Prototype was released like a year before jQuery.

[jexah]

Absolutely my bad there. Thanks for the info! jQuery's popularity must have been phenomenal, because I hadn't heard of Prototype until maybe 2011.

[ioddly]

I think Rails used to include it as a default.

[mappu]

Mootools had a fighting chance.

[vezycash]

Javascript is irreplaceable to the web

[spc476]

Netscape navigator?

[kpil]

Php is important in the way it exemplifies the total failure of the software industry to take advantage of it's 40-50 years of accumulated knowledge...