Introduction to jQuery
JavaScript frameworks have arisen as necessary and useful companions for client-side web
development. Just a few years ago, JavaScript frameworks were needed to pave over the many
inconsistencies present with cross-platform web development. Before Microsoft got its act
together and gave us IE with vastly improved standards support, there was more often than
not the IE way and the standard way. Frameworks like jQuery helped immensely to fi ll in the
holes between standard and nonstandard. Today jQuery is a phenomenally popular, leading
JavaScript framework and application development platform. It is leaner; it is faster loading;
and it comes loaded with features that make the life of a JavaScript application developer
much easier. No longer is JavaScript an afterthought, grafted onto stateless HTML. It is used
more and more to be the foundation and the primary driving force of not only web develop-
ment but also application development, from desktop to tablets and smartphones.Thanks to renewed vigor in the browser and platform wars of the big tech giants, JavaScript
has also become much leaner and faster. Today, the leading browser makers are deliver-
ing JavaScript capabilities that take the good ole reliable, interpreted language of JavaScript
and instantly transform it into cached machine byte code that can be executed blazingly
fast. Because of the collective advances and one-upmanship of Apple, Google, Mozilla, and
Microsoft, today we have JavaScript that has never performed better.When this book was fi rst written in 2009, jQuery was emerging as the de facto standard
JavaScript framework and application platform. Today jQuery sits atop the heap as a global
leader facilitating cutting-edge web and application development from mom-and-pop shops to
Fortune 500 companies. It is baked into iOS and Android apps and mobile websites both with
and without the popular jQuery Mobile framework add-on, and it runs the websites of some
of the world’s biggest companies, such as Amazon, Apple, The New York Times, Google,
BBC, Twitter, and IBM.For years JavaScript frameworks have paved over the craters and inconsistencies of cross-
browser web development to create a seamless, enjoyable client-side programming experience.
Today, with Internet Explorer 11 and its underlying Trident engine, Microsoft fi nally has a
world-class standards-compliant web browser that’s caught up with competing offerings from
Apple’s Safari and world-leading, underlying, open-source WebKit, Google’s Chrome browser