Introduction to jQuery
jQuery is a library that makes client-side HTML scripting with JavaScript simpler. It is the most widely used JavaScript library. It is installed on 65% of the ten million most-visited web sites. jQuery is freely available under the MIT License, which makes it Open Source.
jQuery provides an easy syntax for document navigation, and selecting, creating, and handling DOM elements, animations, and events. jQuery allows third-party plug-ins that create new abstractions for advanced effects and complex, themeable widgets. It is highly modular and enables powerful dynamic web pages and applications.
jQuery History
John Resig released the first version of jQuery at the 2006 BarCamp in NYC. It was influenced by cssQuery by Dean Edwards. A team led by Timmy Willison currently maintains jQuery, with Richard Gibson leading development on Sizzle, the jQuery selector engine.
The licensing history of jQuery is slightly complicated. It was first released under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-SA 2.5) but this was changed to the MIT license in 2006. At the end of the year, the GPL license was added as an option. To reduce confusion, the GPL was dropped in 2012.
Release history
The first stable release of jQuery, version 1.0, came out on August 26, 2006. Version 1.1 was released on January 14, 2007, and version 1.2 on September 10, 2007.
On January 14, 2009, version 1.3 added the Sizzle Selector Engine to the jQuery core. The size of the production version of this release was 55.9 KB. Version 1.4 followed on January 14, 2010.
On January 31, 2011, version 1.5 brought with it differed callback management, and a rewrite of the Ajax module.
Version 1.6 was released on May 3, 2011, with significant improvements to the attr() and val() functions.
The 1.7 release on November 3, 2001 came with new event APIs, specifically the on() and off() functions. This version still supported the old APIs, though.
By August 9, 2012, the 1.8 release had increased the file size of the production file to 91.4 KB. That version included a rewrite of the Sizzle selector engine, and improvements to animations and the flexibility of the $(html, props) syntax.
On January 15, 2013, the 1.9 release featured a removal of the old, deprecated interfaces and a general cleanup of the codebase. It was followed up with a 1.9.1 release on February 4, 2013.
The first 1.10.x release came on May 24, 2013, and included bug fixes and a change to the beta release cycle. The last release in the 1.10 series was 1.10.2 on July 3, 2013.
The 1.11 series came out on January 24, 2014 and ended with 1.11.3 on April 28, 2015. It had a size of 95.9 KB in the production release.
January 8, 2016 saw the start of the 1.12 series, which went on until the April 5, 2016 release of 1.12.3. It had a size of 95 KB in production.
The first 2.0 release came in April 18, 2013. It dropped support for Internet Explorer versions 6 through 8, which allowed performance improvement and a reduction to 81.1 KB in the final file size. The last 2.0.x release was 2.0.3 on July 3, 2013.
The 2.1 series was kicked off on January 24, 2014, and ended with 2.1.4 on April 28, 2015. It’s production file size creeped back up to 82.4 KB.
The story so far ends with the 2.2 series, kicked off on January 8, 2016, and ending with 2.2.3 on April 5, 2016. It’s file size again eased up to 83.6 KB.
jQuery Best Books
Scanning for the right programming book can be a test. Reading different books can help you gain a lot of information. This tends to cover the different levels of programming information and learning styles, which ideally will give you a better thought of which of the books you will discover to be most valuable. If you don’t like to read books, you can find tons of ruby tutorial online. Both books and tutorials will help you do jQuery coding easily!
We have listed books into three categories. The first level is for the beginners. The second level is for those who have had some experience with jQuery thus the category named Intermediate. The third category of books are for advanced users.
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by Jon Duckett
This full-color book adopts a visual approach to teaching JavaScript & jQuery, showing you how to make web pages more interactive and interfaces more intuitive through the use of inspiring code examples, infographics, and photography. The content assumes no previous programming experience, other than knowing how to create a basic web page in HTML & CSS. You'll learn how to achieve techniques seen on many popular websites (such as adding animation, tabbed panels, content sliders, form validation, interactive galleries, and sorting data).
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by David Sawyer McFarland
JavaScript lets you supercharge your HTML with animation, interactivity, and visual effects—but many web designers find the language hard to learn. This easy-to-read guide not only covers JavaScript basics, but also shows you how to save time and effort with the jQuery and jQuery UI libraries of prewritten JavaScript code. You’ll build web pages that feel and act like desktop programs—with little or no programming
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by Mark Myers
You're going to get the hang of jQuery in less time than you might expect. And the knowledge will stick.
Why? Because this isn't just a book. It's a book plus 1,500 free interactive online exercises. It's the exercises that are going to turn you into a real jQuery coder.
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by Leon Revill
Taking a recipe-based approach, this book presents numerous practical examples that you can use directly in your applications. The book covers the essential issues you will face while developing your web applications and gives you solutions to them. The recipes in this book are written in a manner that rapidly takes you from beginner to expert level.
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by Brad Ediger
jQuery in Action, Third Edition, is a fast-paced and complete guide to jQuery, focused on the tasks you'll face in nearly any web dev project. Written for readers with minimal JavaScript experience, this revised edition adds new examples and exercises, along with the deep and practical coverage you expect from an In Action book. You'll learn how to traverse HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, write plugins, and even unit test your code. The unique lab pages anchor each concept with real-world code. Several new chapters teach you how to interact with other tools and frameworks to build modern single-page web applications.
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by Eric Sarrion
This book provides a quick tour of how jQuery UI can improve your HTML pages, followed by standalone chapters that focus on each of the components in detail. If you’re a web developer or designer looking to enrich your website with new features—without having to dive into full-fledged Javascript—jQuery UI is a must.
jQuery Projects
Are you looking for inspiration for your next front end project? Do you learn better by looking at examples than by reading books? Would you like to kill some time looking at cool web pages If you answered yes to any of those questions, take a look at these jQuery example projects. You might learn something new!
jQuery Word Game
This is a full jQuery plugin that generates fully configurable grids for word games. Grid size and an optional timer are fully configurable. It can collect words from users, ensuring that words meet a configurable minimum length, are not duplicates, and do not re-use letters from the board multiple times.
Explore this project!
jQuery Gurus
Here are some of the most important people who have contributed to the growth and development of jQuery. These people are the main reason that the jQuery community is as fun and enthusiastic as we find it today.
Rockstars!
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John Resig is the creator and lead developer for jQuery. He currently works as an application developer at Khan Academy. He was previously a tool developer for the Mozilla Corporation. His work on jQuery got him inducted into the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Innovation Hall of Fame.
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Twitter Profile
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Mike Hostetler is an inventor, businessman, and former member of the jQuery Core team. He works on the QCubed PHP5 Framework and the Drupal project. He is the Founder and CEO of appendTo, LLC, the company dedicated to jQuery.
Kent Beck Twitter
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Jörn Zaefferer is a freelance web developer and instructor. He lives in Cologne, Germany. From jQuery’s test suite, he created the QUnit testing framework. He maintains QUnit and several popular jQuery plugins. He is a development lead for jQuery UI, which means the creation of new plugins and widgets.
Twitter Profile
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Todd Parker is a principal at Filament Group Inc., a jQuery board member, project and design lead for jQuery Mobile, and design lead for jQuery UI. He is involved with ThemeRoller as well. He co-authored Designing With Progressive Enhancement and contributed to O’Reilly’s jQuery Cookbook. He presents regularly on mobile web, progressive enhancement, accessibility, and responsive design.
Twitter Profile
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Dave Methvin has long contributed to jQuery, and is active through the bug tracker and the discussion forums. He leads the jQuery dev team and ensures that releases are quality and on-schedule. He also organizes planning and development, and provides the vision for new versions of jQuery.
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jQuery Conferences
The JavaScript world moves fast, and it’s important to keep your knowledge fresh. Conferences are a great source of the latest information about new technologies. They’re also a great place to make new friends and business contacts! We’ve made a list of some of the best jQuery-related conferences.
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Render is a two-day conference for front-end developers.
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dot JS is an annual event with workshops and vendor stands.
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jQuery conference India is the first official event of it’s kind in India. Despite the name, it covers a lot of things besides jQuery.
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Web Summit Lisbon is the largest web technology event.