Very simple and as always it depends on what you want. You want to do the cool new thing? Then use one of the younger frameworks but expect things to be slow, buggy, and ungooglable. If you want to make money wiht little effort then use the older frameworks that survived (e.g. jquery).
Ask HN: Is jQuery still a thing?
11–20 of 90 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is jQuery still a thing?
#12Yes, jQuery is good and most people still use it. It does its job perfectly fine. The thing is, HN is a very small like-minded community of people who are always looking for something better than the status quo, which is why you're always seeing news about things like React and Vue, etc.
Re: Ask HN: Is jQuery still a thing?
#13Do you know a better library for support of a wide array of browsers going back many years, with a huge log of support issues and test cases behind it?
Re: Ask HN: Is jQuery still a thing?
#14jQuery might not be the fancy new hotness on the block, but it still works and is still used. I get the feeling more and more that developers are embarrassed about using it, similar to how some devs are embarrassed about using PHP, yet it's still a workhorse.
PHP should be significantly more embarrassing than jQuery. The jQuery interface is well designed and reliable.
The fact that it still works is important. As long as I've got clients asking for IE 8 support, jQuery's going to be in my toolbox. And probably even after.
Re: Ask HN: Is jQuery still a thing?
#15jQuery might not be the fancy new hotness on the block, but it still works and is still used. I get the feeling more and more that developers are embarrassed about using it, similar to how some devs are embarrassed about using PHP, yet it's still a workhorse.
It's really silly that is how the culture behaves. The right tool for the job is a common moniker in other industries, yet in ours its the source of heated debate and hipsterdom.
Re: Ask HN: Is jQuery still a thing?
#16Do you know a better library for support of a wide array of browsers going back many years, with a huge log of support issues and test cases behind it?
And that won't go away after a year.
Re: Ask HN: Is jQuery still a thing?
#17It depends on what you're doing, and what you're comfortable working with. If you have page content that is largely rendered server-side, with bits of interactivity and some basic AJAX on the frontend, jQuery's your friend. If you want to build a single-page application that rests mostly or entirely on the frontend, thats what the newer frameworks and methodologies are designed to do, and you're better off going with…
OP here: I'm a back-end dev working on an internal company site. I have used jQuery for the past years for things like simple AJAX and manipulationg dropdowns. Recently I had to build an AJAX heavy part of the page, and got a bit lost in callbacks and DOM manipulations (1500+ lines already). There is no real reason to re-code everything, now it's working, but after seeing all the new shiny frameworks, I started to question my ability to maintain the code of this specific page ("Wouldn't this framework be better and easier to read/debug/extend?"). Still, don't know if one javascript-heavy page is enough to bring a new framework in the project and start over again.
Re: Ask HN: Is jQuery still a thing?
#18React is my only choice for single-page apps, but it's unnecessary for ordinary JS UI widgets on a mostly server-rendered site.
For UI elements that have a lot of internal state, React can remove a ton of complexity. However, the delay between initial page render and the React component rendering itself can sometimes be distracting when those elements are key parts of the UI. This is a solved problem if you're using Node on the server, obviously, but if you're rendering pages with other server-side technology it is a drawback to React. jQuery does not have these issues as it just attaches itself to the server-rendered markup.
Re: Ask HN: Is jQuery still a thing?
#19It all depends on your needs.
The frameworks you mentioned are not exactly in the same "niche" as jQuery, which encapsulates a friendly way to manipulate DOM, make ajax requests, etc.
However, if maintainability is your focus, write in plain js as much as possible. Frameworks come and go. Code written in ES5 will still work in 5 years from now, while jQuery code may get at least partially deprecated.
Re: Ask HN: Is jQuery still a thing?
#20Every other framework relies on JQuery so--yes, absolutely--it's still a thing.
And if you don't work for a company that is in the JavaScript-framework-of-the-month mode, you should know JQuery is still king.