jQuery 4

Post by Zardoz84 » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:38 PM UTC

wartijn_ wrote: post #125

pocketarc wrote: post #121

> includes some breaking changes Most of the changes are completely reasonable - a lot are internal cleanup that would require no code changes on the user side, dropping older browsers, etc. But the fact that there are breaking API changes is the most surprising thing to me. Projects that still use jQuery are going to be mostly legacy projects (I myself have several lying around). Breaking changes means more of an up…

I don’t understand your use case. If you’ve got legacy projects that you don’t want to touch, why upgrade a dependency to a new major version? You can keep using jquery without having to think about it. Just keep using version 3.7 and don’t even think about version 4.

Post by Zardoz84 » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:43 PM UTC

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #73

flomo wrote: post #51

Whenever HTMX comes up here, I always think "isn't that just some gobbledy-gook which replaces about 3 lines of imperative jquery?" Anyway, jQuery always did the job, use it forever if it solves your problems.

These days I’ve moved to native JS, but hot damn the $() selector interface was elegant and minimal vs document.getElement[s]by[attribute)]. While presumably jquery is slower than native selectors, maybe that could be pre-computed away.

Post by kstrauser » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #152

kstrauser wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the part that I find the strangest: > We also dropped support for other very old browsers, including Edge Legacy, iOS versions earlier than the last 3, Firefox versions earlier than the last 2 (aside from Firefox ESR), and Android Browser. Safari from iOS 16, released in 2022, is more modern in every conceivable way than MSIE 11. I'd also bet there are more people stuck with iOS 16- than those who can only us…

There are a lot of intranet web applications that require IE, and IE is still in support by Microsoft. Even on Windows 11 Edge still has IE Mode for that reason. IPhones stuck on older iOS version by definition aren’t supported by Apple anymore.

Post by ComputerGuru » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 5:03 PM UTC

doix wrote: post #23

Klaster_1 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used this approach before and it indeed works better than the 2010-style jQuery mess. A good fit for userscripts too, where the problem you attempt to solve is fairly limited and having dependencies, especially with a build steps, is a pain. Note that you don't need jQuery for this at all, unless you are somehow stuck with ancient browser support as a requirement - querySelector, addEventListener, innerHtml - the b…

Unfortunately, nowadays writing userscripts is much harder than it used to be. Most websites are using some sort of reactive FE framework so you need to make extensive use of mutationObservers (or whatever the equivalent is in jQuery I guess).

    function awaitElement(selector) {
        return awaitPredicate(selector, _ => true);
    }

    function awaitPredicate(selector, predicate) {
        return new Promise((resolve, _reject) => {
            for (const el of document.querySelectorAll(selector)) {
                if (predicate(el)) {
                    resolve(el);
                    return;
                }
            }

            // Create a MutationObserver to listen for changes
            const observer = new MutationObserver((_mutations, obs) => {
                // You could search just inside _mutations instead of the entire DOM.
                // Efficiency will depend primarily on how precise your selector is.
                for (const el of document.querySelectorAll(selector)) {
                    if (predicate(el)) {
                        resolve(el);
                        obs.disconnect(); // Don't forget to disconnect the observer!
                        break;
                    }
                }
            });

            // Start observing the document
            observer.observe(document.documentElement, {
                childList: true,
                subtree: true,
                attributes: false,
                characterData: false,
            });
        });
    }

Post by epolanski » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

lioeters wrote: post #76

blakewatson wrote: post #20

Related: This is a nice write-up of how to write reactive jQuery. It's presented as an alternative to jQuery spaghetti code, in the context of being in a legacy codebase where you might not have access to newer frameworks. https://css-tricks.com/reactive-jquery-for-spaghetti-fied-le...

This brought me flashbacks of jQuery spaghetti monsters from years ago, some were Backbone related. In retrospect, over-engineered React code can be worse than decently organized jQuery code, but some jQuery mess was worse than any React code. So I guess I'm saying, React did raise the bar and standard of quality - but it can get to be too much, sometimes a judicious use of old familiar tool gets the job done.