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Simo Mazil
Simo Mazil

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Difference between JavaScript, jQuery and anything else you can write in JavaScript

In 2014 when I first started building UIs with HTML and CSS at some point I needed something dynamic and it obviously there was only JavaScript who can do the job! but because I needed to build some animation stuff in my UIs I learned jQuery instead of JavaScript Vanilla, and for a long time I thought that I'm using JavaScript and jQuery is JavaScript !

So that post will only help people who are confused like I was :)

JavaScript is a programming language for the web, which means If you want to build a UX in your web page, JavaScript is the first thing or the least you can use.

jQuery in the other hand is a JavaScript library, which means It's created on top of JavaScript and you should use only when you need it.

If you use some JavaScript frameworks you will probably not need jQuery because those frameworks will handle almost any interactions with your DOM elements.

When I used to work with PHP frameworks like Laravel I used jQuery a lot, any UX related thing I only use jQuery because it was fast and easy to use, and now I work with MeteorJS and I dont use jQuery anymore because for first MeteorJS handle the events and the rendered of your UIs and even If you can use jQuery to get value of your fields for example! you dont wanna use, plain JavaScript will do the job clean and fast.

To Sum Up

If you are new to the web development like I was it's better to learn how to use the language (JavaScript) first instead of the libraries (jQuery).

Alright this is my first post here or anywhere, I hope this is helpful for some people and thanks for reading.

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