I didn’t really understand what jQuery was until this week.
If you are just getting into front end web development, maybe this will help the light-bulb turn on for you as well.
All I really had to do is read the first sentence at the https://api.jquery.com/ web page: jQuery is a library of JavaScript commands, developed by John Resig. It isn’t a separate language. It’s a library of powerful commands. As Cameron said in my Udacity course, “if you had a few days, you could come up with a library of commands like this yourself”. But that is, as someone else commented, like saying the Mona Lisa is just paint. The jQuery library is concise, and streamlined to work effectively at what it does. You can open the library itself in your editor of choice (I like Note++) and look at it, and even start to see how it works.
In my studies at Udacity I have moved from JavaScript to jQuery. But I don’t feel like I have a strong enough background in JavaScript to fully understand how to shortcut the commands using jQuery. I just purchased a copy of Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja, by John Resig and Bear Bibeault. My copy didn’t arrive yet, but I’ll let you know if I find it valuable. In fact, I just heard an interview with John Resig on this episode of Code Newbie podcast. It’s an interesting listen too, though he doesn’t get into jQuery code itself in the interview.
If you have any insights or tips, let me know!