Programmer’s Guide To jQuery 4

jQuery 4 represents a major overhaul of the most widely-used web development framework, making it modern, efficient and performant. Used by an estimated 70% of websites, including the ubiquitous WordPress, jQuery is the standard library that smooths the interaction between JavaScript and the browser.

jQuery can seem overwhelming, but not every programmer needs to explore every aspect. This book is about the parts of jQuery that help you work with the HTML in a page. It is about creating and working with a User Interface. HTML is JavaScript’s UI and jQuery makes it much easier to work with in a browser-independent way. As well as the core jQuery functions that let you locate and work with elements on the page we also look at jQuery’s implementation of events and AJAX

This book is about understanding jQuery4 and the focus is on ideas. It does show you how to use jQuery, but mainly by explaining how jQuery approaches the task. Once you understand this, there is little need to go over complicated examples where the problem is seeing the big ideas because the small detail is overwhelming. Understanding jQuery also has a valuable spin-off. You will find some of the best idiomatic JavaScript in the jQuery source code. The approach that jQuery encourages to JavaScript will make you a better JavaScript programmer, in addition to the benefits you reap from making use of it.

In short, it is worth getting to know and use jQuery4, and this book is the companion you need.

Ian Elliot is a core member of the I Programmer team where he writes on all aspects of web development. He is the author of Just jQuery: The Core UI and Just jQuery: Events Async & Ajax, the forerunners of this single volume, which have been radically revised and updated to focus on jQuery 4.0. His other books are: Just JavaScript: An Idiomatic Approach which explores JavaScript as an object-based language; JavaScript Async which examines all aspects of events, callbacks, Promises and Async/Await, topics which the jQuery 4 developer needs to master; and JavaScript Bitmap Graphics with Canvas, the book you need for graphics applications in the browser.