Link tags: jquery

Churn

This is a good description of the appeal of HTML web components:

WC lifecycles are crazy simple: you register the component with customElements.define and it’s off to the races. Just write a class and the browser will take care of elements appearing and disappearing for you, regardless of whether they came from a full reload, a fetch request, or—god forbid—a document.write. The syntax looks great in markup, too: no more having to decorate with js-something classes or data attributes, you just wrap your shit in a custom element called something-controller and everyone can see what you’re up to. Since I’m firmly in camp “progressively enhance or go home” this fits me like a glove, and I also have great hopes for Web Components improving the poor state of pulling in epic dependencies like date pickers or text editors.

The impact of removing jQuery on our web performance - Inside GOV.UK

Following on from that excellent blog post about removing jQuery from gov.uk, here are the performance improvements in charts and numbers.

It may sound like 32 kb of JavaScript is nothing on today’s modern web with quick devices and fast broadband connections. But for a certain cohort of users, it makes a big difference to how they experience GOV.UK.

How and why we removed jQuery from GOV.UK - Inside GOV.UK

This is a great thorough description of the process of migrating gov.uk away from jQuery. It sounds like this guide was instrumental in the process—I love that they’re sharing it openly!

Removing jQuery means that 32Kb of JavaScript has been removed from the majority of pages on GOV.UK. GOV.UK is already quite fast to load and for many users this will make no noticeable difference. However, the change for users on a low bandwidth connection or lower specification device will be much more noticeable, resulting in significantly improved page download speed and performance.

The Cost of Javascript Frameworks - Web Performance Consulting | TimKadlec.com

Excellent in-depth research by Tim on how the major frameworks affect performance. There are some surprising (and some unsurprising) findings in here.

I wish with all my heart that this data would have some effect but I fear there’s an entire culture of “modern” web development that stick its fingers in its ears and say “La, la, la, I can’t hear you.”

Yet Another JavaScript Framework | CSS-Tricks

This is such a well-written piece! Jay Hoffman—author of the excellent History Of The Web newsletter—talks us through the JavaScript library battles of the late 2000’s …and the consequences that arose just last year.

The closing line is perfect.

Removing jQuery from GitHub.com frontend | GitHub Engineering

You really don’t need jQuery any more …and that’s thanks to jQuery.

Here, the Github team talk through their process of swapping out jQuery for vanilla JavaScript, as well as their forays into web components (or at least the custom elements bit).

CloseBrace | A Brief, Incomplete History of JavaScript

Another deep dive into web history, this time on JavaScript. The timeline of JS on the web is retroactively broken down into four eras:

• the early era: ~1996 – 2004,
• the jQuery era: ~2004 – 2010,
• the Single Page App era: ~2010 - 2014, and
• the modern era: ~2014 - present.

Nice to see “vanilla” JavaScript making a resurgence in that last one.

It’s 2017, the JavaScript ecosystem is both thriving and confusing as all hell. No one seems to be quite sure where it’s headed, only that it’s going to continue to grow and change. The web’s not going anywhere, which means JS isn’t going anywhere, and I’m excited to see what future eras bring us.

(Now More Than Ever) You Might Not Need jQuery | CSS-Tricks

Thanks to jQuery, you probably don’t need jQuery. Just look at all these methods that started life in jQuery, that are now part of the standardised DOM API:

• remove()
• prepend()
• before()
• replaceWith()
• closest()

traintimes.org.uk performance notes

I love, love, *love, traintimes.org.uk—partly because it’s so useful, but also because it’s so fast. I know public transport is the clichéd use-case when it comes to talking about web performance, but in this case it’s genuine: I use the site on trains and in airports.

Matthew gives a blow-by-blow account of the performance optimisations he’s made for the site, including a service worker. The whole thing is a masterclass in performance and progressive enhancement. I’m so glad he took the time to share this!

A Year Without jQuery

In many ways, moving to vanilla JavaScript highlights the ugliness of working with the DOM directly, and the shortcomings of native Element object — shortcomings which Resig solved so incredibly eloquently with the jQuery API.

Having said that, the lessons I’ve learned over the last year have made me a better developer, and the tools built in the process have opened my eyes and given me enough confidence and understanding of vanilla JavaScript that the only scenario where I would personally consider using jQuery again would be a project needing IE8 support.

You might not need jQuery plugins

From the people who brought you youmightnotneedjquery.com comes youmightnotneedjqueryplugins.com.

Don’t get me wrong—jQuery is great (some of the plugins less so) but the decision about whether to use it or not on any particular project should be an informed decision made on a case-by-case basis …not just because that’s the way things have always been done.

These sites help to inform that decision.

John Resig - Annotated Version of the Original jQuery Release

This is a fascinating bit of web archeology: John has annotated the code from one of the earliest versions of jQuery.

You Don’t Need jQuery! – Free yourself from the chains of jQuery by embracing and understanding the modern Web API and discovering various directed libraries to help you fill in the gaps.

The tone is a bit too heavy-handed for my taste, but the code examples here are very handy if you’re weaning yourself off jQuery.

JS Parse and Execution Time - TimKadlec.com

Tim’s been running the numbers on how long it takes various browsers on various devices to parse JavaScript—in this case, jQuery. The time varies enormously depending on the device hardware.

Learn JavaScript & jQuery - a book about interactive front-end web development

This looks like it could be a great book for anyone looking to get starting with JavaScript.

You Might Not Need jQuery

A handy resource if you’re used to using jQuery for everything but you want to try going JavaScript commando.

Don’t get me wrong: jQuery is great, but for a lot of projects, you might not need 90% of the functionality it provides. So try starting with vanilla JS and only pulling in jQuery if and when you need it.

A Dive Into Plain JavaScript

A nice introduction to writing vanilla JavaScript, especially if you’re used to using jQuery.

I know jQuery. Now what?

A terrific piece by Remy—based on a talk he gave—on when he uses jQuery and, more importantly, when he doesn’t. His experiences and conclusions pretty much mirror my own, but of course Remy is far more thoughtful and smart than I.

Really good stuff.

Implementing off-canvas navigation for a responsive website by David Bushell

This off-canvas demo is a great practical example of progressive enhancement from David. It’s also a lesson in why over-reliance on jQuery can sometimes be problematic.

Trimming the Fat — Paul Robert Lloyd

A great in-depth description by Paul of how he optimised his site. More of this please!