New to javascript, why is jQuery such a beast?

Question

I'm new to javascript (functional programming is okay for me, though) and I am wondering how jQuery got away with some of the design decisions they made. Is it just too much work to fix now or what? For instance, there seems use of strange symbols in strings when accessing elements in the DOM or weird function definitions for $, that are forcing me to check references every other time I want to get some basic data.

Can someone point me to a learning source where I can learn all of these nuances of jQuery (jQuery's examples just don't cut it, they're too spread out)? Maybe someone has a super good reference site/pdf for jQuery?

Thanks

EDIT:

And as a side point, in regards for learning, why the heck is the entire jquery.js file collapsed onto a single line? It is unreadable.

Answer 1

Try reading jQuery in Action, it's a really good book to get started with jQuery. Next to that you can also watch examples on jquery.com, but I did prefer the book to get started. For JavaScript basics you can try w3schools.

In the beginning I had the same problem with the $ functions etc, but after I read the book it became all clear to me, and to be honest, I wouldn't use plain JavaScript without jQuery anymore for DOM manipulation.

For your edit: you have a compressed (or minified) version, which has all code on 1 line, most spaces removed etc to keep it small and a readable version. Both files can be found on the download page from jQuery.