Where can I learn jQuery? Is it worth it?

Question

Rick Strahl and Matt Berseth's blogs both tipped me into jQuery and man am I glad they did. jQuery completely changes a) your client programming perspective, b) the grief it causes it you, and c) how much fun it can be!

http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/

http://mattberseth.com/

I used the book jQuery in Action http://www.amazon.com/jQuery-Action-Bear-Bibeault/dp/1933988355/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219716122&sr=1-1 (I bought it used at Amazon for about $22). It has been a big help into bootstrapping me into jQuery. The documentation at jquery.com are also very helpful.

A place where jQuery falls a little flat is with its UI components. Those don't seem to be quite ready for primetime just yet.

It could be that Prototype or MooTools or ExtJS are as good as jQuery. But for me, jQuery seems to have a little more momentum behind it right now and that counts for something for me.

Check jQuery out. It is very cool!

A great resource for learning jQuery is: Learning jQuery. The author, Karl Swedberg, also co-wrote the book titled... ready? Yup, Learning jQuery. Remy Sharp also has great info geared towards the visual aspects of jQuery on his blog.

--SEAN O

I used Prototype for about six months before I decided to learn jQuery. To me, it was like a night and day difference. For example, in Prototype you will loop over a set of elements checking if one exists and then setting something in it, in jQuery you just say $('div.class').find('[name=thing]') or whatever and set it.

It's so much easier to use and feels a lot more powerful. The plugin support is also great. For almost any common js pattern, there's a plugin that does what you want. With prototype, you'll be googling for blogs that have the snippet of code you need.

It is very much worth it. jQuery really makes JavaScript fun again. It's as if all of JavaScript best practices were wrapped up into a single library.

I learned it through jQuery in Action (Manning), which I whipped through over a weekend. It's a little bit behind the current state of affairs, especially in regard to plug-ins, but it's a great introduction.