How to Learn jQuery
If you’ve done any research on web development, you’ve surely learned that JavaScript is a vitally important part of building functional websites. It does everything from making responsive buttons to handling animation and auto-completing web forms.
But programmers never cease striving to improve their tools, and out of that process came a powerful JavaScript library called JQuery.
If you want to be a top-notch web developer, you’ll have to learn about it and what JQuery is used for, you’ve come to the right place.
What Is jQuery?
jQuery is a JavaScript library that makes it easier to manipulate the contents of a web page. This library is designed to bundle common JavaScript tasks into short methods you can use throughout your code. The philosophy of jQuery is “write less, do more.”
As powerful as JavaScript is, in its raw form, it can take rather a lot of code to accomplish some tasks. JQuery packages this code into methods that can be called in a line or two to do the same thing.
JQuery has functionality for most of the JavaScript work you’re likely to do while building a website. This includes HTML and CSS modification, animations and other visual effects creation, designing plugins for common tasks, manipulating a website’s Document Object Model, using AJAX to handle asynchronous updates to a web page’s content, and many, many other things.
JQuery also has some other advantages. It’s a lightweight framework that’s relatively easy to learn. It’s supported across browsers, so the things you build will take much less work to be usable by different tribes of browser enthusiasts. And, since anything written in JQuery is treated like text, it’s readable by search engine bots, making the task of search engine optimization that much easier.
What is jQuery Used For?
jQuery lets web developers manipulate a web page. It creates methods that reduce the number of lines of code you need to perform common JavaScript operations.
jQuery has an extensive set of use cases. These include:
- Adding animations to a web page. jQuery is often used to add animations and other effects to enhance the aesthetics of a web page.
- HTML manipulation. jQuery lets web developers update the contents of a web page. This means a web developer can display information after a page has been loaded. jQuery also lets developers retrieve information without refreshing a page.
- CSS manipulation. Web developers use jQuery to change the styles on a web page while the web page is open. This means that the appearance of a page can change without the user refreshing the site.
You’ll find jQuery used extensively around the internet. MIcrosoft, Netflix, and Google all use jQuery to power their websites. These are only a few of the many companies you’ll find using jQuery.
Even independent developers use jQuery because it helps them more easily use advanced JavaScript features in their code.
To put his into perspective, consider this. jQuery is used by over 60% of the world’s 100,000 most-visited websites. That’s impressive!
Learning jQuery
When you go around the internet, you’ll see that many of the web applications you encounter change as you view a page. A Twitter feed, for instance, changes when you scroll to the bottom of the page. New Tweets are retrieved and then displayed on the website.
We call these sites “dynamic applications.” Because jQuery is used to write dynamic applications, you can expect to put your skills to good use in any website that you develop.
How Long Does it Take to Learn jQuery?
It will take you about six hours to learn the basics of jQuery. This is because jQuery extends on JavaScript. It is not a new language. With a basic understanding of JavaScript, you’ll have no trouble learning how to use jQuery in your web applications.
The time it takes you to learn jQuery depends on your goals. If you only want to add in a small interactive feature to one of your websites, you could do this in a few hours or a day.
On the other hand, you would need to spend much more time practicing jQuery if you want to use it in a professional environment. This is because jQuery has an extensive feature set. A few hours of learning is not enough to build the skills you need for a job that involves jQuery.
How to Learn jQuery: Step-by-Step
We’ve spent enough time discussing what jQuery is. You’ll probably be asking yourself: how do I learn jQuery. Below are the steps you should follow to go from where you are today to becoming a jQuery expert.
- Learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. If you have not already figured this out, you’ll need to know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to use jQuery. You should have a solid understanding of all of these languages and how they work together to create a web application.
- Learn about dynamic sites. Spend some time researching what a dynamic site is. Find a few examples of dynamic sites. This will help you learn what jQuery will enable you to do. Having a basic understanding of dynamic sites will make it easier to actually start coding with jQuery.
- Learn the basics of jQuery. Take a few hours to read over the jQuery documentation or participate in a course that covers jQuery. Practice all of the concepts that you encounter.
- Build a project. Once you know the basics of jQuery, you’ll be ready to build a project using your newfound skills. Think about an application you want to see in the world and plan out how you can build it. Then, build that application and apply your jQuery skills.
jQuery is not a difficult technology to learn if you’ve got a good understanding of web development. By learning jQuery, you’ll be able to create more advanced and engaging web applications.
The Best jQuery Courses and Trainings
jQuery has been around for years. As a result, it is not difficult to find learning resources that will help you master the basics of jQuery. Below we cover some of the top jQuery courses that we recommend for beginners and intermediate developers who want to learn jQuery.
Online jQuery Courses
Intro to jQuery by Udacity
- Provider: Udacity
- Cost: Free
- Audience: Intermediate
This Udacity course is a detailed introduction to jQuery for people who already know the basics of web development. In this course, you’ll learn the fundamentals of jQuery. You’ll also learn how to navigate the jQuery documentation.
This course comes with interactive quizzes and extensive learning content taught by industry profesionals. It should take you about two days to complete this course.
Learn jQuery by Codecademy
- Provider: Codecademy
- Cost: Codecademy Pro membership ($16 / month)
- Audience: Beginners
This course has been taken by over 60,000 developers. All you need is a basic understanding of JavaScript to enroll in this course. You’ll learn the basics of jQuery, how to use web effects, how to traverse the Document Object Model, and more.
JavaScript, jQuery, and JSON by the University of Michigan
- Provider: Coursera
- Cost: Free
- Audience: Intermediate
This course is a detailed introduction to JavaScript and how it is used with jQuery. You’ll learn how to use jQuery to manipulate the DOM and how to handle events using jQuery.
This course also covers JSON, a way of representing data. JSON is commonly used to exchange data between a client and a server. This course is best for developers who already have a good understanding of how to build a web application.
Online jQuery Books
Learning jQuery (Fourth Edition) by Kari Swedberg and Jonathan Chaffer
In this book, you’ll learn how to create interactive elements for your web designs and make the best use of the user interface. This book walks through the basics of jQuery and then goes on to discuss more advanced topics.
You’ll get the most out of reading this book if you already have a good understanding of web development. You do not need to know any jQuery to get started with this book.
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jQuery in Action by Bear Bibeault, Yehuda Katz, and Aurelio De Rosa
jQuery in Action is a quick introduction to using jQuery. This book aims to teach you practical jQuery skills that you can easily apply to your own applications through the use of “lab pages.” These pages are detailed explanations of technical topics accompanied by a code snippet.
jQuery Cookbook by Cody Lindley
jQuery Cookbook is an extensive introduction to jQuery. This book has contributions from over a dozen web developers. In this book, you’ll learn how to enhance your web forms, manage events with jQuery, create UI elements from scratch, and more.
Online jQuery Resources
jQuery Learning Center
jQuery has an extensive library of tutorials and walkthroughs on their official Learning Center. You’ll find guides that cover topics from using events to organizing code to using AJAX with jQuery.
This resource is great for beginners to jQuery who are still learning the basics. It is also good as a reference guide as you go on to learn more about jQuery.
W3Schools jQuery Tutorial
W3Schools has an extensive library of jQuery tutorials. This library covers everything from jQuery effects to traversing the Document Object Model.
Alongside most descriptions of a technical topic you’ll find a code snippet that you can use to practice what you learn. You’ll also find interactive exercises that will help you build your understanding of jQuery.
Learn jQuery from Scratch by CSS Tricks
jQuery from Scratch is a basic introduction to jQuery. Over the course of seven tutorials, you’ll learn the basics of jQuery. You’ll learn about linking jQuery to an application, selector extensions, and more.
This set of tutorials is great if you’re new to jQuery. You can use the knowledge you learn in these tutorials to build basic jQuery applications and prepare yourself for learning more advanced concepts.
Should I Learn JQuery?
JQuery is used throughout the web development industry and has thousands of well-known use cases. It is therefore an important tool to learn and master if you want to keep growing as a web developer.
A There natural time to learn JQuery would be after you’ve gone through HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Though it can be tempting to jump right into a framework like JQuery to make working with JavaScript easier, I personally believe you’re better served by learning to do things the longer, old-fashioned way first, before acquiring a tool that handles all that for you.
There are a couple of reasons for this. Learning the language before the framework will give you a much better sense of what the framework is actually doing. This matters because eventually something is going to break, and anyone who has actually worked in the underlying language will stand a much better chance of finding the bug and fixing it.
You’ll also be more equipped to creatively use JQuery because you’ll have a deeper understanding of the problems it was designed to solve.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of what JQuery is used for and its many benefits.
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