Beyond jQuery (The Book + 1 free "code hand" laptop sticker)
Beyond jQuery
Free yourself from the chains of jQuery by discovering the power of JavaScript and the modern web API
About the Book
Recently published by Apress. Order a copy on Amazon.
jQuery seems to be mindlessly injected into the vast majority of web applications and libraries. In some cases, there there may be no logical reason for pulling in jQuery as a dependency. For example: a library that only needs to perform a few simple element selections or DOM manipulations. Many web developers don’t really know when they need to use jQuery, and when they don’t. Pulling in this dependency seems to be a standard step when setting up a new library or web application. You shouldn’t be a jQuery developer, you should be a web developer, and part of being an effective web developer is a firm grasp on the underpinnings of web development.
Surprisingly, while browsers and JavaScript have improved significantly, the use of jQuery on the web has actually grown. It is surprisingly common to learn jQuery first, and JavaScript along with the web API much later on (and sometimes not at all). Relying solely on jQuery as your window to the web leaves large gaps in your knowledge. This in turn results in frustration when the abstraction that jQuery provides “leaks” and exposes you to the native aspects of the browser. In some cases, jQuery is ill-equipped to solve problems (such as file uploading). In these instances, those insistent on working exclusively through a library struggle as they do not have the knowledge or confidence to deal directly with the native browser API.
In addition to being unnecessary in many instances, jQuery may adversely affect the performance of your project (sometimes significantly). Even something as simple as $(element).hide() has unexpected and serious performance implications. “Beyond jQuery” aims to educate developers, reveal the magic behind jQuery, help them solve common problems without it, and give them more confidence to abandon their crutch and embrace the power of the web API and standardized JavaScript.
About the Author
Reader Testimonials
Robert DiBlasi
What makes Ray's approach interesting is the way he frames the discussion of "software developer" over "library integrator" or "jQuery programmer". Libraries & frameworks are just tools. Once you know the fundamentals, then you can make smart choices about why & when you might make use of such tools. You have options as a developer. "Beyond jQuery" has a very easy to read style. I like the way Ray gives confidence to the reader that they can use JavaScript instead of a library like jQuery.
Table of Contents
-
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- Introduction
-
I The Oppressive Magic of jQuery
-
1. Why have we been using jQuery?
- 1.1 Simplicity
- 1.2 Community
- 1.3 Habit
- 1.4 Elegance
- 1.5 Fear
-
2. A crutch is only temporary
- 2.1 You are a mechanic, not a driver
- 2.2 Stunted growth
-
3. The price of shortcuts (a true story)
- 3.1 A new direction, a new web developer
- 3.2 Shortcuts and my own stunted growth
- 3.3 A challenge – no jQuery allowed!
- 4. Focus on the implementation, not the magic
-
1. Why have we been using jQuery?
-
II You Don’t Need jQuery (anymore)
- 5. Need vs. want
-
6. Both sides of the acceptable use argument
- 6.1 When is it acceptable to use it?
- 6.2 When should you refrain from using it?
-
7. Should you use other libraries instead?
- 7.1 Small shims over large wrappers
- 7.2 Writing your own shim
- 8. The final word
-
III Understanding the Web API & “Vanilla” JavaScript
-
9. Everything you need to know about browsers
- 9.1 Ancient browsers
- 9.2 Modern browsers
- 9.3 Evergreen browsers
- 9.4 Mobile browsers
- 9.5 Non-browsers
-
10. What is this “web API” and why is it important?
- 10.1 The DOM API
- 10.2 Everything else (non-DOM)
-
11. JavaScript: A Less Elegant Version of jQuery?
- 11.1 The language versus the web API
- 11.2 History and standardization
-
9. Everything you need to know about browsers
-
IV Finding HTML Elements
-
12. Core element selectors
-
12.1 IDs
- 12.1.1 jQuery
- 12.1.2 Web API
-
12.2 Classes
- 12.2.1 jQuery
- 12.2.2 Web API
-
12.3 Element tags
- 12.3.1 jQuery
- 12.3.2 Web API
-
12.4 Pseduo-classes
- 12.4.1 jQuery
- 12.4.2 Web API
-
12.1 IDs
-
13. Selecting elements based on their relations
-
13.1 Parents and children
- 13.1.1 jQuery
- 13.1.2 Web API
-
13.2 Siblings
- 13.2.1 jQuery
- 13.2.2 Web API
-
13.3 Ancestors and descendants
- 13.3.1 jQuery
- 13.3.2 Web API
-
13.1 Parents and children
-
14. Mastering advanced element selection
-
14.1 Excluding elements
- 14.1.1 jQuery
- 14.1.2 Web API
-
14.2 Multiple selectors
- 14.2.1 jQuery
- 14.2.2 Web API
- 14.3 Element categories and modifiers
-
14.1 Excluding elements
- 15. A simple replacement for $(selector)
-
12. Core element selectors
-
V Using and Understanding HTML Element Attributes
-
16. What is an attribute?
- 16.1 History and standardization
- 16.2 How do attributes differ from properties?
-
17. Finding elements using attributes
-
17.1 Finding elements using attribute names
- 17.1.1 jQuery
- 17.1.2 Web API
-
17.2 Finding elements using attribute names and values
- 17.2.1 jQuery
- 17.2.2 Web API
-
17.3 The power of wildcard and fuzzy attribute selectors
- 17.3.1 Looking for specific characters
- 17.3.2 Looking for specific words
- 17.3.3 Attribute values that start or end with…
-
17.1 Finding elements using attribute names
-
18. Reading and modifying element attributes
-
18.1 Class attributes
- 18.1.1 Reading classes
- 18.1.2 Adding and removing classes
- 18.1.3 Toggling classes
- 18.2 Data attributes
-
18.3 Working with other standard & custom attributes
- 18.3.1 Reading attributes
- 18.3.2 Modifying attributes
-
18.1 Class attributes
-
16. What is an attribute?
-
VI HTML Element Data Storage and Retrieval
-
19. Why would you want to attach data to elements?
- 19.1 Tracking state
- 19.2 Connecting elements
- 19.3 Storing models directly in your elements
-
20. Common pitfalls of pairing data with elements
- 20.1 Memory leaks
- 20.2 Managing data
-
21. Using a solution for all browsers
-
21.1 Storing small bits of data using
data-attributes-
21.1.1 Reading and updating
data-attributes with jQuery -
21.1.2 Using the web API to read and update
data-attributes
-
21.1.1 Reading and updating
-
21.2 Complex element data storage and retrieval
- 21.2.1 The familiar jQuery approach
-
21.2.2 Using a more natural approach
- 21.2.2.1 Removing data from our cache when elements are removed from the DOM
-
21.1 Storing small bits of data using
-
22. The future of element data
-
22.1 The HTML5
datasetproperty -
22.2 Leveraging ES6
WeakMapcollections
-
22.1 The HTML5
-
19. Why would you want to attach data to elements?
-
VII Styling Elements
-
23. There are three ways to style elements
- 23.1 Inline styles
-
23.2 Working with styles directly on the
Elementobject - 23.3 Stylesheets
-
24. Getting and setting generalized styles
- 24.1 Using jQuery
- 24.2 Without jQuery
-
25. Setting and determining element visibility
- 25.1 The typical jQuery approach
- 25.2 The native web approach
-
26. Determining width and height of any element
- 26.1 Examining an element using jQuery
-
26.2 Options natively provided by the browser
- 26.2.1 Width & height of content + padding
- 26.2.2 Width & height of content + padding + border
-
23. There are three ways to style elements
-
VIII DOM Manipulation
-
27. The DOM: A central component of web development
- 27.1 jQuery exists because of the DOM API
- 27.2 The DOM API isn’t broken, it’s just misunderstood
-
28. Moving and copying elements
-
28.1 Moving elements around the DOM
- 28.1.1 Moving elements using jQuery
- 28.1.2 The DOM API’s solution to reordering elements
- 28.2 Making copies of elements
-
28.1 Moving elements around the DOM
-
29. Composing your own elements
- 29.1 Creating and deleting elements
- 29.2 Text content
- 29.3 Rich content
-
27. The DOM: A central component of web development
-
IX Ajax Requests: Dynamic Data and Page Updates
-
30. Mastering the concepts of ajax communication
- 30.1 Async is hard
- 30.2 HTTP
- 30.3 Expected and unexpected responses
- 30.4 Web Sockets
-
31. Sending GET, POST, DELETE, PUT, and PATCH requests
- 31.1 Sending POST requests
- 31.2 Sending PUT requests
- 31.3 Sending DELETE requests
- 31.4 Sending PATCH requests
-
32. Encoding requests and reading encoded responses
- 32.1 URL encoding
- 32.2 JSON encoding
- 32.3 Multipart encoding
-
33. Uploading and manipulating files
- 33.1 Uploading files in ancient browsers
- 33.2 Uploading files in modern browsers
- 33.3 Reading and creating files
-
34. Cross-domain communication: an important topic
- 34.1 The early days (JSONP)
- 34.2 Modern times (CORS)
-
30. Mastering the concepts of ajax communication
-
X Browser Events
-
35. How do events work?
- 35.1 Event types: Custom, and native
- 35.2 Event propagation: Bubbling vs capturing
-
36. Creating and firing DOM events
- 36.1 Firing DOM events with jQuery
- 36.2 Web API DOM events
-
37. Creating and firing custom events
- 37.1 jQuery custom events
- 37.2 Firing custom events with the web API
-
38. Listening (and un-listening) to event notifications
- 38.1 jQuery event handlers
- 38.2 Observing events with the web API
- 39. Controlling event propagation
- 40. Passing data to event handlers
- 41. Event delegation: powerful and underused
-
42. Handling and triggering keyboard events
- 42.1 3 types of keyboard events
- 42.2 Identifying pressed keys
- 42.3 Making an image carousel keyboard accessible with the web API
-
43. Determining when something has loaded
- 43.1 When have all elements on the page fully loaded and rendered w/ applied styles?
- 43.2 When has all static markup been placed on the page?
- 43.3 When has a particular element on the page fully loaded? When has it failed to load?
- 43.4 Preventing a user from accidentally leaving the current page
-
44. A history lesson: Ancient browser support
- 44.1 The API for listening to events is non-standard
- 44.2 Form field change events are a minefield
-
44.3 The
Eventobject is also non-standard
-
35. How do events work?
-
XI Mastering Asynchronous Tasks
-
45. Callbacks: The traditional approach for controlling async operations
- 45.1 Node.js & the error-first callback
- 45.2 Solving common problems with callbacks
-
46. Promises: An answer to async complexity
- 46.1 The first standardized way to harness async
-
46.2 Using Promises to simplify async operations
-
46.2.1 The anatomy of a
Promise -
46.2.2 Simple
Promiseexamples - 46.2.3 Fixing “callback hell” with promises
- 46.2.4 Monitoring multiple related async tasks with promises
-
46.2.1 The anatomy of a
- 46.3 jQuery’s broken promise implementation
- 46.4 Native browser support
-
47. Async functions: An abstraction for async tasks
- 47.1 The problem with promises
- 47.2 Async functions to the rescue
- 47.3 Browser support
- 48. The future of standardized async task handling
-
45. Callbacks: The traditional approach for controlling async operations
-
XII Common JavaScript Utility Functions
-
49. Working with dates, text, XML, and JSON
- 49.1 Dates
- 49.2 Converting JSON into a JavaScript object
- 49.3 Converting an XML string into a document
- 49.4 String manipulation
-
50. What kind of value is this?
- 50.1 Primitives
- 50.2 Arrays
- 50.3 Objects
- 50.4 Functions
-
51. Making JavaScript Objects bend to your will
- 51.1 Iterating over keys and values
- 51.2 Copying and merging objects
-
52. Solving problems with Arrays
- 52.1 Iterating over array items
- 52.2 Locating specific items
- 52.3 Managing pseudo-arrays
- 52.4 Mapping and merging
-
53. Useful
functiontricks- 53.1 A word about JavaScript context
- 53.2 Creating a new function from an old one
- 53.3 Calling an existing function with a new context
-
49. Working with dates, text, XML, and JSON
- About the Author
- Notes
The Leanpub 45-day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 45 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
See full terms
Do Well. Do Good.
Authors have earned$10,891,199writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub, earning 80% royalties while saving up to 25 million pounds of CO2 and up to 46,000 trees.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers), EPUB (for phones and tablets) and MOBI (for Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
Top Books
- #1
Functional event-driven architecture: Powered by Scala 3
Gabriel VolpeExplore the event-driven architecture (EDA) in a purely functional way, mainly powered by Fs2 streams in Scala 3!
Leverage your functional programming skills by designing and writing stateless microservices that scale, powered by stateful message brokers.
- #2
Practical FP in Scala: A hands-on approach
Gabriel VolpeA practical book aimed for those familiar with functional programming in Scala who are yet not confident about architecting an application from scratch.
Together, we will develop a purely functional application using the best libraries in the Cats ecosystem, while learning about design patterns and best practices.
- #3
Ansible for DevOps
Jeff GeerlingAnsible is a simple, but powerful, server and configuration management tool. Learn to use Ansible effectively, whether you manage one server—or thousands.
- #4
Book of Monads
Alejandro Serrano MenaIn functional programming, at the heart of input/output, failure, state, logic, and much more, lies a powerful abstraction called monad. This book provides a journey from the very first concepts, to the myriad of monads available to programmers, down to the categorical foundations.
- #5
Functional Programming Made Easier
Charles ScalfaniA Functional Programming book from beginner to advanced without skipping a single step along the way.
In my 40 years of programming, I've felt that programming books always let me down, especially Functional Programming books. So, I wrote the book I wish I had 5 years ago.
Functional Programming will never be easy, but it can be easier.
- #6
入門 日本語自然言語処理
Masato Hagiwara and Paul O'Leary McCann日本語テキストを処理したい全てのプログラマ・エンジニアの方へ。分かち書きなどの基本から、自然言語生成などの最新の話題までをカバー。動かして学べるコードや、参照文献も付いています。言語学や機械学習の知識が無くても問題ありません。
- #7
Introducing EventStorming
Alberto BrandoliniThe deepest tutorial and explanation about EventStorming, straight from the inventor.
- #8
Visualise, document and explore your software architecture
Simon BrownA short guide to visualising, documenting and exploring your software architecture.
- #9
Introduction to Japanese Natural Language Processing
Masato Hagiwara and Paul O'Leary McCannA thorough guide for programmers working with Japanese text, covering fundamental issues like tokenization and recent research topics like generating natural language texts. Working examples are accompanied by extensive reference to allow problem solving even without a background in Japanese or Machine Learning.
- #10
Cloud Strategy
Gregor Hohpe“Strategy is the difference between making a wish and making it come true.” A successful migration to the cloud can transform your organization, but it shouldn’t be driven by wishes. This book tells you how to develop a sound strategy guided by frameworks and decision models without being overly abstract nor getting lost in product details.
Top Bundles
- #1
Modern C++ Collection
3 Books
Get All about Modern C++C++ Standard Library, including C++20Concurrency with Modern C++, including C++20C++20Each book has about 200 complete code examples. Updates are included. When I update one of the books, you immediately get the updated bundle. You can expect significant updates to each new C++ standard (C++23, C++26, .. ) and also... - #2
Software Architecture for Developers: Volumes 1 & 2 - Technical leadership and communication
2 Books
"Software Architecture for Developers" is a practical and pragmatic guide to modern, lightweight software architecture, specifically aimed at developers. You'll learn:The essence of software architecture.Why the software architecture role should include coding, coaching and collaboration.The things that you really need to think about before... - #3
CCIE Service Provider Ultimate Study Bundle
2 Books
Piotr Jablonski, Lukasz Bromirski, and Nick Russo have joined forces to deliver the only CCIE Service Provider training resource you'll ever need. This bundle contains a detailed and challenging collection of workbook labs, plus an extensively detailed technical reference guide. All of us have earned the CCIE Service Provider certification... - #4
All the Books of The Medical Futurist
6 Books
We put together the most popular books from The Medical Futurist to provide a clear picture about the major trends shaping the future of medicine and healthcare. Digital health technologies, artificial intelligence, the future of 20 medical specialties, big pharma, data privacy, digital health investments and how technology giants such as Amazon... - #6
Abandon Your Job - Leaving the Rat Race with Python
8 Books
Now, get all the great Python and Freelancing books from finxter.com in one single bundle!Coffee Break Python - All Python BasicsCoffee Break Python Workbook - Practice the basics of PythonCoffee Break Python Mastery Workouts - Practice advanced Python conceptsCoffee Break Python Slicing - All about SlicingCoffee Break Python NumPy - Get started... - #8
Mastering Containers
2 Books
Docker and Kubernetes are taking the world by storm! These books will get you up-to-speed fast! Docker Deep Dive is over 400 pages long, and covers all objectives on the Docker Certified Associate exam.The Kubernetes Book includes everything you need to get up and running with Kubernetes! - #10
Pattern-Oriented Memory Forensics and Malware Detection
2 Books
This training bundle for security engineers and researchers, malware and memory forensics analysts includes two accelerated training courses for Windows memory dump analysis using WinDbg. It is also useful for technical support and escalation engineers who analyze memory dumps from complex software environments and need to check for possible...
