

Ask HN: Is it bad to master jQuery without any knowledge of the undelying JS? - assane101

or said the other way : &quot;How bad is it ?&quot;
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bdfh42
jQuery is a brilliant tool for manipulating the DOM and for managing AJAX
calls etc. etc.

However you can't truly master jQuery without also developing a thorough
understanding on JavaScript. The alternative would be to construct a hodge
podge of jQuery plugins and widgets to get things done - and then running into
all the limitations, conflicts and outright bugs they will bring with them. [I
have borrowed from such sources but have always needed to modify the code].
Much better to be able to write clear straightforward code of your own in JS -
taking advantage of jQuery when it is an advantage of course.

Apart from anything else JS is a delight and learning how to use it will
develop your programming skills.

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karolisd
It's not bad. jQuery is a JavaScript library and you'll learn JS as you go.
It's only bad if you fall into the stereotype of not caring and just
copy/pasting jQuery snippets from Stack Overflow.

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mercnet
I am in this position right now as I am working on a startup in my free time.
I've been coding the backend API in Flask but I am delaying the frontend due
to a lack of JS knowledge. There are plenty of jQuery examples but sometimes I
have no idea what I am looking at or how the code is flowing. My lack of JS
skills will probably introduce security risks into my website.

So I am now forcing myself to start working on some basic JS tutorials and my
friend recommended I pick up this book: jQuery: Novice to Ninja: New Kicks And
Tricks.

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santa_boy
It really depends. I would say it is bad if you want to claim mastery of JS.

However, I all the time need to get things done using tools like jQuery,
underscore.js, async etc ... These libraries make my work so much easier and I
don't necessarily understand the internals of their working.

Things seem to working fine so far and my knowledge of the fundamentals keeps
on improving as I work. That works just fine for what I am trying to
accomplish.

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tonyarkles
As others have mentioned, it's impossible to "master" jQuery without a very
solid understanding of JavaScript. You'll end up with code that does way more
work than it needs to, and is way sloppier than it should be. I'm pretty
certain that mastery is impossible without an understanding of the foundation
and the abstractions.

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ac2u
Pretty bad if you plan on employing lots of JS in the long run. As fantastic
as jQuery is, when it's all you know, everything looks like a $-shaped nail.

That said, you don't need to go crazy and go off it cold turkey, you can very
much expand your JS knowledge while using jQuery still for day to day AJAXy
and DOM manipulation tasks.

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bl0cky
Might not call it bad, but you should really also learn JS - as brilliant as
jQuery is, it can't really do everything. It's also much better to know js in
order to debug stuff that misbehave (you can also download the un-minified
jQuery code and just step into to it ... can save a few hairs off your head)

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Collizo4sky
IMO => jQuery is just another javascript framework. It is best u understand
and know basics of JS before mastering jQuery

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dsschnau
I think its naive to say "I have mastered jQuery but I don't have any
knowledge of JavaScript."

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bennyg
Just learn both at the same time. That's what I'm doing right now with various
side projects.

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ulisesrmzroche
You can't master jQuery without any knowledge of JS, but you an work with it
ok enough.

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adamconroy
Just learn JS already. It isn't that hard.

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gondo
yes

