Following on from that excellent blog post about removing jQuery from gov.uk, here are the performance improvements in charts and numbers.
It may sound like 32 kb of JavaScript is nothing on today’s modern web with quick devices and fast broadband connections. But for a certain cohort of users, it makes a big difference to how they experience GOV.UK.
You really don’t need jQuery any more …and that’s thanks to jQuery.
Here, the Github team talk through their process of swapping out jQuery for vanilla JavaScript, as well as their forays into web components (or at least the custom elements bit).
Thanks to jQuery, you probably don’t need jQuery. Just look at all these methods that started life in jQuery, that are now part of the standardised DOM API:
remove()prepend()before()replaceWith()closest()In many ways, moving to vanilla JavaScript highlights the ugliness of working with the DOM directly, and the shortcomings of native Element object — shortcomings which Resig solved so incredibly eloquently with the jQuery API.
Having said that, the lessons I’ve learned over the last year have made me a better developer, and the tools built in the process have opened my eyes and given me enough confidence and understanding of vanilla JavaScript that the only scenario where I would personally consider using jQuery again would be a project needing IE8 support.
From the people who brought you youmightnotneedjquery.com comes youmightnotneedjqueryplugins.com.
Don’t get me wrong—jQuery is great (some of the plugins less so) but the decision about whether to use it or not on any particular project should be an informed decision made on a case-by-case basis …not just because that’s the way things have always been done.
These sites help to inform that decision.
A terrific piece by Remy—based on a talk he gave—on when he uses jQuery and, more importantly, when he doesn’t. His experiences and conclusions pretty much mirror my own, but of course Remy is far more thoughtful and smart than I.
Really good stuff.
The JavaScript library that led the way.
The enshittification of React …which was already pretty shitty for users.
The behaviour is more consistent now.
Fixing a heisenbug with silence.
If you’re making a library or framework, treat it like a polyfill.