What is jQuery?
jQuery is a free library that makes it quicker and easier to build JavaScript webpages and web apps. Often with jQuery you can write a single line of code to achieve what would have taken 10-20 lines of regular JavaScript code.
How does it help us as developers?
jQuery makes it easy to write powerful JavaScript apps and create eye-catching animated effects rivalling those of Flash movies. It helps with animations, fading effects, sliding effects and drop down menus. It can help with DOM manipulation and ajax requests too.
Why do we have 2 version of jQuery â minified and uncompressed?
The uncompressed .
js
file is easy to read and modify. The minified .js
file has all comments, whitespace, and other unnecessary characters removed from the file, condensing the whole library and making it easier to download as opposed to easy to read.