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Play Date with jQuery

I had a new toy project and started out with my trusty sidekick: prototype.js but a bit of the way in i decide to try my hand at jQuery instead, since I've already read a lot about jQuery and really like the monad-like paradigm which allows you to write elegant "flow" code without having to worry about null values anywhere in the chain.

It was quite easy translating my existing prototype.js code to jQuery(probably just around 30 lines).
  • The end result was probably 20% more succient.
  • I love the css 3 capable selectors, it's very refreshing to be able to use attribute and partial string match selectors which normally you don't get to use for your work. 
  • I also like the way attributes are set as chained methods(again, in the monad flavor), you do something like $('#myid').attr('value') to get the value and $('#myid').attr('value', 1) to set the value to 1. This again, allows you to chain stuff together. What's the point of this? ...I guess I just like the monad thing.
  • I think the jQuery syntax for behavioral javascript is prettier than prototype.js + lowpro.js
I really have nothing bad to say about jQuery. Even the UI components seem pretty on par with prototype.js, there's jqueryui, from which I used the autocomplete plugin. It's a little bit unfortunate that I had already invested about 1800 lines of javascript code on writing javascript components based on prototype.js and scriptaculous at work, otherwise had I started over I would very probably use jQuery. I will definitely go jQuery for my other projects.

Are there anything from prototype.js that I miss? Well, yes, I miss the array extensions from prototype, which lets you use ruby/smalltalk/lisp-like internal iterator style list operations. jQuery has a $.each, but it's not quite as pretty... but it gets the job done. And I haven't looked, but I am not sure there's an equivalent to prototype's Event.KEY_RETURN, Event.KEY_BACKSPACE and such in jQuery. Also, I had gotten comfortable to the OO model from prototype, and doing without it will be different, but then again I am adaptable. Plus, there's nothing at all stopping you from using jQuery and prototype.js together.

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