Matt, Waning: The following is written by a NON-programmer.
jQuery to me is the evolution of CSS, not the evolution of JavaScript. When I discovered CSS, I fell in love with it because of the :hover tag. It just worked. I didn't need to learn programming. It was like magic. To me, jQuery and CSS act exactly alike in this manner. jQuery has more features, but the model works the same for me. When I think of CSS, I am *not* just thinking how it LOOKS, I am thinking how it ACTS. So the selector model is a perfect fit. I drank the Kool-Aid on jQuery because of the slideDown() function. It just worked, and I didn't need to learn to program. I made the intuit.cominteractivity by myself. I actually tried to do this type of thing with mootools, dojo, YUI and Prototype before jQuery. Only jQuery worked for me because it was so much like CSS, that I could learn it. Some other factors I have really enjoyed.: 1. The API has *examples*. This is so simple, yet YUI doesn't have it. I have no idea why. 2. The community is really friendly. They allow off-topic discussions and even allow newbies tro ask how to do the simplest task. I have yet to see someone say, READ THE API. 3. Plugins. Active development. Not only are they growing rapidly. They actually take feedback and build them into the plugins! 4. Programmer approved. I do ultimately have to work with people who know what they are talking about. When they see my "code" they know what I meant to do and how the thing works, so they can take the next steps. I get depressed when I say to a programmer, "I want it to slide down, but not evenly, I want it to bounce a little at the end, and also fade in during the slide." The reason I get depressed is that for YEARS the answer was "We don't have time, we will have to get to that later." Now, I do it myself and they are happy because they could focus on more pressing functional issues. It also has had the happy side effect of making interactivity accessible to the programmers. They have been much more willing to experiment with UX effects because it so fast to prototype. Right now, I am working with YUI and YUI-ext. It took me 3 hours to figure out the syntax to make something hide using display, not visibility. I feel horrible. Ok, Im rambling. I hope this was a little helpful. Glen Very jQuery
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