970
u/saig22 2d ago
I use vanilla js, document.getElementById() is what I live for.
290
147
u/ApocalyptoSoldier2 2d ago
document.querySelector() ftw
72
u/CaspianRoach 2d ago
.querySelectorAll()
42
u/Altruistic-Way-6331 2d ago
[0]21
3
u/JohnLocksTheKey 2d ago
$$(‘#DamnSon’)
5
u/CaspianRoach 2d ago
me when i use nonstandard quote signs to make compilers freak out
→ More replies (2)5
u/JohnLocksTheKey 2d ago
You guys compiling?
→ More replies (1)3
6
65
u/IsTom 2d ago
If your HTML element has id you don't event have to getElementById, it's available right there in global namespace as that name. You make button with id
helloand can just go ham withhello.click().I don't think you should do that, but you can.
26
8
→ More replies (1)3
34
u/happypandaface 2d ago
vanilla.js ? I've never heard of this library
20
u/balls_smasher 2d ago
16
u/happypandaface 2d ago
great. how do I include that in my docker file so my yarn build script adds it into my webpack?
→ More replies (1)7
7
6
u/experientialsponge 2d ago
Vanilla js is such a pleasure to read when viewing another's code. Icing on the cake if commented responsibly.
7
u/romulent 2d ago
If you just wrap document.querySelector() in a little helper function you can do loads with vanilla js. Not perhaps enterprise grade but fine for any home stuff.
→ More replies (2)2
u/OldKaleidoscope7 2d ago
That's what jQuery does after querySelector was widely supported. $ = document.querySelector and you can code faster
5
u/usr_pls 2d ago
hot damn i misread that and thought there was a new library called vanilla.js and then you called out the simple most useful library function and I had to double take
"there is no way they made a new js library just to re-wrap Javascript... Oh of course they didn't"
2
u/NerdyMcNerderson 2d ago
Well if that's what you were looking for, let me introduce you to this masterpiece https://github.com/mattdiamond/fuckitjs
3
2
2
297
u/CoshgunC 2d ago
Gets the work done while Nextjs drops a new update for the 29988732nd time
53
u/4n0nh4x0r 2d ago
yea, jquery just works, and it's proven tech.
it does everything i need it to do, and simplifies my work, while being relatively lightweight, and not needing to be updated every five minutes.9
u/morsindutus 2d ago
I've been cut by the bleeding edge enough to appreciate a solid solution that just works.
3
7
u/DrBojengles 2d ago
You dont like the nextjs updates?
15
u/CoshgunC 2d ago
Maybe useful, but most of them do not change the way I code in a positive way.
anyways, I have ditched web dev as whole, I am now focusing on Minecraft mod dev. if I wanna learn backend, I will learn java or c#(because of the job requirements here)
133
u/GrandDukeNotaras 2d ago
Name me one thing better than jQuery
174
67
u/Heavenfall 2d ago
To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
27
→ More replies (1)3
u/a11_hail_seitan 2d ago
Well sure but what if you have your enemies lined up to drive but when you hover over them you want to quickly and easily switch their CSS classes so it's clear to everyone which one you're targeting at any given time? Driving your enemies and listening to their women lament is of course important, but I do think Jquery can still have a very useful and important function while doing so.
23
u/entronid 2d ago
vanillajs
8
u/3dutchie3dprinting 2d ago
I can’t think of a function in Jquery which isn’t in vanilla by now
3
u/ApocalyptoSoldier2 2d ago
Isn't jQuery itself a function?
2
u/Lower-Excuse-6558 2d ago
Namespace wrapper yes. We created our own on prototypes and dedicated namespace accents.
Example: window. _ = {
var init = ******
}
Or adding a prototype for each to loops in a utility fileBut things have changed
Mostly TS/ERP development now.
→ More replies (1)7
8
→ More replies (8)6
484
u/winter-m00n 2d ago
Probably unpopular opinion, but still better than react and angular. at least you don't need to build your whole site around it. Nor all sites need those heavy frontend framework.
165
u/listenhere111 2d ago edited 2d ago
100% agree. Also, its like 40kb and doesnt move lighthouse scores.
You can pry query from my cold dead hands. Its simple to use, easy to read, will be supported forever, and lightweight. Disagree? Fuck you!
89
u/A1oso 2d ago
React is 7.4 kB. It's a myth that react is a heavy framework. You can absolutely implement only certain parts of your web app in react, and other parts using different libraries or vanilla JS.
11
37
u/listenhere111 2d ago
Ok, and how many dozen people actually do that?
There is a time and place for react. It gets overused for simple web pages. Its bloat and complicates projects.
→ More replies (3)24
→ More replies (2)16
u/PlasmaFarmer 2d ago
React is not a framework, it's a library. And yeah React is that much kB but how about the gazillion libraries you add to get a functional app?
→ More replies (1)3
u/ExtraWorldliness6916 2d ago
What is a framework and what is a library
4
u/ludolfina 2d ago edited 2d ago
Angular gives you everything you need to build a complete client-side app, React is just for the view part. You still need other libraries for state management and other things
11
5
u/PlasmaFarmer 2d ago
Library is a set of methods/tools you use and you call. A framework is a more complete package, a "frame" around your code, where you write a piece of code that hooks into the framework and the framework itself handles/calls it. The difference is who calls who: with React you call the render method and you setup a lot of things by hand for React to work. Angular is a framework, it comes with a complete package, it tells you what files you should create, it sets up a lot of stuff before it executes your code. And then there are engines which are a complete, self-contained set of code and tools but it gives you the ability to control it with your scripts/code.
→ More replies (2)84
u/Nils_Larson 2d ago
I am not arguing against your actual point, but in modern browsers you don’t even need jQuery, because all of it is available natively.
(Kicking in a very open door)→ More replies (1)15
u/ExtraWorldliness6916 2d ago
Not arguing either but if JavaScript can write perfectly fine web applications with a welld refined standard, why are we still in react land. I use react all the time, I know what vanilla can do, I use a lot of AI so it's not a knowledge gap anymore... Very curious and frustrating situation.
31
u/A1oso 2d ago
People use React because it provides reactivity. JQuery doesn't do that.
You can in fact write web applications in Vanilla JS, I have done it many times. But for interactive pages that are frequently updated in response to user events, using React (or Svelte or Vue) is more ergonomic.
→ More replies (1)16
u/the_horse_gamer 2d ago
DOM manipulation is easy, but state and lifecycle management is hard
→ More replies (4)7
u/ExtraWorldliness6916 2d ago
I don't find react makes state management any easier simply shifts the problem into a series of conventional problems.
12
u/waraholic 2d ago
I believe there is an ancient god that yearns for extra divs. They influence the world without us knowing, but they are there.
4
u/MikeW86 2d ago
That's like saying 'If my car can get me to the shops, why do some people insist on buying articulated trucks?'
3
u/ExtraWorldliness6916 2d ago
People don't buy articulated trucks? Companies do, just like companies love react. Not necessarily the people. So yes great point.
5
u/MikeW86 2d ago
I'm honestly not sure if you're being sarcastic.
But yeah the analogy isn't absolutely perfect. You're right that for the vast majority of cases only a company is going to need and thus buy a truck.
But if I am a person or company that needs a truck, why would I try to design and build my own truck, even though that is possible?
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)4
u/ludolfina 2d ago
Because it provides separation of concerns, which is super important once you start working in a team and not as a solo developer. Team projects written in jQuery tended to rot very fast because it was very easy to mix business logic with DOM manipulation.
Also one thing React is super good at is writing components that are very easy to reason about in isolation, because they are for the most part declarative and stateless. Everything comes in as props or context and when one of these things changes the entire component gets re-rendered
→ More replies (1)2
u/NerdyMcNerderson 2d ago
React apps tend to rot in enterprise applications because of the proliferation of third party extensions necessary to get a full developer environment. Angular puts basically everything you need in one place (component libraries are the main gap) so every angular app should roughly look the same code wise. React apps will look very different based on how they were set up.
Obviously, someone will reply with an anecdote that THEIR collection of enterprise react apps are all homogeneous under the hood, but they will miss the point. They likely have the same set of 3rd party dependencies to round out the toolchain AND they were likely architected by the same person/team. Much more discipline is necessary to get react to work at enterprise scale.
→ More replies (5)60
u/muchadoaboutsodall 2d ago
As a former web-dev, the older I get the more I hate using web-apps. The best sites, for me, are just HTML with a little bit of Javascript where necessary. And, for that sort of thing, jQuery is perfect.
5
3
8
u/HerrPotatis 2d ago
Better how? They are completely different things made for completely different usecases. It’s like comparing basejumping to hopping on a tranpoline because you’re both technically in the air.
That said, jQuery is most definitely legacy at this point and you can do everything using vanilla js.
→ More replies (2)6
u/--var 2d ago
they released jQuery 4 just this year and their last core team meeting was end of june, so I'm not sure I'd call it legacy...
6
u/deukhoofd 2d ago
And COBOL released a new standard version in 2023, but has been widely considered legacy since the 90s.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)2
u/HerrPotatis 2d ago
I don't mean legacy as in unsupported, I mean legacy in the sense that it's purpose and use-case is way outdated.
4
u/hiasmee 2d ago
Why do you guys comparing web rendering framework vs js util library?
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (5)2
u/CodingWithChad 2d ago
And you don't need to learn the 120th JavaScript framework flavor of the month.
42
u/DoctorWaluigiTime 2d ago
jQuery served its role well: A single framework that worked across all browsers (especially IE6 when that support was still required), masking away a lot of JavaScript jank and giving a clear, concise functional layer to work with.
It started to lose its usefulness (and in fact impede development) when it got mixed in with TypeScript and other things, overly complicating the frontend "stack", and is now not really needed anymore.
Vanilla JavaScript has gotten boatloads of improvements as well.
But it was such a saving grace back when.
17
u/audigex 2d ago
JQuery is still great when you’re building something simple that just needs a little interactivity - it’s much quicker to just include JQuery and write a couple dozen lines of code than to fire up a whole framework based project for it
Using React or something for that just feels silly and wasteful, and strikes me as the developer just not knowing anything other than their one framework
Although now queryselector() is baked into JS I do more and more stuff in vanilla JS, since the query selection was always the best thing about JQuery
45
u/uvero 2d ago
relates in WPF
11
u/heavy-minium 2d ago
Haven’t been doing any WPF/UWP for a decade by now, but I really liked it. Has it become some outdated technology now?
16
u/uvero 2d ago
Feels like it? Not as much as jQuery. Microsoft now has some other tech stack for C# desktop apps, and I think C#'s popularity for desktop development has declined, so WPF is mostly relevant to maintaining old projects. Which is why saying I'm a WPF dev, it feels almost like saying I'm a COBOL dev
7
u/BadSmash4 2d ago
I do a lot of WPF as well but I'm slowly converting all of our old WPF apps to Avalonia. Same syntax but the default styles are nicer and the features are better. Plus, cross platform, which means that once all our WPF apps are Avalonia and not .NET Framework, I can request a Linux laptop and get off Windows fully.
2
u/uvero 2d ago
I envy that (other than the Linux part, I'm unironically a Windows person)
→ More replies (2)7
u/the_matthew 2d ago
My hot take is that Microsoft really hates .NET but it caters to just enough of the enterprise segment that they feel obligated to make it look like they support it. The way they slung out WinRT, WPF, and date I even say Silverlight only to hang them out to dry a few years later is my evidence.
I often joke that in government no one ever has been fired for using Microsoft, but man, adopting a new Microsoft technology only to see it get flushed or neglected has real world costs.
8
u/tinyturtletickler 2d ago
Idk they have entirely revamped .NET over the past ten years. I think .NET Core really breathed new life into the stack
3
u/ludolfina 2d ago
I forgot how bad .NET Framework was in comparison to Core until I had to use it again. It was a much needed rewrite
4
u/afdbcreid 2d ago
No, Microsoft likes .NET. They invest in it a lot and it always keeps improving.
Microsoft hates GUI. Or maybe it loves them so much that it keeps creating new ones.
4
u/Rellikx 2d ago
Huh I was going to say the opposite, they have heavily unshittified .net in recent years.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)7
u/sixtyhurtz 2d ago
MS has abandoned WPF; it's now a "community project".
The hot new thing is Avalonia. It's designed to be a mostly drop-in replacement. I really like it, but I'm also slightly worried they might be going for a commercial rug-pull. I hope I'm wrong, and they just keep the paid extension & consulting model to fund their costs.
12
u/OSRSlayer 2d ago
Maui, WPF, WinForms, WinUI, now Avalonia.
If you are making a native desktop app that you plan to maintain, choosing a Windows technology is a footgun.
3
u/chic_luke 2d ago
Avalonia is a cross-platform technology and it is not by Microsoft but I get what you mean.
It's part of the reason why I think the criticism of Electron apps needs to be contextualized. There is often a pretty darn good reason why people choose to use Electron for desktop apps. You can say what you want about react, I don't like it personally, but it's here to stay and it's much more here to stay than any Microsoft UI technology.
There's GTK, but it's not viable on Windows, and it already starts feeling like a 2nd class citizen when you use anything different from the GNOME desktop environment, while Qt forces you to interact with C++ and have to really care about portability, or you use QML which is much slower.
→ More replies (2)4
u/OSRSlayer 2d ago
IMO web based technologies are worse. We're just making Java JVM again in the form of Chromium but with infinite dependencies and half your codebase not being written or controlled by your team.
→ More replies (1)3
u/FrozenHaystack 2d ago
I raise WPF, NET Framework, and Delphi.
4
u/bradmatt275 2d ago
If you can believe it our company runs a Payroll system built in Delphi. Its probably the most bloated piece of junk you have seen. But we somehow get paid by it so I cant complain too much.
→ More replies (3)5
u/dinnerbird 2d ago
I'm a field technician doing laptop installations. All of our programs are Winforms based...they always have this certain "ehh that'll do" kind of look to them
17
u/SFX5848 2d ago edited 1d ago
I've been web programming for 15 years, and i still only use HTML, CSS, jQuery, PHP, and MySQL... no frameworks, no npm, nothing.
I love being able to do anything instantly just by selecting the element $('#ID') or $('.CLASS')
99% of the time i just use .hide(), .show(), .append(), .html(), .val(), .remove(), .addClass(), .removeClass(), .attr(), .css(), .each(), and $(this)
I did try React and a few other frameworks, but i never really got into them.
13
38
u/hagnat 2d ago edited 2d ago
i am a backend engineer with strong opinions on how frontend should look like (i used to be a graphical designer for ~6 years before starting my career as a software engineer),
i can make wonderful interfaces with jQuery, and great back-office applications that dont require the end user to have 32 gb of RAM to run it
→ More replies (2)
28
u/toblotron 2d ago
Anyone ever built anything more impressive than what was built with those tools?
18
u/Authentic_Grunter 2d ago
Yes they built ads that popup every 500ms and won't let you use those sites.
4
u/HerrPotatis 2d ago
I mean jQuery started seriously falling out of fashion around 2015, you think the most impressive sites ever built are from over a decade ago?
3
u/freebytes 2d ago
I cannot really think of any impressive sites at all in 2026. Perhaps we can talk about popularity and growth. Facebook, Twitter, Amazon... The list goes on. All of those sites existed prior to 2015.
→ More replies (3)
13
33
u/American_Libertarian 2d ago
“How it feels” is fine
“What it feels like” is fine
“ how it feels like” is not valid grammar
→ More replies (1)
7
u/AffekeNommu 2d ago
Oh man, using PHP and jQuery at work and suddenly feeling left behind
→ More replies (1)
6
7
u/BeefJerky03 2d ago
Back in the early days of using Stack Overflow and mixing JS and jQuery together in the worst imaginable ways. Using JS for something basic, then using the jQuery equivalent two lines down. What a blissful idiot I was.
5
u/arse-ketchup 2d ago
There was a time when I truly believed that jquery would take over the world, all software would move to jQuery, and I’d be rich using it. 1st semester in college I guess.
5
u/ardicli2000 2d ago
Honestly for most of the time it is enough.
If you are not working for a corporate, big tech company, or need such high reactivity on your webapp, react is just PIA.
5
u/xd1936 2d ago
Controversial, but I have done
const $ = document.querySelector.bind(document);
const $$ = document.querySelectorAll.bind(document);
before in small personal projects, like the Chrome and Firefox DevTools consoles do
2
u/ArjixGamer 2d ago
I used to do that for small scripts, but I wouldn't do it for an entire project, I'd simply use a framework.
2
u/--var 2d ago
today I learned that vanilla javascript has a
bindmethod.I still prefer jQuerys
onmethod though.
- the event argument can be a space separated list, so it can handle multiple events with one handler.
- the second argument can be a comma separated selector list, so you can attach the on handler to a single parent element and have it handle dynamically mutated child elements.
- jQuery handles all of the browser quirks, so it's the same syntax regardless of browser. (chrome is the new internet explorer when it comes to not following the same standards as everyone else...)
- chainability reduces redundancy and increases readability.
4
u/seanlaw27 2d ago
Say what you want about jquery but it’s still the best documented tool in existence.
4
u/Desperate-Tomatillo7 2d ago
Yet the effin JQuery app is still alive after almost 15:years, while two of their React successors are deprecated already.
9
7
3
3
u/Xochtil1 2d ago
I didn't even know there is something that's supposed to replace it lol, I still keep using jquery in my projects
3
3
3
u/radz974 2d ago
I don't think you've looked at the data regarding query usage in 2026. https://w3techs.com/technologies/comparison/js-jquery
3
3
u/ArjixGamer 2d ago
There are tools older than jQuery, that are still in use.
i.e mootools
2
3
3
3
u/samu1400 2d ago
I mean, I really like JQuery, and the stack of the platform I work on uses it, so if it ain’t broke why fix it.
4
14
u/-Nastyenka 2d ago
How it feels to use Php in 2026:
Undeniably a joke, do not slime me
25
u/Hottage 2d ago
PHP before 7 was a disgusting mess..
Around 7 they started trying to mature the language with features like compiler enforced type safety and bringing other tools previously relegated to PHPdoc into the language.
PHP 8 is a decent system and features like Generators, Attributes, Fibers and first class callables have bought it near parity with other server ecosystems like .NET.
The biggest thing PHP still lacks is first-class generics for proper, type safe repository patterns.
I've been a PHP developer for over 15 years. I fucking hated 4 and 5, tolerated 7 and actually quite enjoy 8.
The biggest issue nowadays is that, for backward compatibility, a lot of the good features like type hinting are just recommended instead of enforced, so you can get situations like in Typescript where lazy developers just have everything return
mixedorany.→ More replies (12)2
u/IOFrame 2d ago
Nah, this is what makes PHP great.
You get to choose your battles - some sections of the code get to have verbose documentation (I consider types a sort of documentation). On the other hand, meaningless utility function #2421354 can remain typeless.
PHP doesn't have to be a bloated mess like Java.
→ More replies (7)15
12
11
2
2
u/kamilman 2d ago
This was me trying to learn and retain the knowledge for an SQL exam. I understand it, I can explain the logic, but writing in SQL is my Achilles heel
2
u/EmotionalJoystick 2d ago
Hey man, there are still huge databases in government and financial institutions that use COBAL. It was in invented in 1959.
2
u/realzequel 2d ago edited 2d ago
I wrote our flagship product with jQuery +Typescript. It works great and is easy to maintain. Life is great. We have moved our other apps to React though.
2
2
2
u/drislands 2d ago
Hey pal, it's either "What it feels like to..." or "How it feels like to...". One of those quirks of English.
2
u/GreenWoodDragon 2d ago
jQuery still beats overblown frameworks like Angular etc. It's lean and, capable, and easy to use.
2
u/Expensive_Shallot_78 1d ago
Well, at this point with the unnecessary complexity that we fabricated, I feel like the caveman.
2
3
u/Southern_Pressure_32 2d ago edited 2d ago
Well in this case I am one of those happy cavemen
I learnt react first, then I learnt jQuery
There is nothing that react does that jQuery can't
And typescript guardrails are for people who do not fully understand how JS works
1.9k
u/ExtraWorldliness6916 2d ago
I bet he's happier than us though.