what is so bad about Jquery?

[MyFriendIsATaco]

I don't really care to hit over every point, because most aren't really arguable and neither of us really have specific benchmarks and numbers to prove anything. (At least, I don't care to throw together tests, nor do I personally care that much.)

But really, if code readability is your biggest issue, that's kinda irrelevant. Because like you acknowledge, it comes down to the code author. It shouldn't be a reason to say something is not good. It just means there's a tad of a learning curve. That's like saying an entire programming language is bad because someone doesn't understand the syntax.

Yes, it's probably better to select elements by ids vs classes, but that really comes down to the situation. Is it possible to only select with an id? What if there isn't? Most people don't slap ids on every single element. I'd probably end up using some other selector instead of using a class, but I get where you're coming from. It's an argument, but in my opinion, it's a weak one. It may be the difference of 2ms in execution time.

The file itself is 55.9kb, but gzipped, it's 19kb. Most server setups serve up gzipped files by default. At least, if anyone who knows anything set up your server. 19kb isn't anything to get worked up about. For the convenience, hell, it's so worth it. Look at Prototype, it's a beast.

And to add, Mootools, is about 65kb without gzip when I selected all of the features that I know of that jQuery has. Not a scientific measurement, but just a quick guesstimate.

jQuery can also be served up from Google: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs.../jquery.min.js So can Mootools and Prototype, but it helps the overall argument for these JS libraries. The main benefit is global caching. If one site includes this file, and another does, it's cached in the users browser because it has been loaded from the same sever. It's the same file used on multiple sites.