jQuery 101 - Making JavaScript Fun (Mark Freedman)

jQuery is a cross-browser JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML, and it’s easily the most popular JavaScript library in use today. If you’ve been burned by JavaScript, or the conflicting document object models (DOM) between browsers, jQuery frees us from having to worry about (99% of) these differences, allowing us to see JavaScript in a new light. In Mark Freedman’s opinion, the reason there’s been so much hate on JavaScript over the years is not really due to JavaScript issues, but mainly because of DOM differences, causing us to use JavaScript to hand-code for those differences. Those days are over. jQuery really does make coding JavaScript fun. It frees us to learn about the more interesting aspects of the language, without the DOM differences getting in our way. In this session, Mark will give an introduction to jQuery. We won’t get too deep, because it takes several sessions to get into all the features of jQuery. But we’ll get a sense of what it can do for us, and what resources are available to help us get to the next level. With more focus on responsive websites, understanding modern client-side programming techniques is critical. And with tools such as ASP.NET MVC becoming more popular, it’s imperative that we take control over the client-side aspect of our projects. Mark Freedman is a software professional with over 27 years of experience. In 2011, he returned to the consulting arena after being in management for several years. He’s been a founding partner of a successful software consulting firm, a technical community leader, and a 2010 INETA Champion. Mark has been an architect, developer, mentor, and leader, and is a strong believer of continuous, life-long learning through every available resource. He is the author of the popular and continuing series about returning to development after becoming “stuck” in management. You can read those articles and more, on his blog at http://MarkFreedman.com.