I’ve been meaning for some time to really sit down and learn one of the Javascript libraries.  I’ve painfully used Prototype.js and moo.fx before in certain projects.  It’s not a slight against those libraries, I just didn’t know what I was doing with them, and was either reading from tutorials, or hacking apart code to try and figure out how to make it work.  Today I looked at all three libraries, jQuery, Prototype, and moo.fx in detail to see which one suits me best.

My requirements were:

1. Easy to learn.  I don’t have six months of Sundays to look over the documentation.  The more logically it operates, the better.  I’m not a Javascript programmer, so it will have to be pretty forgiving.
2. Easy to implement.  I don’t mind having to look up calls and properties from a reference, but if I can’t remember the syntax, or if its just too damn complicated to get through– then it’s out.
3. Lightweight.  No one wants a bulky library.
4. Quality.  Can’t sacrifice this.

After reading lots and lots of documentation and downloading all three, I’ve figured out that jQuery is powerful and fits all of my criteria, while the other two… while good at prettying up a page with animations and other graphic manipulation, didn’t really serve the purpose of what I was looking for.

The other thing that impressed me was the level of documentation on the jQuery site.  The tutorials, including the Getting Started Tutorial are essential to someone who isn’t a Javascript programmer… Like me.

I’ll be posting in the future on my progression with jQuery and what I’ve learned.