The jQuery Divide

Project managers, bosses, and teams are picking jQuery as their go-to JavaScript library at an ever-increasing pace. Nobody wants to choose a loser, and as demonstrated by super-meaningful Google graphs and surveys that count my grandfather's blog alongside leading web sites, jQuery is leaving all the other libraries in the dust. Plus, it's easy! And there's a plugin for everything! And with all those sites using it, finding someone who can write thoughtful, maintainable code with it will be totally no big deal. Right?

This talk is a call to arms. This is not just JavaScript -- it's JavaScript, damnit, a language worthy of respect and, *gasp*, knowledgeable developers. When well-meaning but uninformed deciders and developers see jQuery as the be-all-end-all answer, conflating a knowledge of jQuery with a knowledge of JavaScript, we all lose. As a community, we owe it to the language -- and ourselves -- to give those deciders and developers the context they need to make well-informed decisions. Maybe jQuery is the right answer; but first, they need to truly understand the question.