Hi,
I know a bit of javascript, and can work fine with jquery. i just don't get why everything is referenced from $(). My understanding is that $ is never needed in javascript (unlike for example php, where every variable is prefixed with $).
ive looked through the source code and it doesnt really make sense. Is is just $ is the function name (eg, it could have easily have been jquery(), but they selected $?) i assume not though, as i don't think $ is valid in function names in JS??
$ is just a global variable that's also a reference to the jQuery function, it's $ on purpose so it's less to type. $ is perfectly valid for a function name in ECMAScript:
function $(){}; alert(typeof $);
Note that if you're using multiple libraries you can use function scope to avoid clashing dollar sign variables, eg:
jQuery.noConflict();
(function($){
$('body').hide();
})(jQuery);
It's because $() is short for jQuery() and it's a function that wraps all of jQuery's methods into a nice simple function. It's really amazingly well design, John Resig has built an excellent framework.
Also, $ is a valid function name.