as more browswers become standards compliant is there less of a value of things like jquery

Question

if one of the main benefits of jquery is cross browser javascript support, does that become less valuable as more browsers aim to become standards compliant and the same javascript works on all browsers?

Answer 1

jQuery is more than just a simple abstraction of basic browser APIs, it also provides a nice libary of helpful functions like animate(), and nice framework for making reusable components. So I think it will remain useful for a long time.

Answer 2

No. For one somehow the browsers end up supporting different standards, and there are always things only being added to the standards. Then there's backward compatibility: granted IE6 is mostly RIP, but 7 and 8 are here for a while. And finally, (some) js frameworks are as much about ease of use as useful components, and I have to second NXT on that.

Answer 3

At the very least, there's a rich library of plugins that would take forever to re-create without jQuery.

Answer 4

Also, jQuery has its own style. I kind of like this almost declarative programming using the css selectors with autoprocessing of list, like

$(".button").roundedCorners().click(function(){
  addToMyDisplayDiv($(this).attr("buttonValue");
});

and will use even if all browsers one day concur :-)