Learning jQuery: if & else statements, is this valid?

Question

At the moment I'm learning jQuery and I hit the topic about if/else statements. As I have no background in programming this topic is something that I need to practice a bit more to get a thorough understanding of it.

The book I'm studying gave me the advice of just writing different blocks of if/else statements. I just had an idea and wanted to know if its valid:

$(morningWakeup).ready(function() {
    $('#arms').reaction(function() {
    if($'#kid').is(':nagging')) {
        $('#kid').slap();
    } else {
        $('#kid').hug();
    }
 });
});

Let me make it clear that this is a joke of course, but I want to know if this is valid code and if you can supply me with some more examples? Thank you!

Answer 1

The basic form is perfectly fine, though you've misplaced some parentheses on this line: if($'#kid').is(':nagging')) {. It should be if ($('#kid').is(':nagging')) { instead. Also, note that you'll have better luck setting $('#kid').attr('behaving') to true if you just ignore() him/her for a while instead of slap()ing them. Negative reinforcement sucks. :)

Answer 2

You're mixing up Javascript and jQuery here: The if/else is basically valid, but the jQuery part (.is etc.) will strongly depend on whether the DOM elements exist, whether they have that property etc.

I would recommend starting with real live HTML to go along.

That, and of course the syntax error @bcat points out...