4 Essential Differences between JavaScript and jQuery
JavaScript and jQuery both begins with the ‘J‘ alphabet, both are the powerful tools used by web developer to develop complex web projects. But it doesn’t mean they are similar by nature and feature. Most of the people out there in the web development industry mix up these two terms together. But actually, there are many differences between these programming languages.
Today, in this blog post, we are going to share 4 essential differences between the JavaScript and jQuery. This post will help you in finding the roles, objectives and usability of these two technical elements.
What is JavaScript?
JavaScript is a dynamic language used by web developers to build interactive web pages of a website. It is a robust client-side scripting language that is used as a part of web browsers. JavaScript also monitors and controls the web browsers, simplify asynchronous communication, generate effective user interaction, and delivers custom content to the web viewers.
Most of the developers use this programming language to reduce the time and hard work required for developing large scale sites and web apps. They can choose the most suitable JavaScript framework to simplify their web development process.
What is jQuery?
jQuery is a cross-platform JavaScript library. It is also popular among web developers. You can easily use this JavaScript library. jQuery comes with the API that works smoothly on majorly used web browsers. Plus, it makes it super easy for web developers to manipulate HTML documents, create animations, manage events, develop AJAX application, and select DOM elements. On the other side, jQuery can also be used for developing multiple types of plugins without any hitch.
Thus, the web developers sustain an option to use JavaScript and jQuery either individually or side by side. However, it becomes important for you to understand the basic difference between the JavaScript and jQuery before starting off any web development projects.
Difference between JavaScript and jQuery
Programming Language and Library
As we all know JavaScript is a dynamic programming language that supports object-focused, functional, structured and essential programming styles. The dynamic typing and advanced functions also makes JavaScript as one of the best prototype- based scripting languages.
On the other side, jQuery is a JavaScript library or a framework which makes it simpler for developers to complete various essential web tasks such as HTML documents manipulation, creating animation, event managing, Ajax app development and DOM element selection.
Overall, the roles of JavaScript and jQuery are completely different from each other, and both are used for different purposes.
Simplify client-side scripting
Being a client-side scripting language, JavaScript allows the developers to generate user interaction and to fork over customized content to users with ease. However, web developers have to write longer and complicated lines of code to write a web app in straight JS. In such circumstances, they use JavaScript frameworks to carry out the scripting function quite easily and effortlessly.
As a cross-platform JS library, jQuery offers a ton of stunning features to execute scripting functionalities quite quickly and easily. Nowadays, developers are making the use of library to make their work easy and simplify the client-side scripting of HTML.
They can use jQuery to reduce the web development time as well as efforts required for developing a high quality web app.
Speed
The only similarity of JavaScript and jQuery is that both run faster on the modern-age web browsers and computer systems. But the speed of these two is smashed by the use of older web browsers.
As JavaScript can browse the DOM faster than jQuery, so the programmes can slash the overheads regarding to the library. Whereas, jQuery allows developers to develop highly-preforming sites and web apps by providing functionality independent of web browsers.
<h3><strong>Web development time</strong></h3>When a web developer uses JavaScript to build large scale web apps, then he needs to write extra code to complete multiple tasks. He has to invest extra time as well as effort for debugging and fixing browser compatibility related issues. But with the use jQuery, developers can easily save their precious time and effort by simplifying the scripting functionality quickly and efficiently.
They don’t need to worry about different lines of code all the time as they can use jQuery library for building complex and large scale web apps quickly and effortlessly.
Conclusion
Overall, we can say both the tools are unique in their own ways. JavaScript is a dynamic and fully-functional programming language, whereas jQuery is a JavaScript library. The experienced JS developers can easily make a use of jQuery to carry out multiple tasks without ever writing longer and complex code over and over again.
However, developers can still make a use of jQuery without being skilled in the JavaScript. That is the main reason why developers choose JavaScript and jQuery as per the specifications of their projects.
Author Bio:
Maggie is a Html Developer by profession and writer by hobby. She works for Markuphq Ltd., which is an expert in providing Custom psd to html services to global clients. Connect with her on Google+ and Twitter. This blog post was written by a guest author/contributor.
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