Javascript is a powerful language, there’s no argument there, however, it can also be a complicated language. To achieve the potential benefits of Javascript (such as Ajax and some animation), a large amount of code is required. Additionally, not all Javascript is standardized (some is browser-specific) and not all versions of browsers support Javascript in the same way.

To alleviate these downfalls, Javascript frameworks (also called libraries) have become popular in recent times. Javascript frameworks aim to simplify and shorten certain benefits of Javascript, while also dealing with all the browser-specific code in the background. Javascript frameworks are basically a set of wrapper functions to more complex and daunting Javascript code. For example, a simple AJAX GET call in Javascript may take 20 lines or greater in straight Javascript, may only take one line of code using a Javascript framework.

Javascript frameworks are based on the same fundamental principle as Javascript is, nesting on the Document Object Model. Using these Javascript frameworks will save you a fair amount of time and code. In the coming weeks, we’ll be going over the Javascript framework I use, jQuery.