JavaScript Cookbook

Chapter 17. JavaScript Libraries

17.0. Introduction

JavaScript developers have never been luckier. Today, there are several very fine JavaScript framework libraries we can use for our applications that take care of many of the more tedious aspects of JavaScript development. In fact, you might be thinking about why you would even need a book on just plain JavaScript, when you can use framework libraries like Dojo, Ample SDK, Prototype, or jQuery (which I’m featuring later in this chapter). Why put up with the hassle of cross-browser issues, or the minutiae of creating and instantiating XMLHttpRequest object directly just to make a simple Ajax call?

I could reply that in order to use a framework library like jQuery to its best ability, you need to understand what’s happening under the hood. This is a valid answer, because if you don’t know what you can do with JavaScript, you won’t know what you can do with a JavaScript framework library.

However, I have another, more philosophical reason why you need to understand the basics of JavaScript, inspired in part by a short story by one of my favorite science fiction writers, Isaac Asimov.

Isaac Asimov wrote a story, “The Feeling of Power,” in the 1950s. In the story, a simple technician named Myron Aub astounds military, political, and scientific leaders with his astonishing discovery: the ability to perform mathematical calculations using only a person’s own mental ability, and a piece of paper and pencil.

In the future time in which Aub lives, ...