Tell a girl who's been out of the front end world for a LONG while... is jQuery dead yet?
Posted by TenthSpeedWriter@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 116 comments
Every time I get in a convo about it with someone in frontend web dev they insist that jQuery is dead.
But... I can't help but notice How Much Shit still loads it.
Anyone whose fingers are still in the user-facing pie: do people still dev with jQuery or is it just the internet's biggest artifact dependency?
gigastack@reddit
No one would spin up a new project using jQuery - virtually every new project will be in a component-based framework - React, Vue, Angular, - or a meta-framework like next.
If you work on legacy systems that might involve jQuery forever...
Banner80@reddit
Fundamentally different problems.
Most website 10 years ago were being built on the page model. Most clicks lead to a page refresh, and most of the page render happens on server-side, with a few client-side tools on top.
Now we have a culture of favoring app-style model, with the client side having to do a ton of lifting to deliver the interactive experience. Jquery wasn't made for that. It can sort-of do it in terms of offering some functions for it, but it's pulling teeth.
If you are managing a large website that was built on the page model, Jquery is likely still the best solution. If you are building an app-style website, then Jquery is not the tool for it.
And BTW, there is also such a thing as making the mistake of using an app-style paradigm for a website that only needed to be a page-based brochure.
activematrix99@reddit
"No one", "Everyone". So much crap on this so-called "Experienced Dev" forum.
SnooHamsters6328@reddit
JQuery… what a beautiful time it was when JavaScript was meant to animate menus, not create desktop apps.
driftingphotog@reddit
jQuery is far from dead. It's just not the current thing.
sisyphus@reddit
'Uses it' yeah but how many people are writing new code in jQuery today? Seems like it's the COBOL of the web now.
Minegrow@reddit
The question is whether it is dead.
sisyphus@reddit
But I think what they mean by 'dead' is in the post
Minegrow@reddit
In my book, “dev” as in “development” does include maintenance and not merely greenfield projects.
thotpolice84@reddit
Yeah, sure, but if you're going by that analogy there is still SOO many legacy COBOL programs running in big business mainframes and really really good money being paid to those that know it to update/support as none of the new devs are familiar. Still very much a useful skill.
forgottenHedgehog@reddit
It's an urban legend, those jobs are either outsourced or pay shit for what they require.
pineapplecodepen@reddit
I was writing it in 2021, but that year my org made the shift to Vue.
I managed to only work for orgs that used jQuery up until that point, however.
PoopsCodeAllTheTime@reddit
I haven't had a single job that uses jQuery, however, I have seen a far-from-zero amount of job ads that ask for jQuery. I couldn't tell you if these roles actually require jQuery or if their HR department hasn't updated the reqs. I wouldn't put it past some old dev to add jQuery onto a new project in the same way that people add lodash, but also wouldn't imagine jQuery as a main driver.
BomberRURP@reddit
Legacy. It’s always legacy
abrandis@reddit
Mostly legacy apps that haven't been updated or just aren't worth updating ....
You really no longer need jQuery , most of the benefits it offered have been part of the DOM/HTML for a while now ...
Most interactivity is done with some. Ja framework (react, angular or vue) so that's where most of the is frontend code is today.
caseyanthonyftw@reddit
I found it so easy and convenient to use. With these modern JS / typescript frameworks, I guess they make it easier to create a general, sleek-looking website. But I feel like if I want to do a certain, specific, simple thing that's relevant to my industry-specific use, I'm wishing jQuery was popular all over again.
Wembyama@reddit
https://youmightnotneedjquery.com/
Banner80@reddit
That website is like a parody to me. It talks about not "needing" Jquery, but the entire website is a demonstration for why it would be silly to write vanilla JS without a QoL library on top.
"await" for a JSON response? What, like a wild animal? Who's out there writing calls that need to handle their own fetch and response. Jquery is a wrapper over vanilla JS. It's deliberately designed to save time, simplify constructs, solve browser compatibility, and reduce human error.
Writing vanilla JS would be going backwards. Why stop there? Learn Assembly and command the CPU directly. Why stop there? Write what you mean to say in a stack of papers by hand, and walk to each user to deliver the note.
Don't use Jquery if you like another QoL library better, but to argue in favor of vanilla JS is just silly. More work and complexity for no advantage.
ExpertIAmNot@reddit
It’s been a long time since I used jQuery for anything, but you have to appreciate the simplicity that most examples on this site are longer using “modern” code vs the old school jQuery calls.
karock@reddit
yeah, someone should make a library wrapping the modern js api with concise functions for developer convenience!
inputwtf@reddit
I'd call it kQuery
Normal_Fishing9824@reddit
Most of my junior hires have not heard of it.
So it's still out there but it's not a thing that is used. TBF most of what it did can be done with standard JS nowadays so the need for it is less.
JM0ney@reddit
Legacy apps die a slow death.
I think it's rarely used in greenfield projects in favor of React, Angular, etc. It's still handy to know, depending on what you're working on.
awkward@reddit
It's not even like a usual legacy stack. jQuery is a relic of the progressive enhancement web, when sites were expected to work with javascript turned off. Most of it's core functionality just calls extremely well standardized native functions now, so it's stupid fast.
SoInsightful@reddit
What? How would jQuery work with JavaScript turned off? I don't understand your comment at all.
awkward@reddit
You use jQuery to do extra stuff, and code the website so it works without jQuery. Modals turn into links. Accordions turn into trees. Then you code in jQuery on top of that.
It was hard, and no one reasonably expects to be able to turn off javascript anymore, so websites are rarely written in that way now. Some simple brochureware works like that, and some frontends that need to work in embedded browsers still get that treatment.
activematrix99@reddit
Many payment systems still have this as a workaround.
Mike312@reddit
The last system I worked on we converted from jQuery to React. Honestly, I'm glad for the experience working on a production React app, but from a PM perspective it was a massive waste of time and effort that could/should have been spent elsewhere.
The only problems it solved was moving it from a library the younger devs weren't familiar with to a framework the younger devs also weren't familiar with, and added more than a few complexities along the way.
Schmittfried@reddit
I don‘t know your particular use case, but for sufficiently complex frontends jQuery code (like similar frameworks from that time and before) tends to become a complex spaghetti mess.
Frameworks like React or Vue add some complexities, but those complexities reflect the reality of UI state management, and in fact they make complex UIs much simpler to write and reason about compared to the equivalent jQuery implementation.
Mike312@reddit
The particular project was an admin panel/dashboard.
One particular thing was moving to different sections required a page load on the old system, while in React we had a bit of a learning curve with the states, though we got over it in due time.
Previously, we had a lot of shared functions between areas and then page-specific unique things. But some of those ended up becoming often extremely verbose as we brought in the same functionality to the various React buttons. I think we figured out a way to handle that at the 11th hour though.
belkh@reddit
The problem with jQuery is that it's not a components/rendering library, it's just utils (that a lot of has been added natively anyway)
As you mentioned, any sufficiently complex frontend application either turns to spaghetti or builds its own inhouse react, you're better off using an industry standard you can hire for rather investing time debugging your framework and onboarding people
ampersand355@reddit
I remember when jQuery first came out, it was a godsend lol. What's crazy now is that junior devs don't seem to be able to understand it nor even vanilla JS. They are only comfortable in the greenfield projects that are done in Angular.
anonyuser415@reddit
these days you can skip bundling with importmaps. Rails for instance has eg https://github.com/rails/importmap-rails
you lose out on treeshaking and there are network and compression inefficiencies by serving so many small files. OTOH your users' caches become very granular and long-lived
AHistoricalFigure@reddit
New ASP.NET projects still include jQuery by default in their razor views. It's pretty easy to remove from a project template and replace with react or whatever, but jQuery would still be considered idiomatic to most ASP.NET webapps.
So yes, jQuery is deprecated and out of support, but will likely continue to show up in projects for years.
mattsmith321@reddit
I haven’t done front end work in a while but when I did get pulled into some stuff several years ago, I was wishing jQuery was still the tool of choice.
Historical_Emu_3032@reddit
lol this thread with people saying jquery and PHP are. Yeah the tech that runs 80% of the internet is dead.
Back in the real world JavaScript frameworks haven't solved as much as we'd hoped.
So plain javascript and light weight libraries are still perfectly viable options on many projects, legacy projects don't have to upgrade just because some nerd on a forum says so.
Highly reactive and complex UIs benefit from modern framework, but if you're putting something like react in to make a landing page you're just wasting everyone's time and money.
BomberRURP@reddit
Yes but also unfortunately we have to respond to the business side of things. And for some reason the business side of things likes to make us use whatever buzzwords they heard another business type say at the business guy child sacrifice parties they go to.
Historical_Emu_3032@reddit
That's just a "your job" problem tho.
BomberRURP@reddit
It’s a “most jobs” problem else a majority of newer projects wouldn’t be SPAs
Historical_Emu_3032@reddit
You've worked "most jobs" have you?
25 years, 5 countries, 2 medium term faang gigs.
Never had this problem.
elainarae50@reddit
Indeed. Thankfully, I call the shots in my company. Of course, you do need some experience to be able to design your own components when you don't have a framework abstracting out what is actually going on.
Historical_Emu_3032@reddit
We do have a bit an industry problem here. Where a large number of the workforce just learn a dozen things and stock with that for their career.
So we see people saying silly things like x framework or approach is dead, then followed by recommending their one trick.
We've probably hit the last generation that did DOM manipulation directly and the people coming in just using the abstraction dont quite understand what they are fundamentally doing.
Saw this happening 10+ years ago when angularjs bootcamp students hit the job market. They came in with big confidence and left a lot of mess. Kinda like what's happening with ai right now.
It's only getting worse. Working at a tech company that requires actual engineering skills and we are completely lost trying to hire in a sea of people that want top of their salary range to push css about and vibe code. 100s of applicants not one of them can parse JSON or query a HTML document. Asked to solve a basic O(n*) and they run away crying.
Tokipudi@reddit
You'll find jQuery on almost every single legacy app, and there's always going to be an old-timer who will keep writing new code with it.
But I have never heard of any new project actually using it.
PMMEBITCOINPLZ@reddit
No. Jquery will never die. It’ll just keep marching like a zombie forever. Sorry.
YareSekiro@reddit
JQuery is definitely still used as dependency or being used occasionally etc, but I don't see people exclusively hiring for JQuery roles anymore.
New_Screen@reddit
My company still uses some jquery for a backend scrapper that we have.
poolpog@reddit
I still feel like jQuery is super new, lol
freshjewbagel@reddit
Resig ftw
-Knockabout@reddit
Most jQuery is now doable easily in vanilla JS. No new projects should be built with it if at all possible. It's just another unnecessary dependency, and has caused a lot of conflict with other modern libraries in my experience.
k8s-problem-solved@reddit
I use it at work specifically to troll our front end devs doing all this crazy complex stuff in react, next.js, figma design systems, atomic design, component libraries etc
I'll work on some shitty internal app, smash out screen in an afternoon with AI, bootstrap and jquery, then do a show and tell like it's revolutionary. "I've kept it super simple".
They hate me and never review my PRs.
AlexanderTroup@reddit
Unfortunately React, Vue, and VanillaJS have replaced all the applications of JQuery.
Frontend used to be the "who cares just get someone to do it" role, and it was the home of anyone who could figure out how to just make something work. JQuery was amazing to give devs power to make things that just worked.
Since then, the Frontend has exploded to be just as technical and architecturaly dense as backend. You've got testing frameworks, transpired languages (mainly Typescript), mock server testing, component libraries, way too many design systems, and in a weird way you now have to improvise in the same way as before to find some solution, but rather than obscure forum posts it's whatever library will fit your problem!
It's a fun place to be though. We don't have to float things anymore 😂
Apologies in advance about rem
Acrobatic-Desk3266@reddit
I haven't seen anyone working with it
Hot-Aide4075@reddit
$(document).ready(){ console.log(“I felt like doing this”}
Fidodo@reddit
Nothing new should be using jQuery, but lots of old stuff is still around
FarStranger8951@reddit
Legends never die.
dfltr@reddit
jQuery out here like WHAT RINGS U GOT?
Logical-Idea-1708@reddit
It’s used by 80% of the websites but nobody specifically hire for jQuery. In other words, if that’s the only skill on your resume, it’s going to the trash
RedditNotFreeSpeech@reddit
I still see it in a lot of open source projects. I put a pr in and honestly it was kind of fun messing with jQuery again. Not that I'd intentionally use it on something new.
I should probably put in another pr to switch to solid but I should probably get dev agreement first.
Kaimito1@reddit
Probably largely due to wordpress. Id bet a very large chunk of that is just casual blog websites or simple ones
time-lord@reddit
Asp.net core includes jquery by default in new apps.
ryans_bored@reddit
Wow. My thought was there’s still plenty of jQuery in the wild but no-one is starting a new project with it …I stand corrected.
Antagonyzt@reddit
Yikes. That’s pretty embarrassing
darkhorsehance@reddit
It’s still used on major projects in the enterprise world.
Western_Objective209@reddit
It's a dependency in a lot of front end libraries I've noticed, along with bootstrap. not a front end dev though just a far backend that needs to build web ui's occasionally
GoTheFuckToBed@reddit
I tried it again some time ago because I just needed a quick cool datepicker. But I think it was still a bit painful. Probably dead.
https://github.com/camsong/You-Dont-Need-jQuery?tab=readme-ov-file#query-selectorl
Mobile_Reward9541@reddit
I'd refrain from hiring anybody who mention jquery in their resume as a skill. plain js can do it all.
Creepy_Bullfrog_3288@reddit
Lots of libraries still depend on it but it’s generally not the api surface (abstraction) you’d be coding against for new applications. But definitely still used directly in legacy applications but I would assume less and less. So depends on the work.
rcls0053@reddit
jQuery isn't a skill you require nowadays, it's more broadly just JavaScript as a language. I saw this happen to myself: jQuery is just a simple abstraction over JavaScript with the most basic utilities like click, load, ajax etc Sure you had your plugins and all. But people like me who were just doing jQuery and didn't really invest in vanilla JavaScript were kinda forced to step into it when we took on React and Vue and other front-end UI libraries. That lead to TypeScript and node.js and it's all gone downhill tbh. Burned out by the complexity, now I just wish I'd stick with jQuery.
originalchronoguy@reddit
Dead depending on who. Dead in my eyes for sure. But as others noted, used heavily in legacy apps. Everything you need is in Vanilla JS.
Is it insecure? No with recent patches. It isn't the core jQuery I am concern with it is all the adhoc libraries, dependencies added over the years that have never been patch.
Once you deal with that headache, you realize it is just easier to refactor to Vanilla JS or some other framework.
HylanderUS@reddit
For new projects, yes, for sure. ES6 does everything jQuery does natively and a lot faster. But of course there's tons of existing websites out there still using it, cause who has time for tech debt if there's a shiny new AI to throw money at?!
mothzilla@reddit
Probably not. But the companies that hire for jQuery were at their peak when jQuery was at its peak.
Idea-Aggressive@reddit
One of the few “indie devs” that make money (supposedly), who’s quite popular on social media (lots of followers) builds with php and jquery. Most startups generate zero! So, it’s up to you to sell your skills to others. It’s still out there and making people’s money. But, if you want to find yourself a job, you’ll probably find yourself struggling. Companies hiring are basically making a lot of movement to make it look they are growing but it’s all part of a trick to get more funding. Do not waste your time and sell your skills directly to clients. You can make it!
nneiole@reddit
Frontensegeln dev here, mainly using react. The last time I touched it was 2018, when I coded a project using D3 visualization library, but since then there appeared react wrapper libraries for that as well.
ctrlshiftba@reddit
anyone hiring is looking for something who has moved on, can work in more modern tech, is constantly learning and improving. not I learned what I need and refuse to improve learn new stuff. Not saying that's you but that's what recruiters / hiring mangers are going to think.
Yhey will hire for the latest and greatest but then expect them to maintain legacy code as it comes up, which honestly isn't that oftern on legacy apps that have been running in prod for years. Parts will get migrated and replaced, but there just not enough work to hire someone who only knows jquery.
mysteryihs@reddit
Guilty on still using it if it's loaded. Don't want to learn the new syntax if I can just use jquery
Tacos314@reddit
jQuery is not dead, but it's not hired for, it's just part of web-dev.
pineapplecodepen@reddit
I was primarily a JQuery dev my whole dev career. Around 2020 I started to really struggle finding jobs that specifically called for it. Everything wanted experience in React/Angular/Vue.js
I got my last JQuery job in 2019 at a startup, but they pivoted to Vue.JS in 2021. At that point, I pivoted to UX/UI and didn't transition to learning Vue, so I can't say if it was easy to pick up or not.
When my start-up failed in 2023 and I was back on the market, I looked for both jQuery-based front-end roles and UX roles. There were very few jQuery listings, and the market in general was just awful. I ended up getting a UX role.
BomberRURP@reddit
Long story short, legacy projects. I wouldn’t market myself as a jquery expert these days. That said, being familiar with it is helpful, because chances are you’re probably at some point going to join a team with a legacy project that needs extension and maintenance.
propostor@reddit
Yes but also no, but mostly yes.
Absolutely shitloads of old systems use jQuery.
But it's hella old and most systems are moving away from it if they can.
At my place we have shit written with jQuery, knockout and Vue, all served to one (big) ancient website. jQuery is the one we do our best to never use in new features, and replace with vanilla JS or Vue components if we can.
sahuxley2@reddit
Is vue old already? Am I gonna have to ~~learn~~ tell claude to use something else?
Professional-Try-273@reddit
It rebranded as HTMX
BomberRURP@reddit
Have you used HTMX?
Kaimito1@reddit
jQuery is dead id say in the sense that there's no point to it, and I'd be very surprised if new things are being built with it.
It's still "alive" because it's embedded deeply into ancient enterprise like WordPress or super old stuff
AngrySpaceKraken@reddit
I used jQuery on the last two projects I did for a Microsoft owned company. They hired my company because I can make their brand look perfect on crappy outdated third party platforms.
Things like React won't work with these systems, so you're stuck with base JS manipulating things. I can use native JS just fine, but jQuery is already present on these systems and it just provides such simple syntactic sugar.
document.querySelector('.thing')becomes$('.thing')and so on. It's just nice to work with. I had my work reviewed by titans of the industry and no one batted an eye at my use of jQuery.SolarNachoes@reddit
It’s as dead as COBOL.
wolfer_@reddit
Vanilla JavaScript does the stuff that we used to use jquery for. Swapping over will be trivial. Look for places using vanilla js.
Learn React in your free time to improve your resume.
vervaincc@reddit
The problem is that in software development, not much really "dies". Or at least, doesn't die the moment it is killed.
Plenty of things that are no longer considered best practice or relevant live on in legacy systems, or in systems that just refuse to move on.
jQuery is just one of many zombies that really isn't "alive" in the sense that is no longer actively pushed or recommended and new development utilizing is NEARLY non-existent. But there are tons of systems built with it that aren't going anywhere for a long time, and there are still likely a few places still actively developing with it.
So yeah, it's dead - but it's still walking around.
ZukowskiHardware@reddit
No way, jq rules
Thefolsom@reddit
It's dead in the sense that it's not part of any modern tech stack. Greenfield work likely wouldn't or shouldn't use it.
Reality of dev work means its mostly relevant in two cases:
ub3rh4x0rz@reddit
It's probably one of the most used legacy dependencies. That doesn't make it not dead. Don't write new things with jquery
TWCDev@reddit
jQuery is just a tool that I don't pay attention to. For websites that are <$5 per month to host (blogs, marketing sites, etc), I build them with Astro, setup with a free github site, and have them deploy to aws with a workflow. I don't use jquery generally but it may be used behind the scenes in some npm package. For anything complicated, I use Angular or React, with some sort of responsive CSS framework like Material. They "may" use jQuery behind the scenes, I don't know or care, it just isn't relevant to what I'm doing.
ub3rh4x0rz@reddit
It's probably one of the most used legacy dependencies. That doesn't make it not dead. Don't write new things with jquery
lawrencek1992@reddit
Nothing new is being written in it. It will take ages for all legacy apps to migrate.
NeckBeard137@reddit
I never wrote one line of it at work.
Capable_Constant1085@reddit
nope.. last 3 jobs used it
PoopsCodeAllTheTime@reddit
Heavily or just sparingly as a shorthand for selectors?
warpspeed100@reddit
Some jQuery libraries did things well enough, that people simply have not bothered to reinvent the wheel. Typically you'll find wrappers for the best jQuery libraries in all the major SPA frameworks nowadays. Even though there are other alternatives, jQuery DataTables still gets used all over the place. You'll often find some jQuery date pickers floating around as well.
Eightstream@reddit
We use jjQuery now
EatMoreKaIe@reddit
He's still very much alive and well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Weary
DualityEnigma@reddit
If you’re coming back to Front end you’re going to want to learn full-stack reactive patterns e.g. react, vue, etc.
You basically want to make your CRM headless with a web-app front end. They’ve matured to be super fast and useful.
its_yer_dad@reddit
wait until you hear about PHP
throwawayhash43@reddit
It is there to be maintained and or replaced. My current and last job both used jquery still with no plan to replace it.
WJMazepas@reddit
Legacy still uses a lot of jQuery, but you wouldnt start a new project today with. And if you check the latest releases, you will see that it also didnt pickup a lot of speed for new releases and new features.
And IIRC, jQuery creator was talking that modern JS already have all the functionality that jQuery offered, so there wasnt too much of a need to keep working on it
doey77@reddit
Yes it’s used, but nothing new should be built with it. Most of what it did can just be done with regular old JS now
who_you_are@reddit
It is as dead as PHP...
Now the issue is a lot will say it is dead while it isn't.
They may not be as used as in the past, but there are still there
PixelPhoenixForce@reddit
nobody I Know uses it anymore
PhilTKamp@reddit
My personal experience from big tech/faang space is that it's still around but definitely diminishing in use. Lots of older internal facing code bases are still using it but it generally seems like it's not being picked up for newer projects. Depends heavily on the team for how gung-ho they are about refactoring out the JQuery into something like React.
I feel like my expectation is that it'd be most common to see along with Wordpress sites or smaller local business based work. Happy to hear other folks' thoughts.
PastaSaladOverdose@reddit
JQuery is not dead until the last lines of code are deleted from every code base in the entire world.
All of the "yes" people in this thread are clearly newbies, as long as some codebase somewhere in the world has jQuery in it, it's not dead.
boomer1204@reddit
Dead no, but I would hardly put that as a skill set on my resume LOL
drunkandy@reddit
It still works fine, but it was made for a world where browser APIs were complete trash. Now that browser APIs are only somewhat trash, many of its features are just passthroughs to a native functionality.
Recent_Science4709@reddit
Things I still like to use like datatables.js use it
creaturefeature16@reddit
I use it when it's enqueued (like in a WordPress install) and I still enjoy aspects of it, but I never reach for it otherwise. Modern JS has caught up and rendered a lot of what that library offers to be redundant. And I also work in React a ton, so it's completely irrelevant at that point.
David_AnkiDroid@reddit
It's dead: few new projects will use it
It's alive: it's still heavily used, and will be for decades
0dev0100@reddit
I still use it in some of my personal projects so it is not dead
Unfair-Sleep-3022@reddit
Dead for ages
SeaworthySamus@reddit
Yes