Q: Where is the link to the interview?

There's a temporary issue and the pictures and video aren't showing in this article. Here's a link to the interview video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SzUDgDvCzc

Question 1

How long did you (John Resig) work on jQuery before you released it?

Accepted Answer

It took about 3-4 months of part-time work to arrive at what you see above. The original version of jQuery was much much smaller than what's there now (and the browser support wasn't nearly as good). It took another 8 months of work to arrive at a 1.0 release, along with contributions from many other contributors.

Question 2

Is it really hard to create your own programming language?

Accepted Answer

No, but it may be hard to create a useful one.

Question 3

Where can I download a good version of javascript for personal use in development?   Thanks, James S.

Accepted Answer

Compilers don't process JavaScript, as it is not a compiled language. It is mostly used by browsers. If you want to use it without a browser, look at node.js.

Question 4

How to make my own library?

Accepted Answer

Libraries are simply collections of predefined objects. To build your own library is pretty simple but making it as powerful as a library like jQuery and processing.js is the real challenge. By the way, there are already millions of libraries at your disposal and you're free to design your own library if you feel that there is a function you need that just doesn't exist.

Question 5

How do get get to write a language?

Accepted Answer

I wrote an assembly-like language here: https://www.khanacademy.org/computer-programming/assembler-instruction-demo/6488338376163328

I didn't have to ask permission or anything.  I do not expect the user base to exceed one.

My brother wrote a far more popular language:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERCAL  Again, no permission was necessary.

Question 6

how DO YOU make something like jQuery like with all the code and stuff and the language? its so weird but cool! how do they do it?

Accepted Answer

Umm, it's a big code, but it's not very complex. You can write the same things as in jQuery but without jQuery. For example, getting an element from a page:
`$("a.myClass")`
can be written even in old Javascript code like this:
```var aTags = document.getElementsByClassName("myClass");
var result = [];
for(var i=0;i<aTags.length;i++) {
    if(aTags[i].tagName=="A") result.push(aTags[i]);
}
//result is now the list of "a.myClass" elements```
newer standards replicate jQuery search, and works like this:
```document.querySelectorAll("a.myClass");```

The rest of DOM Manipulation is mostly a reflection of pure Javascript DOM manipulation methods.

What I find most useful in jQuery are events and $.extend(). Events because it's already made and I don't have to write a multiple event handlers per event situation. And extend() comes in handy quite often, but it's fairly easy to write by yourself. jQuery animations might also be handy, but CSS transitions are better suited, faster, and work everywhere now.

Question 7

Where is the link to the interview?

Accepted Answer

There's a temporary issue and the pictures and video aren't showing in this article.

Here's a link to the interview video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SzUDgDvCzc

Computer programming

Course: Computer programming > Unit 7

History break: How did John build jQuery?

Want to join the conversation?