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Comment by roneesh | Hacker News Reader

This is a really well done site, and it's a perfect resource for someone learning JavaScript.

Most new devs get it wrong when choosing what to learn. They forgo learning plain JS in favor of jQuery, then they forgo jQuery to learn a front-end framework. It should be the other way around. Do absolutely all you can with plain JS first, then use jQuery as needed (and make sure your copy of jQuery only has what you need), and then only for complex interactions, use a front-end framework, but most interactions on a website aren't complex enough to merit one.

For any site that is mostly content with some interaction, well written pure JS should be the solution you try first.

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> They forgo learning plain JS in favor of jQuery

> Most new devs get it wrong when choosing what to learn.

Hear me:

    "most new java devs get it wrong when choosing what to learn,
     they forgo learning plain Java in favor of Spring MVC."

Now you understand how stupid you sound. Spring MVC is a actually plain Java just like jQuery is actually plain Javascript. jQuery is a library that abstract the DOM , not Javascript. jQuery IS a DOM abstraction, not Javascript abstraction ,it is not a third party language that compiles to javascript.

Your point would make sense however if you said:"They forgo learning the DOM in favor of jQuery". Unfortunalty you are part of the problem. Either you are not a developer thus don't know what you are talking about OR you can't tell an api from the language itself. Either way your comment is plain stupid and doesn't help. What you should tell beginners is "learn the difference between the DOM and Javascript". But you're not saying that, you're blaming a library for whatever reason.

> Now you understand how stupid you sound.

> Either you are not a developer thus don't know what you are talking about

> Either way your comment is plain stupid and doesn't help.

C'mon man. I'm sure you could have made your point, in a helpful way, without attacking him. No need to go there.

I'm not attacking him, I'm attacking ignorance which leads to people writing what he wrote then perpetuating this false dichotomy between "vanilla javascript" and jQuery. jQuery IS "vanilla javascript" despite being a DOM abstraction. Am I being pedantic? No i'm not. This is a fundamental mistake A LOT of frontend developers do. Javascript IS not the DOM.

Clearly, you feel really passionately about this topic, which makes your choice of words all the more unfortunate. If you had made your points kindly, rather than saying "Now you understand how stupid you sound.", I would have loved to engage with you, however now I think I'll take a pass.

Comments like yours not only degrade the HN community, but the coding community in general. I'm not going to engage or dissect your comments any further, rather I'm just going to ask that for the sake of this community and our profession, you hold yourself to a higher standard next time you comment.

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