Josh Nathanson wrote:
> > well as many other jQuery newbies? Specifically, what signifigance
> > does jQuery's $() being like an array have, and even when
> you use an
> > ID selector?
>
> It is very significant -- in fact you could even say it is
> one of the most important code-saving aspects of the jQuery library.
>
> When you do something like $(".myclass") you will get an
> array of the DOM nodes that match class .myclass. Now apply
> a jQuery method like css:
> $(".myclass").css("color","black"). jQuery knows to loop
> over the array of DOM nodes and apply that css method to all
> the DOM nodes in the array. This saves a ton of coding where
> you would have to manually loop over the nodes to achieve the
> same thing.
>
> This shortcut is such a codesaver, in so many ways, that it
> is well worth it to always return an array-like object, and
> then have to use something like .length to determine if the
> jQuery object is empty.
Thanks for your reply.
Hmm. I already understood that pretty well. Maybe I was just expecting to
have a more profound "Aha."
BTW, I'm an old server-side web programmer but new to real-life
client-side/AJAX/browser-based programming so maybe it's just I never had to
feel the pain of the bad ole days of client-side programming that makes me
feel that explanation to be anti-climactic.
Ah well, guess I should be happy it's easier now, eh?
--
-Mike Schinkel
http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blogs/
http://www.welldesignedurls.org
http://atlanta-web.org
