When starting to use jQuery I was assuming that jQuery would be a stable interface that removes the headache of having to deal with multiple browser APIs. It certainly has a lot of features that achieve this.
Now I have a case where jQuery makes things worse for me with a dimension that I have never heard of. I have to wrestle with jQuery read-only API calls that refresh the page (yes you are reading this correctly). http://docs.jquery.com/CSS css( name ) Returns: String In a jQuery declared read-only call css(), jQuery.swap() is called internally that temporarily writes three browser css attributes that may cause a page refresh. No wonder that the pages flicker. See http://dev.jquery.com/ticket/5743 Firefox: Reading a single Attribute causes Page Flicker I first thought that jQuery was some kind of computer program. But it is clearly something else, because computer programs don't actually update other things just get the value of something. It's like in a car having to hit the brakes to just get a speed reading. I hope that this article will somehow encourage the authors of jQuery to remove the updating behavior, even if that means to reduce the functionality of jQuery to what is honestly achievable without such practices. Keywords: jQuery, flicker, FireFox, CSS, overflow, auto, Dialog, hidden, scroll
