Learning jQuery

It's jQuery's first birthday, and John Resig and the development team are celebrating in style with a brand new release of jQuery!

Version 1.1 has just about every performance and feature improvement that I mentioned in my previous Year of jQuery entry — the huge speed improvements, the streamlined API, and even the much-improved documentation and website (kudos to the web and design teams!). Don't wait another second. Abandon this blog right now and go directly to jquery.com for all of the new goodies!

Are you still here? Oh well. Then bear with me another minute while I write a bit more about the streamlined API. The new jQuery has much more speed and functionality for just a couple more kb of code. One way that was achieved was by stripping out some of the excess helper methods that appeared to be little used or redundant. If you are running jQuery on a production site, please be careful about upgrading. A good way to start is to drop in the jQuery 1.0 to 1.1 compatibility plugin (JS file), and then read through the list of API changes that John Resig outlined in a recent blog entry.

Here on Learning jQuery, we (okay, I) will be going through the old entries in the next few days, providing updated code and instructions for 1.1 in places where there might be a compatibility issue. So, keep an eye out for the jQ1.1 icon:

Now, really, you must stop reading this post and go get yourself some of that jQuery 1.1!