Before jQuery: browser fragmentation
In 2006 client-side JavaScript development is a painful exercise: Internet Explorer 6-7, Firefox 1.5-2, Safari 2, Opera 9 implement the DOM in subtly incompatible ways. document.getElementById, element.attachEvent vs addEventListener, XMLHttpRequest vs ActiveXObject, CSS selectors non-existent outside the DOM. Every developer rewrites the same workarounds.
The release
jQuery 1.0 is released on 26 August 2006 by John Resig, a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology. MIT and GPL dual licence. Slogan: “write less, do more”.
$("p.intro").addClass("highlighted").fadeIn(500);
$.ajax({ url: "/api/data", success: function(d) { ... } });Features
- CSS selectors —
$("div.active > p")like native CSS3 - DOM manipulation — fluent chain
.addClass(),.attr(),.append() - Event handling —
.click(),.on(), cross-browser normalised - AJAX —
$.ajax(),$.get(),$.post()with promise-like callbacks - Effects —
.fadeIn(),.slideDown(), CSS animations - Cross-browser — IE6+ without effort from the dev
- Extensibility —
$.fn.plugin = function(){}for third-party plugins
Ecosystem
jQuery becomes the foundation of a huge ecosystem:
- jQuery UI (2007) — widgets (datepicker, tabs, dialog)
- jQuery Mobile (2010) — touch UI
- Thousands of plugins: carousels, lightboxes, form validation, lazy loading
Dominance and decline
From 2009 to 2015 jQuery is present on over 75% of the world’s websites. The decline begins with:
- IE6-8 deprecation that eliminates the main reason to exist
- ES6 (2015) that adds many jQuery-ish features to the JS core
- React, Vue, Angular proposing declarative vs imperative models
- Fetch API,
querySelectorAll,classListnative
In the Italian context
jQuery was the de facto standard in every Italian web agency and development team from about 2007 to 2017. The dominant CMS (WordPress, Drupal, Joomla) integrate it by default. Plone has jQuery-based patterns. Still today (2026) millions of Italian WordPress sites load jQuery for backward compatibility.
Legacy
jQuery shaped entire generations of JavaScript developers and pushed browsers to converge on standards (CSS selectors API, addEventListener). Many jQuery APIs have merged into the native DOM. The $ convention remains a cultural reference.
References: jQuery 1.0 (26 August 2006). John Resig. MIT/GPL dual licence. jQuery UI, jQuery Mobile ecosystem. Peak adoption 2009-2015 (>75% of sites). Decline 2018+ with React/Vue and ES6.