The Pragmatic Craftsman :: Simplicity from complexity : by Stanley Kubasek ::

I’ve just starting learning and using it, but I can already say: wow! It’ssome powerful stuff. I’ll go even further, if you are doing any webdevelopment, whether you work on front or backend, you should learn theframework. It will make you a better developer and make your lifeeasier. Plus, it’s arguably the most popular webdev framework. You’ll probably have to work with it at some point.

You will really appreciate jquery if you have done JavaScript development.Its much easier to do the simple stuff, and you can do stuff you couldonly dream (or really suffer) in pure JS.  Ajax – built in. Selecting elements you need on the page? Very simple: one line in jquery. Special effects? Moving/sliding/fading a div — one method call! There are numerous nice features like this built in!

jQuery does require a bit of a learning curve. If you see the syntaxfor the first time, it might scare you. It looks cryptic, perl like.But once you know how to read it, it’s really not difficult.

There are many ways of accomplishing the same thing in jQuery. Somemore readable than others. This is where you can show your skills, yourcraftsmanship. As I have written before, it is always easier to write complex code, code that is harder to maintain. Programmer’s love complexity.  But you should always write code for others to read and modify. That’strue in any language, but especially important in ‘criptic’ syntax. Butthis is what sets you apart from others, no?

I’m learning jQuery. I think it will help me accomplish things faster. It will make me a better software developer.

Here’s are some of the resources I’ve come across on jQuery.

Reference
jQuery in Action — excellent book on jQuery
Learning jQuery – another excellent book
Simplify Ajax development with jQuery, good article
Visual jQuery – a very good resource, you’ll probably spend a lot of time on it