How does the arrival of HTML5 and CSS3 affect jQuery?

Question

About a year ago I picked up my first HTML book (XHTML). I have since built two simple websites with XHTML and CSS. I have also studied the basics of JavaScript.

I now want to learn jQuery.

I am not sure how, if at all, HTML5 and CSS3 make some parts of jQuery redundant - does it?

According to the reviews the best book on jQuery seems to be ‘jQuery in Action’, published 2007.

Do I need to proceed with caution when approaching jQuery, given HTML5 and CSS3? Can someone advise me?

Answer 1

No, learning jQuery is still fine and what you learn will continue to work. While many things are possible using CSS3 that jQuery may have been required for before, many still required javascript and others are not implemented in older browsers.

Answer 2

There is no reason why you can't learn all 3 at the same time. jQuery is fairly easy to get a grasp on for the simple stuff. I recommend the jQuery Cookbook by o'reilly. HTML5 is still changing, but you can play with it now in most modern browsers. The latest versions of jQuery also take these changes into account, so your learning basic jQuery does not become obsolete.

The areas to beware are using the more obscure jQuery plugins, which may not have been tested as thoroughly on all browsers or kept up to date with html5 changes.

Whenever possible I try to use HTML5 and CSS3 if the feature is well supported on the 4 major browsers and seems stable. Otherwise I fall back to jQuery to implement the feature I need.