jQuery Foundation becomes the JS Foundation

Oct 17, 2016 21:30 GMT  ·  By

Today, the Linux Foundation announced the creation of a new entity named the JS Foundation that will serve as an umbrella project and guiding force for various open-source utilities at the heart of the JavaScript ecosystem.

The JS Foundation's primary mission is to help manage and fund projects, but also cultivate best practices in the JavaScript ecosystem.

The Linux Foundation is already heavily invested in the JS ecosystem

The Linux Foundation previously helped create the Node.js Foundation in 2015, after the Node.js community almost tore itself to shreds, forking the original Node.js codebase into two different projects, io.js and Node.js.

After the creation of the Node.js Foundation under the tutelage of the Linux Foundation, the two projects merged back into one single codebase and everything is fine again in the Node.js community.

The JS Foundation follows the model of the Node.js Foundation. Founding members will support various JavaScript projects, through technical guidance and human resources, but also financially.

IBM and Samsung among founding members

The list of founding members includes Bocoup, IBM, Ripple, Samsung, Sauce Labs, Sense Tecnic Systems, SitePen, StackPath, University of Westminster, and WebsiteSetup.

In alphabetical order, the JS Foundation's initial projects are Appium, Chassis, Dojo Toolkit, ESLint, Esprima, Globalize, Grunt, Interledger.js, Intern, Jed, JerryScript, jQuery, jQuery Mobile, jQuery UI, Lodash, Mocha, Moment, Node-RED, PEP, QUnit, RequireJS, Sizzle, and webpack.

Most of these are top-shelf JavaScript projects, used by millions of developers around the globe.

By agreeing to join the JS Foundation, these projects will benefit from a common development strategy that will eliminate some of the chaos currently found in the JavaScript community.

The Foundation will set a common goal for all projects to follow and will help finance core projects that are the backbone of most JavaScript projects today, for server-side applications, browsers, cloud apps and IoT devices.

The jQuery Foundation becomes the JS Foundation

At the core of the JS Foundation is the old jQuery Foundation, the organization behind the once hugely popular jQuery JavaScript framework.  

While jQuery usage has gone down, many developers have wondered whether the jQuery framework is still relevant today, with more efficient tools available on the market.

"Using jQuery can constitute the use of a sledgehammer for putting small nails into an Ikea TV stand; however, as a piece of engineering, it really is a thing of beauty," says A. M. Douglas, a British freelance web developer.

"[T]he word 'jQuery' has become synonymous with 'JavaScript' for many. As of today, jQuery's days as a relevant tool are indeed numbered, but I think jQuery's source code will always have relevance, as it is a brilliant example to study for anybody seeking to learn and master JavaScript," Douglas also adds.

With jQuery slowly bowing out to newer tools, the jQuery Foundation's members and their unmatched expertise will most likely be put to good use in managing the slew of new tools making up today's JavaScript landscape.  

Project Contributor Description
JS Foundation initial projects
Appium Sauce Labs, Inc. Appium is an open-source, Node.js server used for automating native, mobile web, and hybrid applications on iOS, Android and the Universal Windows Platform.
Chassis jQuery Foundation Chassis is an attempt at creating open standards designed for CSS libraries, JavaScript UI libraries, and web developers in general. This project will define standards for markup and class names for common widgets and patterns, as well as an implementation of those standards.
Dojo Toolkit jQuery Foundation The Dojo Toolkit offers rapid, modular development with great tools to test and optimize production performance, with no compile step for web and mobile web applications.
ESLint jQuery Foundation ESLint is an open source project originally created by Nicholas C. Zakas in June 2013. Its goal is to provide a pluggable linting utility for JavaScript.
Esprima jQuery Foundation Esprima is a high performance, standard-compliant ECMAScript parser written in ECMAScript (also popularly known as JavaScript).
Globalize jQuery Foundation Globalize is a JavaScript library for internationalization and localization that leverages the official Unicode CLDR JSON data.
Grunt jQuery Foundation Grunt is a JavaScript command line utility designed to help automate repetitive project tasks such as minification, compilation, unit testing, linting and deployment.
Interledger.js Interledger Team Interledger.js enables instant payments and micropayments in any currency, across many payment networks using the Interledger Protocol (ILP).
Intern SitePen Intern is a complete test stack for JavaScript designed to help you write and run consistent, high-quality test cases for your JavaScript libraries and applications.
Jed jQuery Foundation Jed is a collection of interoperable tools to help facilitate the full process of internationalizing applications in JavaScript.
JerryScript Samsung JerryScript is a lightweight, fully-featured JavaScript engine for Internet of Things devices, which implements the full ECMAScript 5.1 standard bringing the approachability and power of JavaScript to the IoT space and supports on-device compilation, execution and provides access to peripherals from JavaScript.
jQuery jQuery Foundation jQuery is a fast, small, and feature-rich JavaScript library. It makes things like HTML document traversal and manipulation, event handling, animation, and Ajax much simpler with an easy-to-use API that works across a multitude of browsers.
jQuery Mobile jQuery Foundation jQuery Mobile is a unified, HTML5-based user interface system for all popular mobile device platforms, built on the rock-solid jQuery and jQuery UI foundation. Its lightweight code is built with progressive enhancement, and has a flexible, easily themeable design.
jQuery UI jQuery Foundation jQuery UI is a curated set of user interface interactions, effects, widgets, and themes built on top of the jQuery JavaScript Library. Whether you’re building highly interactive web applications or you just need to add a date picker to a form control, jQuery UI is the perfect choice.
Lodash Jeremy Ashkenas, DocumentCloud, and others Lodash is a modern JavaScript utility library delivering modularity, performance & extras. Lodash makes JavaScript easier by taking the hassle out of working with arrays, numbers, objects, strings, etc.
Mocha TJ Holowaychuk Mocha is a feature-rich JavaScript testing framework providing a command-line interface for Node.js as well as in-browser project testing capabilities.
Moment Tim Wood, Iskren Chernev, Moment.js contributors Moment is a lightweight JavaScript date library for parsing, validating, manipulating, and formatting dates and it also provides much needed time zone support to JavaScript through Moment Timezone.
Node-RED IBM Node-RED is a flow-based programming environment built on Node.js — commonly used in the IoT space — and aimed at creating event-driven applications that can easily integrate APIs and services.
PEP jQuery Foundation The PointerEvents Polyfill (PEP) is a unified event system for the web platform. (http://www.w3.org/TR/pointerevents/)
QUnit jQuery Foundation QUnit is a powerful, easy-to-use JavaScript unit testing framework. It’s used by the jQuery, jQuery UI and jQuery Mobile projects and is capable of testing any generic JavaScript code, including itself!
RequireJS jQuery Foundation RequireJS is a JavaScript file and module loader. It is optimized for in-browser use, but it can be used in other JavaScript environments, like Rhino and Node.
Sizzle jQuery Foundation Sizzle is a pure-JavaScript CSS selector engine designed to be easily dropped in to a host library.
webpack Tobias Koppers webpack is a bundler for modules and is primarily used to bundle JavaScript files for usage in a browser. It is also capable of transforming, bundling, or packaging just about any resource or asset.