Archive October 2011

#1 Crime of jQuery – DOM Abuse

October 31, 2011 in Jquery

The Crime

Here is an example,

$(function(){
  $('#id').change(function(){
    //do stuff
  });

  $('#id').css('border-color', '#ff0000');
  var val = $('#id').val();
});

See what is happening here?
There are several calls to $(‘#id’).

The reasoning

Why is this so bad?
Well, imagine the DOM as a giant pool of all elements on your page, every time you call $(‘#id’) you are diving into the pool and swimming around until you find the element you need. That adds some serious overhead on every call!

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