Modern web development offers an incredible variety of tools, libraries, and frameworks to build web sites/applications. As of 2016, jQuery, React, Angular, and Vue are the most popular front-end libraries/frameworks in use. They can all be used to build and accomplish similar things, but in different ways. What are the advantages/disadvantages of each? How does each approach vary? What do the new tools of React, Vue, and Angular 2 offer that Angular 1, JavaScript, and vanilla JS didn’t?

In this 3 part tutorial series, we’re going to build a simple pomodoro timer as a means to compare vanilla JavaScript, jQuery, React, Angular 1, Angular 2 and Vue.

What is a pomodoro timer?

The pomodoro timer is an easy-to-use productivity method. Using this method, you work in 25 minute spurts with 5 minute breaks in between. Many people find it helpful for helping them focus and work on tasks during the day.

Project Overview

In this tutorial, first we will create a pomodoro timer using vanilla javascript. Then, we will re-create the same pomodoro timer using jQuery.

Here is how the final version of pomodoro timer built using vanilla javascript looks like :

See the Pen Pomodoro Timer : : Javascript by Raj Gupta (@rajdgreat007) on CodePen.



Here is how the final version of pomodoro timer built using jQuery looks like :

See the Pen Pomodoro Timer : : jQuery by Raj Gupta (@rajdgreat007) on CodePen.



Our pomodoro timer shows minutes, seconds, and gives simple control buttons. It’s a simple timer but can give enormous productivity gains if used right.

Building the Pomodoro Timer : Javascript

Let’s first write the html code to create various elements of the pomodoro timer.

<div id="pomodoro-app"> <div id="container"> <div id="timer"> <div id="time"> <span id="minutes">25</span> <span id="colon">:</span> <span id="seconds">00</span> </div> <div id="filler"></div> </div> <div id="buttons"> <button id="work">Work</button> <button id="shortBreak">Short Break</button> <button id="longBreak">Long Break</button> <button id="stop">Stop</button> </div> </div> </div>

As you can see, nothing fancy here. Just a container with the timer and control buttons. We will be using a background filler that will keep increasing as time progresses.

Let’s apply some css to the above markup to make it look nice.

#container{ border:1px solid #333; border-radius :20px; width:400px; margin:20px auto; padding:20px; text-align:center; background : #333; } #timer{ color:#f00; font-size:50px; margin:10px auto; border : 5px solid red; border-radius:50%; width:200px; height:200px; overflow:hidden; position:relative; -webkit-user-select: none; -moz-user-select: none; -ms-user-select: none; user-select: none; cursor:default; #time{ margin-top:70px; z-index : 1; position:relative; } /* filler width is set to 200px (i.e. equal to width of the timer) so that it completely covers the timer in background. The height is initially set to 0px and it increases as timer progresses to give background fill effect. */ #filler{ background : #ddffcc; height: 0px; width: 200px; position:absolute; bottom:0; } #buttons button { background:#4da6ff; border:none; color:#fff; cursor:pointer; padding:5px; width:90px; margin:10px auto; font-size:14px; height : 50px; border-radius : 50px; } #buttons button#shortBreak{ background : #0c0; } #buttons button#longBreak{ background : #080; } #buttons button#stop{ background : #f00; }

Now the timer looks nice, but there is no functionality associated with it yet. Let’s add javascript to make it functional.

We will be using object oriented javascript in which all of the variables and functions of the pomodoro timer will be encapsulated inside an object. Below is the basic structure of the code :

var pomodoro = { ...…………. ……………. init: function() { } …………… ……………. }; //The pomodoro object consists of variables and methods in key value pairs. window.onload = function() { pomodoro.init(); }; /* window.onload method is used to make sure that page and DOM are loaded before we call init method as it queries and manipulates DOM. */ Let’ s add variables and other methods which are needed to make the pomodoro timer work. var pomodoro = { started: false, /* started variable stores the state of the timer. If it is true, it means that some task (work, short break, long break) is going on with pomodoro timer. If it is false, it means that the pomodoro is not yet started or it is stopped (by clicking stop button) */ minutes: 0, /* minutes variable stores current minute which is displayed in the pomodoro. */ seconds: 0, /* seconds variable stores current second which is displayed in the pomodoro. */ fillerHeight: 0, /* fillerHeight variable stores the height of the background filler. Initially it is set to 0. As soon as a pomodoro task starts, its height starts increasing (by a value which is stored in fillerIncrement variable) and it keeps increasing till that particular task ends. On click of stop button, it is again set to 0. */ fillerIncrement: 0, /* fillerIncrement variable stores the value by which fillerHeight should increase. */ interval: null, /* interval variable stores the reference id of the currently running interval. If we need to clear the interval, we will need this variable. Although in the demo, we are not clearing the interval, it’s always a good idea to clear the interval at some point. */ minutesDom: null, /* minutesDom : It stores the reference of the minutes element of pomodoro. It’s good to store the reference so that it can be reused instead of querying the DOM again for the same element. */ secondsDom: null, /* secondsDom variable stores the reference of the seconds element of pomodoro. */ fillerDom: null, /* fillerDom variable stores the reference of the filler element of pomodoro. */ init: function() { /* Init method initializes the variables and set event listeners for all buttons. It also starts the interval due to which a callback function (intervalCallback) is called after every 1 second and updates the DOM depending on the task which is in execution. */ var self = this; this.minutesDom = document.querySelector('#minutes'); /* caching the reference to seconds dom object */ this.secondsDom = document.querySelector('#seconds'); /* caching the reference to seconds dom object */ this.fillerDom = document.queryS elector('#filler '); /* caching the reference to background filler dom object */ this.interval = setInterval(function() { self.intervalCallback.apply(self); }, 1000); /* adding the listener to be called when user clicks 'Work’ button */ document.querySelector('#work').onclick = function() { self.startWork.apply(self); }; /* adding the listener to be called when user clicks 'Short Break’ button */ document.querySelector('#shortBreak').onclick = function() { self.startShortBreak.apply(self); }; /* adding the listener to be called when user clicks 'Long Break’ button */ document.querySelector('#longBreak').onclick = function() { self.startLongBreak.apply(self); }; /* adding the listener to be called when user clicks 'Stop’ button */ document.querySelector('#stop').onclick = function() { self.stopTimer.apply(self); }; }, /* resetVariables will be called for each of the actions (work, Short Break, Long Break, Stop) to set the value of variables to the corresponding action values */ resetVariables: function(mins, secs, started) { this.minutes = mins; this.seconds = secs; this.started = started; this.fillerIncrement = 200 / (this.minutes * 60); this.fillerHeight = 0; }, startWork: function() { this.resetVariables(25, 0, true); }, startShortBreak: function() { this.resetVariables(5, 0, true); }, startLongBreak: function() { this.resetVariables(15, 0, true); }, stopTimer: function() { this.resetVariables(25, 0, false); this.updateDom(); }, toDoubleDigit: function(num) { /* If num is single digit (0-9), it is prepended with a '0’ and resulting string is returned. If num is double digit, it is returned as such. This function is needed as we want to display ’05’ instead of '5’ in timer */ if (num & lt; 10) { return "0" + parseInt(num, 10); } return num; }, /* updateDom function updates the values of minutes, seconds and filler height every second, so that user can see the remaining time and background fill height changing continuously */ updateDom: function() { this.minutesDom.innerHTML = this.toDoubleDigit(this.minutes); this.secondsDom.innerHTML = this.toDoubleDigit(this.seconds); this.fillerHeight = this.fillerHeight + this.fillerIncrement; this.fillerDom.style.height = this.fillerHeight + 'px'; }, /* intervalCallback function is called each second, updates the value of minutes and seconds variables and calls updateDom function to reflect the updates in timer */ intervalCallback: function() { if (!this.started) return false; if (this.seconds == 0) { if (this.minutes == 0) { this.timerComplete(); /* As soon as both minutes and seconds variables become zero, it means that the timer is complete and it can be stopped now*/ return; } this.seconds = 59; this.minutes--; } else { this.seconds--; } this.updateDom(); }, timerComplete: function() { this.started = false; this.fillerHeight = 0; } }; window.onload = function() { pomodoro.init(); };

Building the Pomodoro Timer : jQuery

Now we’re going to build this exact same app in jQuery. The HTML and CSS are exactly same as that of above.

var pomodoro = { /* All the variables and functions below have same meanings as described in javascript pomodoro code. The difference is only in how we will achieve the same functionality using jQuery code */ started: false, minutes: 0, seconds: 0, fillerHeight: 0, fillerIncrement: 0, interval: null, minutesDom: null, secondsDom: null, fillerDom: null, init: function() { var self = this; this.minutesDom = $('#minutes'); /* slower as compared to document.querySelector('#minutes’) */ this.secondsDom = $('#seconds'); this.fillerDom = $('#filler'); this.interval = setInterval(function() { self.intervalCallback.apply(self); }, 1000); /* adding the click handlers for work, short break, long break and stop buttons */ $('#work').click(function() { self.startWork.apply(self); }); $('#shortBreak').click(function() { self.startShortBreak.apply(self); }); $('#longBreak').click(function() { self.startLongBreak.apply(self); }); $('#stop').click(function() { self.stopTimer.apply(self); }); }, resetVariables: function(mins, secs, started) { this.minutes = mins; this.seconds = secs; this.started = started; this.fillerIncrement = 200 / (this.minutes * 60); this.fillerHeight = 0; }, startWork: function() { this.resetVariables(25, 0, true); }, startShortBreak: function() { this.resetVariables(5, 0, true); }, startLongBreak: function() { this.resetVariables(15, 0, true); }, stopTimer: function() { this.resetVariables(25, 0, false); this.updateDom(); }, toDoubleDigit: function(num) { if (num & lt; 10) { return "0" + parseInt(num, 10); } return num; }, updateDom: function() { this.minutesDom.text(this.toDoubleDigit(this.minutes)); this.secondsDom.text(this.toDoubleDigit(this.seconds)); this.fillerHeight = this.fillerHeight + this.fillerIncrement; this.fillerDom.css('height', this.fillerHeight + 'px'); }, intervalCallback: function() { if (!this.started) return false; if (this.seconds == 0) { if (this.minutes == 0) { this.timerComplete(); return; } this.seconds = 59; this.minutes--; } else { this.seconds--; } this.updateDom(); }, timerComplete: function() { this.started = false; this.fillerHeight = 0; } }; $(document).ready(function() { pomodoro.init(); });

First of all, I would like to mention that jQuery is a huge library. In our pomodoro app, we have used a very small subset of the features that it offers. This is the biggest disadvantage of using jQuery for our case because we will be loading entire library and because of that, the page load time will be much higher as compared to javascript’s pomodoro app. In huge pages, using jQuery makes a lot of sense.

In the above code we are using $(‘#minutes’) for caching the minutes DOM element. As a matter of fact, javascript’s document.querySelector(‘#minutes’) is way faster than jQuery’s $(‘#minutes’). This speed difference could not be realised in a small app (such as a pomodoro timer) but it is relevant for large pages where there is intensive DOM query. Javascript’s document.getElementById(‘minutes’) is even faster than document.querySelector(‘#minutes’). So, the speed of executions has the following order :

document.getElementById(‘minutes’) > document.querySelector(‘#minutes’) > $(‘#minutes’)

The reason for the above speed difference being, under the hood $(‘#minutes’) boils down to document.getElementById(‘minutes’) wrapped by jQuery wrapper. But when we say $(‘#minutes’), jQuery has to a lot of work in identifying if the argument is a string, does it contain spaces, it starts with a ‘.’ or a ‘#’ or is it a tagname and so on. This extra work takes time and hence reduces the speed.

Although, jQuery is at disadvantage because its DOM query speed is less as compared to javascript but when it comes to code convenience, jQuery is far ahead of javascript.

In the pomodoro app created using javascript, we can easily spot long lines of code whereas in the app created using jquery, the code seems relatively short. That means, if we are using jQuery, we have to type less as compared to javascript to achieve the same functionality. Whereas in javascript there are different methods to query DOM (by id, class and tagname), in jQuery, one single selector takes care of all of them.

Moreover, javascript’s document.querySelector(‘#work’) will not work in all the browsers. It may break in IE8. On the other hand, jQuery’s $(‘#work’) is guaranteed to work in all the browsers. The reason is, all jQuery’s methods are standardised to work across all browsers.

Additionally, jQuery provides support for chaining which means that we can chain a method call at the end of another method call and save few bytes by saving the amount of code required to be written if chaining was not supported. For example, we can do the following in jQuery :

$('#work’).css('background’,’#999’).show()

Here we have chained show() method at the end of css() method. On the other hand, javascript doesn’t support method chaining.

In jQuery, we are using $(document).ready(), to make sure that DOM is ready before we query it. In javascript, we used window.onload event to achieve the same. jQuery’s $(document).ready() event occurs earlier as compared to window.onload of javascript because the latter occurs after the DOM is loaded and all the resources (scripts, images etc) are also loaded.

Last but not the least, while writing javascript code, there is big scope for writing inefficient code. jQuery library on the other hand, is tested over time and highly optimised. Thus, if used carefully, the scope for writing inefficient code using jQery is very less as compared to javascript.

Conclusion

We created two pomodoro apps, one using vanilla javascript and other using jQuery. The two approaches are fairly similar, but jQuery offers an easier syntax in querying for elements and offers shorter (albeit slower) ways of doing things compared to JavaScript.

The differences between libraries/frameworks will get much more interesting in future posts, where we use Angular, React, and Vue to build this same app.