Microsoft taps JQuery for Visual Studio

Sample JavaScript using JQuery.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft said Sunday that it plans to ship the JQuery JavaScript library with its Visual Studio developer tool suite.

The software powerhouse said that jQuery would be one of the libraries used to implement higher-level controls in the ASP.net Ajax Control Toolkit, and would also have a role in new Ajax server-side helper methods. The 15KB JQuery JavaScript library will be distributed as is, with no forking, and files will continue to adhere to the JQuery MIT license.

In addition, Microsoft said that it would contribute tests, bug fixes, and patches to the JQuery open-source project and that later this year it would extend product support to JQuery.

The announcement came in a blog post by Scott Guthrie, a vice president in Microsoft's developer division, who described the library's attraction:

A big part of the appeal of jQuery is that it allows you to elegantly (and efficiently) find and manipulate HTML elements with minimum lines of code. jQuery supports this via a nice "selector" API that allows developers to query for HTML elements, and then apply "commands" to them. One of the characteristics of jQuery commands is that they can be "chained" together - so that the result of one command can feed into another. jQuery also includes a built-in set of animation APIs that can be used as commands. The combination allows you to do some really cool things with only a few keystrokes.

Guthrie also pointed to a newly posted tutorial on Scott Hanselman's Computerzen blog about integrating JQuery with ASP.net Ajax.

Writing on the JQuery blog, John Resig said that mobile phone heavyweight Nokia also is adopting JQuery as part of its application development platform. As is the case with Microsoft, he said, Nokia isn't looking to make any changes to the library, and its developers will contribute to the JQuery project.

Resig, a lead developer of JQuery, wrote:

Nokia is looking to use jQuery to develop applications for their WebKit-based Web Run-Time. The run-time is a stripped-down browser rendering engine that allows for easy, but powerful, application development. This means that jQuery will be distributed on all Nokia phones that include the web run-time...

...The jQuery test suite is already integrated into the test suites of Mozilla and Opera and this move will see a significant level of extra testing being done on Internet Explorer and WebKit - above-and-beyond what is already done by the jQuery team.

[db2not]

JQuery is a joy to use, it is good to see it getting the respect it rightfully deserves. I have tried a number of javascript libraries and over time I have settled on JQuery as my javascript api of choice. The set of standard UI plugins that are being developed for it would make it the ultimate web platform for rich internet applications.

[`WarpKat]

With guarded optimism. I've been watching MS with a lot of guarded optimism now in regards to web tech and this actually seems like a genuine move with some genuine return to the project. The danger for them is that forking jQuery (like what was done with Java and Visual J) would actually prove everyone correct where 'embrace-extend-extinguish' is concerned, especially since none of it is compiled, and fudging the browser so jQuery breaks would put them into a position to say, "see? Open Source doesn't work after all..."

I don't know - for some reason, I see MS finally getting the point that open source is not going away and the only way to play in tech business now is to play along - nicely. On the other hand, this is a little "too good to be true" for others' tastes...

[softwarepro]

yeah it is hard to believe MS will play nice and safe with jQuery. At some point they will touch that source code because it is open source.

In one way acceptance of open source by close code giant.

[Maccess]

Just like MS Java, huh?

[YankeePoodle]

Microsoft has absorbed many pro-open source developers into their rank and file. Codeplex is certainly not perfect but you can take a look at the source code of numerous ongoing projects in Microsoft.

Unlike the skeptics as a person who is working in Microsoft world, I see Microsoft playing nice with OpenSource since 2005