Fisrt include jQuery as a whole into the base standard. That would help a lot.
replies(2):
> its API was a reflection of the domain. As a developer, I want to query for a node (CSS selector, xpath, etc.) to affect change and traverse to other nodes
That's what I miss about it.
Genuinely asking, I have no clue what's being alluded to without being clearly mentioned in this thread.
Array.from adds friction. The need to wrap querySelector in null checks adds friction. The fact that they are not composable in any way, shape, or form, with any DOM methods (and that DOM methods are not composable) adds friction.
jQuery was the fore-runner of fluid interface design. Nothing in the DOM before, then, or since ever thought about it. Even the new APIs are all the same 90s Java-style method calls with awkward conversions and workarounds to do anything useful.
That's why sites like "You don't need jQuery" read like bad parody: https://youmightnotneedjquery.com
E.g. what happens when it's not just one element?
$(el).addClass(className);
// vs.
el.classList.add(className);
$(selector).filter(filterFn);
// vs.
[...document.querySelectorAll(selector)].filter(filterFn);
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[1] This is the entirety of methods exposed on NodeList https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/NodeList
Instance properties
- length
Instance methods
- entries() // returns an iterator
- forEach()
- item()
- keys()
- values()
ES2025 added map, filter, flatMap, reduce, forEach, and several other methods to all iterators (including NodeList directly, I believe, but definitely its entries(), keys(), values(), if not) [1]. It'll be a year or two at current pace before that is "widely accepted baseline" in browsers, but it's great progress on these sorts of complaints.
[1] https://2ality.com/2025/06/ecmascript-2025.html#iterator-hel...
I listed all public methods and properties of NodeList. It does have a forEach, so there's not much need for `for of`
As for iterator methods, I completely forgot about that :) Yeah, you can/will be able to use them on .entries()
I did briefly forget the distinction between Iterable (has [Symbol.iterator]) and Iterator (the thing [Symbol.iterator]() returns). You can use the Iterator helpers "directly" on the NodeList with `someNodeList[Symbol.iterator]().map(…)` or `Iterator.from(someNodeList).map(…)`. There are advantages to that over `Array.from` but not many advantages over `someNodeList.entries().map(…)`.
(I partly forgot because I assumed MDN hadn't been updated with the new Iterator helpers, but of course it has [1], they are marked as "Baseline March 2025" [all browsers updated since March 2025 support them] and there is a lot of green in the browser compatibility tables. caniuse suggests Iterator.prototype.map is ~84% globally available.)
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...
It's nice that there is syntax sugar for [Symbol.iterator] in both for/of and also the spread operator/deconstruction/rest operator (things like [...someNodeList] and const [item1, item2, ...rest] = nodeList).
In theory, the only missing piece is syntax sugar for Iterator.from() if you wanted to direct chain any iterable to the iterator helperrs. But in practice, that's also part of why the explicit iterator methods like entries() already exist and those are surprisingly well implemented (and have been for a while), including on NodeList.