$$$ - The bottom line

I know exactly what you are thinking: this post is about money. NOPE! It sure isn't :) This post has nothing to do with money and everything to do with JavaScript.

The dollar sign has started to pickup use in the JavaScript world lately. In most cases the dollar sign, in JavaScript, represents a class. For jQuery, $ represents the jQuery class as defined in their source code. Here is an example. You can do either of these:

jQuery("#result").html("Hello World");

$("#result").html("Hello World");

Both of those do the exact same thing; they both make the element with the results ID have the inner HTML of Hello World. The $ is useful in cutting down your JavaScript code by not having to write jQuery, Prototype, or mootools every 10 seconds.

The W3C (WWW Conference) and JavaScript traditionalists doesn't like this one bit! According to them, it isn't "standard compliant". They do have a point... there can be conflicts when using multiple JavaScript libraries. But that can be fixed... just use 1 JavaScript library.

So use the dollar sign if you want... or use the actual class name. Either way, your JavaScript framework will just work wonders!