Yes as we all know it... JavaScript sucks! It's been around since the dawn of time and it's slow even on "optimized" web browsers. Most of the time it doesn't even make sense, especially at 2 or 3 am the night before a project is due and your scrambling to try and get things done! But wait...there is light at the end of the tunnel: Enter jQuery. 

This little gem simplifies JavaScript programming, while increasing speed and usability of the code. It works across multiple browsers, it has a light foot print, and is CSS3 compliant!  Everything good so far it seems. But let's look a bit deeper.

So how does it work?

Include the jquery library which can be downloaded here. And then program JavaScript like normal, following there syntax and structure. Which can be found in their documentation here.

So why use it?  It is just JavaScript....

Well first off it simplifies the code, there are now functions which cover such things as waiting for the page to load before executing code. Table manipulation is made simple. Summary things which would take 10-20 lines of code now take just one function call. This alone makes it worth learning!

E.G.
$("p.neat").addClass("ohmy").show("slow");  will display a box which appears slowly. This is from their home page.

Summary

I would strongly recommend looking into jQuery if you haven't already. It is awesome and its the next evolution in JavaScript programming.