Why rely on Jquery?

[LTLA]

(Part of openjournals/joss-reviews#6617)

It seems like some of the C++ calls are converted into Javascript code that uses Jquery (see the various $(...) calls in include/emp/web). Is this really necessary? It adds a Jquery dependency to all downstream web applications that might not otherwise use it. From what I see, many of the Jquery calls in this library involve manipulating with DOM elements, so why not just use vanilla javascript (e.g., document.getElementById)?

In any case, if you really do need Jquery, this should be explicitly documented somewhere. I didn't see it discussed in any obvious place in the documentation.

[mercere99]

You are correct -- Jquery seemed like it was going to be a big help when we first started using it in Empirical, but none of the functionality it provides is critical anymore, especially since we are working with auto-generated JavaScript code. We have planned to remove it for a while now and need to escalate the priority of that improvement to reduce the dependencies.

[mmore500]

Opened PR #512 for this.

[mmore500]

Fixed in #512 !