Treehouse launches jQuery courses for ‘pieces of flair’

Learn-to-code company Treehouse has just launched a new bit of coursework for jQuery, the popular JavaScript library.

“We chose to launch a course on jQuery because it’s the easiest way for nonprogrammers to add interactivity, animation, and flair to their websites,” said Treehouse founder Ryan Carson in an emailed statement. “It’s a layer on top of JavaScript that makes it insanely easy to make your site really fun and interactive.”

This addition is part of Treehouse’s expansion into some of the most popular web programming technologies.

Just six weeks ago, Treehouse came out with coursework to teach PHP, or “Internet English,” as Carson called it. And last month, the startup followed up with coursework on WordPress development — which itself requires some grasp of PHP.

Treehouse started out with coursework and games revolving around the utter basics of web development and design: JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

“We want to help people who can’t afford traditional education, want to change careers [or] don’t have access to cutting edge design/dev training at their school,” Carson said in a recent VentureBeat interview.

“No one will be able to succeed in their job in the future without that basic skill set,” he added in a later chat. “It’s like being able to do math or write or read.”

The jQuery courses take Treehouse learners a bit father down that garden path. It teaches budding web devs how to use the multibrowser JavaScript library for client-side HTML scripting, making it easier for devs to build animations, interactions, and other dynamic content into their creations.

“Web designers and developers put in the time to learn CSS, and they can build on that with jQuery,” said Treehouse instructor Andrew Chalkley in a statement on the news.

“With CSS they add style, with jQuery they add interactivity and behavior using the same CSS selectors. Previously developers would have to slightly change context when selecting elements with JavaScript alone and then have the headache with cross-browser compatibility. jQuery offers a lower barrier to entry with JavaScript.”