Programming at a High Level

Jeff Atwood (of the Coding Horror blog) this week pointed out that there are many new high-level JavaScript libraries that allow you to ignore the lower-level JavaScript incompatibilities between browsers. I have used JQuery and can also vouch that using JQuery is incredibly fun and easy to program with.

This is more broadly applicable to other programming languages and libraries, too: Use the highest-level interface that you are able to use to accomplish your task. For example, don't use C when you can use C++. Don't use JavaScript when you can use JQuery. Don't use C++ when you can use C#. Don't use Perl when you can use Ruby.

References:

1. Secrets of the Scripting Ninjas (Coding Horror blog post)