Wijmo 5 is Dependency-free

When we released Wijmo 5, back in October, it had a single dependency: jQuery. In our latest release, build 23, we removed that dependency. Wijmo 5 does not require jQuery or any other external libraries anymore. We are very happy about this for a number of reasons:

• Smaller, faster downloads: Minified versions of jQuery vary in size between 45k and 90k, depending on the version. That’s not too bad, but it is significant considering that the Wijmo core module is about 50k in size.
• Better performance: jQuery has many nice features, but those add overhead and in many cases cause less-than-optimal performance. Completely removing jQuery from Wijmo 5 made it even lighter and faster than before.
• Simpler/Easier deployment: Fewer dependencies means fewer headaches coordinating, testing, and deploying different versions of libraries. If you use jQuery in your applications, you can now update it whenever you want and not worry about the effects the update will have on Wijmo. It won’t have any.

We still like jQuery and use it in some of our samples, but it’s now a choice and not a requirement. Download the latest version of Wijmo 5 to get the first independent version of Wijmo!