The main drawback is that it doesn't help people learn Javascript at all. And then it's hard to get information and help with JS because practically every result returns a jQuery plugin or something that uses jQuery. And as a result of that people think, "oh, I need jQuery installed to do some javascript on my site." And then other people complain, "this script isn't jQuery I can't-" ... oh.
Wouldn't it actually be better if JS implementations were actually standardised so its behaviour across browsers was totally predictable and reliable?
> redefines a bunch of jQuery functions
Just clocked this. jQuery redefines more than just a bunch of javascript functions as well as then redefining its own. It's a bit of a mess.
