Actually, people should know JavaScript better before even hearing about jQuery... I lost count of how many times I heard people saying they know how to "program in jQuery" and that made me really sad/angry regarding how people lack curiosity and knowledge in their own field...

Not only that, but with current modern browsers, you might not even need jquery at all ;) http://youmightnotneedjquery.com/

This should be, "Do you know JavaScript inside out?". Native JS is where people should be starting.

Exactly...

As crockford would say "The World's Most Misunderstood Programming Language Has Become the World's Most Popular Programming Language" http://javascript.crockford.com/popular.html

jQuery -- The world's most popular misunderstanding ...

I barely use jquery at all and build rather large JS applications. YMMV

Angular is making a run at replacing jQuery as we speak. It still lacks some of the easing and visual effects, but can do most of what jQuery is known for.

http://paulhammant.com/2012/03/03/replacing-jquery-with-angu...

"Don’t even use jQuery. Don’t even include it. It will hold you back. And when you come to a problem that you think you know how to solve in jQuery already, before you reach for the $, try to think about how to do it within the confines the AngularJS. If you don’t know, ask! 19 times out of 20, the best way to do it doesn’t need jQuery and to try to solve it with jQuery results in more work for you."

... and yes, of course you should know JavaScript inside out first. That's why I wrote https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/A_re...