I think they did the right thing, but I dont really like what John says about not changing the API for the major release 2.0.

With their knowledge, user base and fame they have the oportunity to redefine jQuery v2 completely with the things learned from v1 and everybody would learn it and use it.

Dont let fear to change crush the will to improve and move on. On a major release, one has todo what it has to do.

Yeah, I agree that 2.0 would be a great time to really innovate. I understand breaking sites with a point upgrade could be met with a lot of resistance. What they have built though is probably good enough that they could soon afford to branch off with something new for 2.0 and those that don't want to rebuild their code to take advantage could happily stay on the 1.x branch.

That sure worked magnificently for Python and PHP.

The problem with branching off like that is that now you're suddenly faced with a fragmented community. The worst thing of which being that everything is written for the "old" branch. Then nobody wants to use the new branch because there are less batteries included.

When nobody wants to use the new version, no new batteries get added.

It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Transition to Python 3 is going well and according to schedule AFAIK.

You might be right with Python, I think with PHP though it was pain that was needed if the language was going to be around long term.

PHP's growing pains are more akin to a bonsai kitten than a pre-teen.

Perhaps the thing to do is declare victory and stop changing the API. If the jQuery core didn't change for a few years, would anyone really mind?

(Performance and compatibility improvements are always welcome, though.)

I still like this "jQuery 2": http://ejohn.org/apps/jquery2/

That looks like the CoffeeScript version of jQuery.

The selectedIndex example really nailed down why .prop() exists, at least for me.