What are downside and advantage of method chaining in jQuery? [closed]

Answer 1

Advantages of method chaining:

1. Selector is only evaluated once for multiple operations. Better performance, smaller code.
2. Selector result can be used for multiple methods without having to assign it to a local variable. More compact code.
3. Multiple methods can more compactly be put on one line.
4. A lot more compact specifically when you want operations on consecutive different results such as $(this).next().find("span.title").closest(".section").hide();. Without chaining, you would need four different local variables where this needs none.

Disadvantages of chaining:

1. The selector result has not been saved in a local variable for more complicated uses that can't be done only with chaining.
2. Cramming too many consecutive chained methods on one line can compromise code readability if it extends to make a very long line of code. (One can still use chaining, but just insert occasional linebreaks in the chaining to avoid this).