jQuery

Backbone.js gives structure to web applications by providing models with key-value binding and custom events, collections with a rich API of enumerable functions, views with declarative event handling, and connects it all to your existing API over a RESTful JSON interface. When working on a web application that involves a lot of JavaScript, one of the first things you learn is to stop tying your data to the DOM. It's all too easy to create JavaScript applications that end up as tangled piles of jQuery selectors and callbacks, all trying frantically to keep data in sync between the HTML UI, your JavaScript logic, and the database on your server. For rich client-side applications, a more structured approach is often helpful. With Backbone, you represent your data as Models, which can be created, validated, destroyed, and saved to the server.

Velocity is an animation engine with the same API as jQuery's animate. It works with and without jQuery. It's incredibly fast, and it features color animation, transforms, loops, easings, SVG support, and scrolling. It is the best of jQuery and CSS transitions combined. Download Velocity, include it on your page and replace all instances of jQuery's animate with velocity. You will immediately see a performance boost across all browsers and devices, especially on mobile. Velocity works everywhere, back to IE8 and Android 2.3. Under the hood, it mimics jQuery's queue, and thus interoperates seamlessly with jQuery's animate, fade, and delay. Since Velocity's syntax is identical to animate, your code doesn't need to change. JavaScript and jQuery are falsely conflated. JavaScript animation, which Velocity uses, is fast; it's jQuery that's slow. Although Velocity works alongside jQuery, it uses its own animation stack that delivers its performance.