After reading that and https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LPaPA30bLUB_publLIMF0Rlh... I've decided I probably do need jQuery.

This is an interesting resource but as andybak pointed out jQuery does a lot more than just this. Even so I've bookmarked it for reference if I ever need to do something that I would normally do in jQuery when I don't have it.