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What makes vanilla JS vanilla?

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Yesterday, there was a good discussion around my article about when using libraries stops being vanilla JS.

I was a bit fuzzy about where to draw the line. Here’s a more firm stake in the ground:

If you can’t pass standard JavaScript objects into your helpers (like how jQuery requires jQuery objects to work), or if the objects your library spits out can’t be funneled into another vanilla JS function without converting it somehow… not vanilla.

My buddy (and accessibility expert) Scott O’Hara has an even simpler definition:

This is no longer vanilla JS when I have to learn new syntax to use it.

What do you think?