Question

What happens if I do not pass the jQuery object invoking the anonymous function:

$(function($) {...} 

instead of

$(function($) {...} (jQuery);

It still seems to work in all scripts so why pass it explicitly as stated everywhere on the net?

Answer 1

What if you have another library that uses $ as its main object? In that case, it is possible that the second library’s object be passed to your function and your plugin break.

Imagine that you use a library of mine called foo. In that library I use # as my global object. To use my library, you start your code with # as:

#.getAllLinks().follow();

Now imagine that you use still another library which like jQuery uses $ sign as its root object. (I think Google Analytics is such a library). In that case, the latest library to load in the browser, wins the race and takes the $ sign under control. In this case, when you want to use $ in your plugin, you’re actually referring to a wrong library. But when explicitly passing jQuery name (jQuery’s root object is both accessible using $ sign or jQuery), then you can get sure that in the scope of your plugin, you use jQuery, not another library. 🙂