random gif generator

October, 2022

For this project I have to make an AJAX request to the Giphy API and return a GIF. Then I have to append the GIF to the page while allowing the user to continue searching for as many GIFs as they want and keep appending them to the page.

This was a fun little project because everything was a new topic to me. I had to learn about AJAX, jQuery, how the web works, and how to integrate APIs into my project. All this came after I had just started learning about DOM manipulation so it was interesting to see the difference between just using vanilla JavaScript and jQuery. It was my first time using an API key and going through some documentation for how to use the API. It was fun!

I was told that jQuery is not viewed as being as essential as it once was, due to cross browser compatibility with JavaScript not being much of an issue nowadays. But I went ahead and tried to build a little project using it because I know it's still widely being used. Even if I don't develop with it professionally I will probably need to have a good understanding of it in case I need to do work on a project that still uses jQuery.