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The result is a a bit schizophrenic; it mostly looks like jQuery, but events look a bit more like jQueryPrototype. It also doesn't have jQuery's concept of operating on a matched set of elements.
The abstraction is both transitional and permanent. It is transitional in that it is about allowing existing sites with a heavy investment in Prototype to continue to operate with Prototype in the mix. It is permanent in in that it is desirable for third party library developers to keep an abstraction layer between Tapestry's client-side code and any underlying framework, so that particular applications can provide their own abstraction layer and operate without breaking built-in components.
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