title: JS Framework that doesn't use CSS selectors?
body: <p>A thing that I noticed about most JavaScript frameworks is that the most common way to find/access the DOM elements is to use CSS selectors. </p>
  
  <p>However this usually requires the framework to include a CSS selector parser, because they need to support selectors, that the browser natively doesn't, foremost the frameworks own proprietary extensions.</p>
  
  <p>I would think that these parsers are large and slow. Wouldn't it be more efficient to have something that doesn't require a parser, such a chained method calls? </p>
  
  <p>Some like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>id("example").children().class("test").hasAttribute("href")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>instead of</p>
  
  <pre><code>$("#example &gt; .test[href]")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Are there any frameworks around that do something like this? And how do they compare with jQuery and friends in regard to performance and size?</p>
  
  <p>EDIT: You can consider this a theoretical discussion topic. I don't plan to use anything other than jQuery in any practical projects in near furure. I was just wondering why there aren't any other, possibly better approaches.</p>