This function constructs an HTML element and returns it, wrapped in a jQuery object

htmlElem.js

/**
 * Constructs and returns an HTML element wrapped in a jQuery object
 *
 * @param {String} tag Name of the HTML element
 * @param {Object} attr Map of attribute key/value pairs for the HTML element
 * @param {String} content Content to be directly inserted inside HTML tags
 */
function htmlElem(tag, attr, content) {
    tag = tag || 'div'; attr = attr || ''; content = content || ''; // optional parameters
    var htmlString = '<' + tag
    for (var a in attr) {
        if (attr[a] !== '') htmlString += (' ' + a + '="' + attr[a] + '"');
    }
    return $(htmlString += ('>' + content + '</' + tag + '>'));
}

I was only on my second programming project ever when I wrote this—I discovered templating shortly thereafter!