Passing dollar sign ($) to function
<p>I'm working with some jquery that someone else wrote that looks like the following code and was wondering why the dollar sign should be passed to the javascript updateTextareas function.  </p>

<p>It is using 2 arguments: $, $textareas.  It seems to work fine with only one argument ($textareas).  </p>

<p>I'm trying to figure out why the author would pass in the $ as the first argument in the updateTextareas function below:</p>

<pre><code>( function($) 
{
    // why would the first argument ($) need to be passed here?
    function updateTextareas($, $textareas)
    {
        $textareas.each(function()
        {
            alert($(this).val());
        });
    }   

    // document ready
    $(function()
    {
        updateTextareas($, $('textarea.bio') );
});
} )(jQuery);
</code></pre>
