Isotope is a jQuery plugin that enables magical layouts by filtering and sorting DOM elements. While it may be possible to implement similar behaviors without Isotope using only JavaScript and jQuery, it would likely be more difficult. Knowing Isotope provides the benefit of being able to easily implement these interactions, even if the plugin was not widely known and did not have a distinctive name. General programming ability and skills with JavaScript and jQuery would remain valuable regardless of experience with any specific libraries or plugins.