November 2007
3 posts
More attempts to explain why people like jQuery →
“The reasons:
Behavior driven development (BDD)
MVC + J
Chaining of actions
CSS Selector rocks!
No more checks for presence of an element
Aids development process”
None of these are reasons I would ever suggest to someone who is choosing a framework. As someone who builds large-scale sites professionally, I view all (except for #6) of these reasons as counter-productive. It...
Writing a jQuery plugin →
Mike Alsup:
“This design pattern has enabled me to create powerful, consistently crafted plugins. I hope it helps you to do the same.”
I hate to say this once again, but jQuery is about syntax, not about programming. This article basically sums that up. It’s a lot of very basic concepts of JavaScript, but using a lot of custom notation. Either way, some of the stuff the guys...
A great run-down of ECMA 4 bug fixes →
John Resig:
“The bug fixes to JavaScript came from a number of places. Generally, however, they have come about due to aspects being under-specified, causing confusion to occur amongst language implementors.”
October 2007
32 posts
Project Management Idea from Joel on Scheduling →
Joel Spolsky:
“If you wanted to ship in six months, but you have twelve months on the schedule, you are either going to have to delay shipping, or find some features to delete. You just can’t shrink the blocks, and if you pretend you can, then you are merely depriving yourself of a useful opportunity to actually see into the future by lying to yourself about what you see there.”
...
AJAX Experience Write-Ups →
Sanjiv Jivan:
“Overall I’d say that the conference was pretty hard core with little fluff. My biggest criticism is that I don’t feel that there was enough open discussion comparing the obvious contenders and the pro’s and con’s of each. And that not all toolkits were well represented in the little open discussion that they had. The presentations were given in isolation without the hard...
Sometimes People Write Bad Code →
Jared Spool:
“Like most folks using the web these days, our user had the expectation clicking on the links would bring up a page with more content.”
Nothing special, just a gripe about how bad JavaScript ruins the user experience. This type of stuff is always worth noting.
Joel is a Manager →
Joel Spolsky:
“We’ll get a programming language that’s portable and efficient. It will produce code for every web browser, and it will obsess about performance so programmers don’t have to. And they’ll never have to think about web browser incompatibilities ever again.”
I love Joel’s writing about project management, but I can’t recall a single worthwhile article he’s written...
It's Like... Being a Tool →
Ben Nadel:
“When I code in jQuery I am overwhelmed with this feeling that things are just falling into place. It’s not like an adrenaline rush or anything - I’m trying to think of how to explain it… it’s like when you think of something really funny to say and you’re just waiting for your turn in the conversation and this feeling of anticipation builds inside of you; it’s like that; it’s...
I'm on Ajaxian →
Dion Almaer:
“Neil Roberts has written a piece on Dealing with the Flexibility of JavaScript which delves into functions that are overloaded based on signature.”
I can’t wait for people who haven’t read my article to comment on it!
I was at Google →
Leslie Hawthorn:
“We just wrapped up our third Summer of Code, and as with 2006 we invited mentors from all successful organizations to Google for our annual Mentor Summit.”
Let’s play “Where’s Neil”
Kudos for Dojo Developers →
John Dorsey:
“Two separate Dojo toolkit projects have been updated. One enhances Dojo support for the Drupal PHP-based content management system, and the other provides an image gallery widget for the dojox.image project.”
It’s nice to see Shane O’Sullivan and Chris Barber getting the congrats they deserve.
Fun AJAX Quote →
Brian LeRoux:
“Ajax is no longer an acronym. It ain’t always async, javascript nor xml. The ‘and’ part was right.”
Following the word “JavaScript” on twitter is a lot of fun.
The Crazy Function Signature of JavaScript →
Me:
“JavaScript is flexible in almost every way, and many people end up either abusing the flexibility, or creating strategies of overcoming the flexibility that only create confusion and messy code.”
Revolutionizing the Web →
Patrick Fitzgerald:
“Want to get your hands on some crazy delicious Web 2.0 venture capital, but don’t have mad AJAX skills? If you can copy and paste, you too can have a website that looks oh-so two thousand and six!”
Dojo Image Widgets →
Shane O’Sullivan:
“The code is now part of the dojox.image project (dojox is the Dojo extensions project, for cool new code that may in the future make it into the core code base if enough people like/want it).”
I wrote zoom/scroll for one of my old widgets (that I need to update) that I mentioned to Shane quite a while ago. It might be worth brushing that off again and trying to...
1 tag
Some Very Quick Dojo 0.9 Migration Notes →
Wolfram Kriesing:
“First things first, if your project allows you to migrate to 0.9 (you got the time to do it) - do it! It’s worth all the sweat and it might cost you some.”
It’s nice to see a third party making note of this stuff, especially since it’s more likely that there will be complaining, which I think is both useful and enjoyable.
Third-Party Dojo Writings →
“Before I start covering more advanced topics, I’ll focus the next few weeks on the basics of the Dojo Toolkit. As such, the first topic that needs to be discussed is the work-horse of any modern AJAX application: the asynchronous calls to a website. There are 2 functions of importance in Dojo: xhrGet and xhrPost. But enough talk, let me show the examples.”
So this site just popped...
Use JavaScript Like it's JavaScript →
Bob Buffone:
“P.S. Leave the Java coding standards in .java files.”
It’s an article under the guise of “performance optimization” but is really saying “don’t apply the constructs you used in other languages to JavaScript”.
(Via Tom Trenka.)
Messing With Images →
“CVI equals to ‘Canvas Vml Image effects’. The CVI libraries requires no plugin or extension. The CVI libraries uses unobtrusive javascript to keep your code clean and they work in all the major browsers - Mozilla Firefox 1.5+, Opera 9+, IE6+ and Safari. On older browsers, they will degrade and your visitors won’t notice a thing.”
A neat little library to do JS-driven image...
First jQuery, now Prototype? →
Prototype Documentation:
“But in fact, Class.create takes in an arbitrary number of arguments. The first—if it is another class—defines that the new class should inherit from it. All other arguments are added as instance methods; internally they are subsequent calls to addMethods (see below). This can conveniently be used for mixing in modules”
Great, Prototype has better OO syntax...
Another JS Table (using jQuery) →
Matt Kruse:
“Tabular data in table form is common on web sites and web applications, and a common requirement is to manipulate the data tables on the client side, rather than going back to the server to sort, filter, page, etc. This library offers the key functionality that is typical - the most common of which is client-side table sorting.”
I’m always happy to see fast, functional...
Following up on the Stupid Web 3.0 →
Christian Montoya:
“Web 3.0 is about money”
A great aggregation of quotes from all over the place about people defining what the idiotic Web 3.0 is. With some fun analysis.
I Still Don't Understand jQuery →
Nathan Smith:
“jQuery is not unlike such a device. It is small, lightweight, and facilitates a common dialog among modern browsers. As long as you can logically formulate what you want to say, jQuery understands your intentions and will interpret for you regardless of which user agent is listening in.”
Honestly, I want to try to understand how jQuery can improve my life, but it...
Why do People use the Word "AJAXy"? →
“Timeplot is a DHTML-based AJAXy widget for plotting time series and overlay time-based events over them (with the same data formats that Timeline supports).”
A neat little demo of a nice charting widget
If Someone Shows a Bad Example, Assume it's a Bad... →
Dan Webb:
“In the presentation, which I didn’t attend so forgive me if I’ve gotten the wrong end of the stick, he spoke about how Dojo has been forced to abandon web standards in some cases in order to get the job done.”
A post that ultimately suggests that Dojo use a format that Dojo already can use, and which I almost exclusively use. It’s important to make note of this pattern...
Now with More Ajax →
Julien Lecomte:
“The Dojo Toolkit, for example, has already started making Web 3.0 features available (see dojo.gfx and the Dojo Offline Toolkit) Hopefully, all the other major frameworks will follow suite so we can all start building cool new applications that wow our users!”
And here we thought we were just writing good software, shame on us for aiding in the creation of another...
Any Post with the Word "Evil" in it, Makes the Cut →
Bernie Sumption:
“Now suppose you want to make a ball that bounces and fades. Feck. Your problem here is that bouncing and fading balls aren’t really new kinds of ball, they’re new ways that the same ball behaves. The ball has-a bouncing behavior. Using inheritance, the code that handles bouncing and fading is locked up in the BouncingBall and FadingBall classes and can’t be used...
Ajaxian Monthly Roundup →
Dojo
Dojo powering some big players
Plugging in to the Dojo Grid
Apple Store hits the Dojo
Great roundup of a lot of great JS related articles related to the various frameworks and the language in general.
Buying Jam →
Timothy Mattson:
“We need to spend less time creating new languages and more time making the languages we have work. This is why anytime I hear someone talk about their great new language, I pretty much ignore them.”
An article about parallel programming, but very applicable to all the JS libraries popping up every day.
Everything that's Wrong with the World →
Christophe Menet:
“In one of my Web application, I wanted to display a blink text, to inform users about something really important. Unfortunately, the <blink> tag doesn’t work on IE, only on Firefox.”
I imagine Christophe thinking “Hrm, what’s the worst possible application I could write in JavaScript?”
Prioritizing the Features of Dojo 0.9 →
Jessica Hupp:
“Dojo, a popular toolkit, makes developing in JavaScript easier and faster. Previous versions of Dojo have been extremely useful, but the new Dojo 0.9 has made developing in JavaScript better than ever. Take a look at what others have done with this new version and explore some of the improvements that you’ll love the most.”
Not a recommended read, but I found it...
I Call it "Asshattery" →
Peter-Paul Koch:
“Finding the right balance between standards compliance and external factors is a crucial part of a professional’s skillset, but, blinded by the light of ideological purity, semi-professionals are aggressively unable to appreciate that fact.
“In fact, semi-professionals denounce true professionals for trying to work in the real world, and instead congratulate...
1 tag
Even More Firebug Love →
Michael Sync:
“Normally, If we want to know whether a particular function is invoked or not, we used to put ‘alert()’ or ‘console.log()’ in that function. It’s too much work if we are working on large script files because we need to find that function in all script files and put ‘alert()’ or ‘console.log’ in that function. and save that file again and run on the browser. With firebug, you...
1 tag
Great Firebug Overview →
Michael Sync:
“I’m going to show you how to debug the Javascript code with Firebug in this tutorial. If you are an Ajax developer, the tutorial will help you in many ways to boost your production in your RIA (Rich Internet Application) development.”
There are some true gems in this article. Without Firebug, I could not have written the template language that runs this site....
On JavaScript Game Development →
Christian Montoya:
“Things like movement, sprites, timing, collision detection, tiled backgrounds, level data, private game data; things that are common across games and are a pain to do by hand every time. It would be cool if there was a library built on top of jQuery to facilitate some of these things via objects and allow a programmer to ‘set up’ their game basics so they can just go...
September 2007
11 posts
Worst JavaScript Tutorial Ever. →
Zakaria Rouf:
“Javascript is easy to write.”
JavaScript Code Highlighter →
“Highlight.js highlights syntax in code examples on blogs, forums and in fact on any web pages. It’s very easy to use because it works automatically: finds blocks of code, detects a language, highlights it.”
I’ll be looking through this code later today.
More Commentary on Alex's CSS Post →
Justin Emond:
“A new organization must be created, composed of key in the trenches stakeholders (the people who actually do the innovating) to redefine three core specifications:”
CSS3
HTML (of the X or 5 variety); and,
JavaScript
Once again, missing the mark over what’s broken right now about the web. CSS is most definitely broken. It’s incredibly complicated to do simple...
1 tag
The Confusion over JavaScript on the iPhone
So there’s been a ton of traffic about writing applications for the iPhone lately. Unfortunately, most of this chatter has ended up with this view that it’s not even worth bothering, that app developers should just write applications that install directly on the iPhone. While this obviously isn’t true, since we have truly amazing applications like facebook, there’s some truth among the criticism.
...
Some People Just Don't Get It →
Nick Farrell:
“While Apple wants people to write Ajax software to run on its pointless Safari browser, developers are writing their applications directly into the machine itself.”
Yeah, that’s not exactly what we’ve been saying. The point is that Apple needs to provide us with a solid event system that doesn’t just work for normal events, but for all the new type of events that...
More Dylan/Dojo Props →
Jeremy Geelan:
“Enterprise Mashups this time round were deemed important enough to warrant not just three or even four sessions but an entire track; and the same is true of iPhone AJAX applications, our newest (and perhaps hottest) track, featuring fantastic sessions such as Dojo Toolkit co-creator Dylan Schiemann on how developers can leverage Dojo for this latest innovation from...
My Criticisms of Safari Find Their Way to PC World →
Robert Mullins:
“The developers hope that Apple improves support for developers and fixes other glitches when it introduces an updated version of Safari, expected in October, and when its long-delayed Leopard operating system is released.”
This article quotes Dylan a lot, which is great. I helped out with several slides of this presentation, especially the ones related to how...
Inelegant JavaScript →
Steve Yen:
A collection of bad things about JavaScript, such as buggy language implementation gotchas and quirks, especially in browsers
1 tag
Finally Getting my iPhone Update →
New Features include:
iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store
Louder speakerphone and receiver volume
Home Button double-click shortcut to phone favorites or music controls
Space bar double-tap shortcut to intelligently insert period and space
Mail attachments are viewable in portrait and landscape
Stocks and cities in Stocks and Weather can be re-ordered
Apple Bluetooth Headset battery status in the...
1 tag
Apple's Using Dojo →
Jon Sykes:
“Maybe we should be using a different toolkit? Maybe the time I’m investing in Dojo should be invested in jQuery or Moo? Maybe I have no idea what’s going on and I’m a total lost wreck of a man? Then you see that others are doing the same sort of things, and you find yourself feeling a little more confident that maybe you did make the right decision.”
He...
The Development Abstraction Layer →
Joel Spolsky:
“Management’s primary responsibility to create the illusion that a software company can be run by writing code, because that’s what programmers do. And while it would be great to have programmers who are also great at sales, graphic design, system administration, and cooking, it’s unrealistic. Like teaching a pig to sing, it wastes your time and it annoys the...