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JavaScript: Taking Off the Training Wheels

7 Comments

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Rick Waldron

Great article!

Just a minor correction to your qsa-forEach example:

@
var counters = document.querySelectorAll(‘.counter’);
[].forEach.call(counters, function (elem, index) { elem.textContent = index + 1;
});
@

Most Array prototype methods are generic, so slicing is unnecessary.

Luis Martins

Really nice post.
With a background of design and front-end integration (html+css) I am looking to get better at Javascript also.

One site I also find very useful is http://javascriptissexy.com/

Marcel

@Nicolas: Agree with the remark about closures: Definitely one of the things you HAVE to understand.

In my case, Stefan Stoyanov’s book “JavaScript Patterns” helped me a lot to really understand the most important JavaScript tweaks and concepts. Highly recommended if you consider yourself to already be quite familiar with the language, but want to get way deeper into the topic.

Great article, gonna share it for sure!

Nicolas Chevallier

I think the most important thing to understand when you are a coder and you start to develop in javascript is the notion of closure, which is a common feature with Lisp ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closure_(computer_science) ). Without understanding this concept, you will not be able to use the power of language, and simple mistakes are going to lose a lot of time.

Currently I use ant scripts to concatenate, minify, compress and deploy my websites and resources. I did not know Grunt that looks perfect for the job, thank you for the info!

Rachel Nabors

Cody Lindley’s books “JavaScript Enlightenment” and “DOM Enlightenment” are also great starting places for people without programming backgrounds.

And in case anyone out there learns best from watching videos, I gave a talk on JS fundamentals at jQuery Portland, and it’s on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkR0RCfI0XM

Tyler Lesperance

Nice article Tom.
If any readers are in Northwest Florida, I’m giving a talk on this same topic next week in Fort Walton Beach. I’ll be touching on some of the same things covered here and will focus on getting started with jQuery and JavaScript for those who have little to no experience. The goal will be that someone can listen to this talk then go home and immediately use tips and things that I covered to create interactive front-ends.

Not meaning to self-promote but one of the suggestions in this article is to go to a live event, and I think my talk next week will be helpful to anyone wanting more information and guidance on this same topic.

Details:
December 11 – 6:00PM
Bit Wizards office – 13 Memorial Pkwy SW, Fort Walton Beach, 32548
Free admission
Free food
Free beer
http://www.gulfcoastdotnet.org/Meetings/December-2013-Meeting

Or tweet me @tylerama9

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