home

JavaScript

Sleek Animations With requestAnimationFrame

In the world of JavaScript, animation has always been a nuisance. We’ve relied on setTimeout and setInterval for longer than we care to recall. We’ve trusted the millisecond intervals to always be hit right on the mark, even though we all knew that in all likelihood the computer would be so busy with something else that it’d miss the mark we set for it. No longer! We will set aside our old ways and look forward to a great and glorious JavaScript animation future through the use of requestAnimationFrame!

JavaScript

JavaScript Closures and the Module Pattern

One of the most widely used design patterns in JavaScript is the module pattern. The module pattern makes use of one of the nicer features of JavaScript – closures – in order to give you some control of the privacy of your methods so that third party applications cannot access private data or overwrite it. In this post I’ll teach you what a closure is, how it works, and how to utilize it to implement the module pattern in your own JavaScript code.

Reviews

jQuery in Action Book Review

jQuery is without a doubt one of the most widely used JavaScript libraries available today, and for good reason. It’s very good at what it does, but with the great power it offers comes great responsibility. Someone using jQuery incorrectly can wreak havoc across the internet (or at least on their own site). You must learn how to use jQuery properly. This is where a great book comes in very handy, and jQuery In Action is one of those great books.

JavaScript

The Great Semicolon Debate

Recently there has been a large debate about the use (or rather, the lack of use) of the semicolon in JavaScript code. A few words that shouldn’t have been said were said and suddenly people are at each other’s throats. The idea of omitting semicolons isn’t entirely new, but it has hit its stride recently, and it’s starting to crash into the opinions of the traditionals. Here, I’m giving my thoughts on this whole debacle.

Giveaways

Win a $299 Wijmo License! Free Contest

I’ve talked about Wijmo here before, discussing the vast array of widgets that they provide to go above and beyond the jQuery UI library and allow you to easily create a rich user interface for your applications. Well, now I have a $299 commercial license that I’ve decided is more likely to be put to good use by one of my loyal followers (or a first-time visitor too I guess). Read on to see how you can win!

JavaScript

Introduction to Backbone.js Part 5: AJAX – Video Tutorial

Everyone loves AJAX. A few years back it was probably the biggest buzz word in all of web development. Now HTML5 and CSS3 have stolen the show, but AJAX has now taken its place as a first-class citizen among web development - and specifically JavaScript - tools. And to make things even better, Backbone.js has built in support for AJAX and makes it dead simple for you to use it to synchronize your models with a database, as I show in this video tutorial.

JavaScript

Introduction to Backbone.js Part 4: Collections – Video Tutorial

Part 4: Backbone.js Collections Video Tutorial is here now. We’ve already discussed models, views, and routers in Backbone.js so far, but now we’re on to collections. Collections are pretty much exactly what their name implies: collections of models. Many times, data is displayed in lists, not just singular items. This is where collections come in - to keep every model in order and synchronized with the database on the back end.

JavaScript

Introduction to Backbone.js Part 3: Routers – Video Tutorial

We’re on to part 3 in the Backbone.js video tutorials series. This week we feature another important piece of the Backbone puzzle: Routers. You could conceivably create your JavaScript apps without Routers, but the ingenious technique behind routers allows your users to bookmark the app at a particular state or even use the back and forward buttons to traverse through the history of your applications state. Watch the video to learn more!

Uncategorized

Delays

Due to scheduling conflicts and inaccessibility to proper equipment, no post will be released today. Instead Part 3 of the Backbone.js Video series will be released on Tuesday, April 10th. If you missed any of the series thus far, I recommend catching up before the new one comes out, by using the links below.

JavaScript

Introduction to Backbone.js Part 2: Views - Video Tutorial

Last week you saw a video tutorial on using Models in Backbone.js. This week we’ve moved right along to part 2: learning about Views in Backbone.js. As usual, Backbone.js has made things super simple, yet you get a lot for how little code you write. You’ll see how to attach events (super easy) and utilize models (also super easy) to give your views some data to work with.