tag : opinion

Reviews

Book Review: Backbone.js Patterns and Best Practices

Every once in a while I get around to reading a book. Books are typically nicer than blog posts because they show the whole picture instead of zeroing in on a tidbit. I was contacted by Packt Publishing to do a review of Backbone.js Patterns and Best Practices. I was excited about this book because it had been a while since I read a good book on Backbone and the title gave the impression that it could be insightful to someone at my experience level with Backbone. So, did it live up to my expectations? Yes and No.

Reviews

Book Review: Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Development

Every once in a while, a book is published that is considered a must-read for every JavaScript developer who wants to be able to do his or her job the right way and understand JavaScript the way it should be understood. Well, Clean Code is one of those books, except it’s not just for JavaScript developers. This book will enlighten every programmer and bring them to an understanding of how great programming is achieved in practically any language.

JavaScript

Something New... What Will It Be?

After spending 3 nights in a row creating one simple screencast (1 the recording failed, 2 the video was fine but the audio was quiet, 3 the audio was fixed), I didn’t feel like messing with videos another night. So, this time we’re going to do something a little different. Normally I (and now a few other contributors) write about whatever suits our fancy. This time, you – the audience and reason for the existence of this blog – all decide.

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.

Reviews

Book Review: Getting Good With JavaScript

I realize the two posts per week on a blog will help give insight to many developers out there, but it can’t compare to the teaching power of a book. If anything, this blog just whets your appetite to learn even more (unless you hate this blog, in which case it’s making you wish JavaScript didn’t exist) and you just don’t want to wait several days for that appetite to be fulfilled, just to read another 700-1000 words and then wait some more. This is why I’ve decided that you should have more, so I’m doing the work of reading through JavaScript books in order to determine which ones will be best for you to read.