Episode 05: The State of JavaScript
In this episode Dustin is accompanied by JavaScript extraordinare Jonathan Snook where they take a look at the current state of JavaScript in these confusing times. Albeit the terrible lag between the two conversing you’ll hear an interesting discussion involving rotten standardistas and renaissance men, all of which can revolve around a good ‘ol game of bowling.
In the News
Fadtastic discusses some distinctions that sometimes, aren’t so distinct when making judgements about web professionals.
Also there’s a new toolTip in town called qTip. Appropriately named. We quickly moved onto something otherwise known as Sweet Titles which Dustin nonchalantly progressed to.
Coinsidences
Both Dustin and Jonathan have their respective versions of a getElementsByClassName function.
Notables from this Episode
Turns out Veerle is a fantasitc example of someone who shares her personal work to the world. Jonathan doesn’t like the Element Object in Prototype. Also we discussed the CSS Live Redesign by Albin Black Sheep. Lastly Dustin learned Ajax from the Apple Dev site.
Download this Episode
This podcast is 52 minutes.
Download Episode 05: WSwI Podcast: The State of JavaScript
Question, Comments, Feedback?
We’d love to hear your voice on the show. Voice your questions to the WSwI Podcast hotline at (408) 916 - 1046.
March 7th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
So, what’s up with the Cederholm flickr group
I’m trying to figure out where that one comes from.
I agree with Jonathan on the frustration with the Element object of prototype. Passing in the object rather than calling the ‘hide’ method of an object is clunky.
March 8th, 2006 at 12:06 am
Hey Dustin/Snook, great podcast!
I also appreciate the mention from the article over at FadTastic(Aspira Media). Glad to hear that you enjoyed it!
Have fun at SXSW, guys!
March 8th, 2006 at 10:48 am
Dustin,
Not sure I understand the point your trying to make regarding Rails and frameworks in general. You said something to the effect that they (frameworks) are bad because they become dated too quickly? Would you mind explaining that a little further?
March 8th, 2006 at 10:51 am
Justin, who said that? Was it me or Jonathan? After having recorded this over a week ago, I don’t remember off the top of my head.
March 8th, 2006 at 11:06 am
Dustin: Great podcast. It’s vastly improved over your first one. In defense of the qTip tutorial author - I learned pretty much everything I know about Fireworks from Craig’s tutorials. In my book, he’s the man.
March 8th, 2006 at 11:33 am
Nice podcast again. I must admit, the intro freaked me out a tad, but it may just be that I’m still fairly new to your shows. :)
Very informative once again. Good stuff.
March 8th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
Haha loved the intro…sort of shocked me at first.
And I wasn’t quite sure on your stance with frameworks, either. On one hand you seemed to be saying that they made things a ton easier (and who could argue), but then you were saying you haven’t really messed with Rails because it will be outdated in a couple of years?
Isn’t that the same with any technique on the web? Like Snook pointed out at the beginning, a couple years ago frames were da bomb.
March 8th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
I’m glad Elliot remembers :)
This is my thoughts on it: In programming, nothing is forever. But that’s ok, because if learning a new language/technique/framework can make your life easier until the next great thing comes along, then I’m all for it. Rails isn’t the end all to be all, but neither is .NET, PHP (*gasp*), Django or whatever. Adaptation is the key.
/end preaching
March 9th, 2006 at 8:40 am
Hey dustin,
Have you found yourself using the window.moveBy(x, y) function lately?
I came across it on a site today and it made me ponder the state of Javascript, just after I closed the window and swore never to go to that site again.
meh!
March 9th, 2006 at 9:06 am
I just listened to the podcast. Thanks for plugging my qTip page and ripping on me for releasing it.
You guys were right that I don’t use it on my sDS site. But, I use it on my qrayg.com and lom.qrayg.com sites (for a couple years now).
I named it qTip because of my long time screen name “qrayg”. My sister sites all begin with a lowercase q (qLoM, qDT, qArcade) so I thought I’d carry it along for the tool tip script.
I wasn’t trying to reinvent the wheel or anything. The only reason why I released it was because I was requested to many, many times… I’m not trying to take steam away from any other tip system out there. I thought it was a unique library since there aren’t any CSS tool tips out there that aren’t ginormous. Sweet Titles is great but again, it requires at least 2 JavaScript calls. Also, this is just my opinion, but having the site url actually written out in the tip is pretty much completely useless unless you can click on it or interact with it in some way. Why print it out if you can’t do anything with it. Reading a URL like text doesn’t make sense to me. So, my qTip does not include the link URL unlike every other tip system out there.
I’m not ripping on these tip systems. They are all great. And Sweet Titles is problably the best I’ve seen. Just my opinion.
March 9th, 2006 at 10:35 am
Hi Craig, I saw your comment in the moderation queue, it would only be fair play for me to approve it and let others know your thoughts :)
It was definitely not intended to be a rip, as I said, more like innovating the wheel which I contended is generally a good thing :D Please don’t take it the wrong way, your work is definitely excellent.
@David, I don’t believe I’ve touched the moveBy function at all in quite some time.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:15 am
Good podcast, Jonathan Snook does know how to formulate anything web in a good fashion.
Maybe some good podcast ideas for the future:
Cameron Adams - the Man in blue just released a book on Sitepoint about javascript
March 15th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
Justin, regarding Prototype’s “Element” namespace: blame the handful of browsers that don’t expose their DOM Node object prototypes. The workaround is to manually copy the methods you want onto each DOM node instance, and that’s exactly what the bleeding-edge version of Prototype just added. Take your mouse and mash it on my name for further explanation.
April 3rd, 2006 at 4:35 am
Hi Dustin,
The sound quality has really improved very much as you promised. Very informative as usual. Thanks buddy.
BTW I really loved that introduction by you…