[thelist] enhancing javascript skills

Christian Heilmann codepo8 at gmail.com
Tue Sep 11 18:41:32 CDT 2007


> >> http://jquery.com/
> >> A library like this will help your JS coding tremendously.
> >
> > I have to very much disagree with that.
>
> I think you might've interpreted Fred's advice to "use jQuery /instead/ of
> learning JavaScript", which isn't how I interpreted it.

Well, I still don't subscribe to jQuery helping your JS coding
tremendously. It helps your jQuery using. Other libraries like for
example Dean Edward's base2 actually stay true to what  JS is very
likely to become but jQuery is first and foremost there to build apps
without really knowing or caring what is going on "under the hood". A
$('foo').toggle() is a great way to script an interface but it neither
tells you how you can apply event handlers nor does it allow you to
choose different ways of showing and hiding HTML content (off-left,
display, visibility) which has to be different on a case by case
basis.

To me becoming a good JS scripter means:

1) Understanding the language and its environment (syntax and security)
2) Understanding the DOM
3) Understanding Event Handling
4) Knowing usability and accessibility issues of browsers
5) Writing scripts easy to understand for the maintainer
6) Writing scripts that are independent of HTML and keep the look and
feel to the CSS

The last 3 are not covered by any library that has clever shortcuts
for XPath/CSS selectors or predefined interface functionality like
toggle or show and hide.

> I'm with Fred.  Learn JavaScript, learn the DOM, but start working with
> jQuery and YUI so your life doesn't become hell.

First and foremost a library is there to take out the random browser
element and work around issues until browsers support the standard.
This is totally true.

> Also, watch these:
> <http://video.yahoo.com/search/video?p=douglas+crockford&ei=UTF-8&fr=&x=0&y=
> 0>

Agreed to that, too :)

Dan Webb's presentation at @media2007 was very very good, too.

-- 
Chris Heilmann
Book: http://www.beginningjavascript.com
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/



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