JavaScript needs no introduction… even a quick google search will give you all you need to know. But at one time JS had a rival, a new kid on the block and it was called CoffeeScript (You can google it if you want but don’t bother…). “A few years back people were like ‘oohhh, CoffeeScript!’, the hipster nerds were, ‘Ooooh, CoffeeScript runs faster than JS, it’s better – you gotta use CoffeeScript!’.” And the sad thing was CoffeeScript did have some advantages and was actually slightly faster than JS but, “Rule of thumb: when you have a technology, whether it be a programming language or framework but it’s extremely dominant in the marketplace, for it to be replaced there would literally have to be some paradigm shift for that to happen. It is very very rare that you see a very established technology replaced by something that’s maybe 20% or 30% better…It has to be 5 times better! …or more.”
“Now CoffeeScript was faster blah blah blah, JS was so dominant that all JS people had to do was come in with es6, which is the latest version of JS…and CoffeeScript is now {indicates ‘thumbs down’ motion and ‘failure’ sound effect}…no more.”
This falls into something we talked about herenot too long ago, called ‘the shiny tech trap’, which is abandoning more mature/tried and true/old technology for something that’s brand-spanking new and purports to do things slightly faster and better. Unless it’s a HUGE leap forward the absolutely changes everything for the better, it’s generally not going to happen…
Take a sip of the steaming-hot cuppa VLOG to really get a sense of what we’re talking about and as a bonus, we talk about RUBY but not in a terrible way…I mean not a great way, but not terrible. Check it out. -Enjoy!
Come yung’uns, gather by the fire that I may tell you a story… well more of a walk-through really… The older kids have heard it before and have gone on their separate ways… Now, you’ll hear it and make your choices and go your separate way… I see you’re all fresh-faced and want to make a splash at being a developer but you feel inexperienced and unequal to some of the bigger boys and girls out there. You wonder, ‘what can I do to become a pro ASAP?’ Well huddle ’round the fire quickly and listen, before you start asking yourself why are a bunch of ‘young’ developers huddling around a fire to listen to an old man? Wait, what’s happening, where are we?!
1- Learn Your Foundations Well: Foundations being the languages; HTML5, CSS, JAVAscript, etc. Understand the client-server model, understanding the relationship between client computer, server computers, client apps, server apps, etc… <SHAMELESS PLUG1: Check out our links at the bottom to a bunch of awesome and beefy courses which will detail everything you will nedd to know>. 2- Frequency of Exposure: Simply put: the more you code, the better you get at it. You can read a book or watch a video but if you can’t put the theory into practice, how much have you retained? How much can you really use? <SHAMELESS PLUG2: Our courses have a wealth of questions, quizzes and exercises to make sure that you can put what you just learned into practice.> 3-Start Building Little Mini-Projects: You don’t have to build a “facebook” right outta the gate. Tiny, diverse projects will get you way more all around experience. Then you can start building small projects that actually do things for yourself or others. Ex: build a shopping cart that integrates with paypal, build a basic login system, etc… 4- You’re Always Learning New Things: Obviously, a developer of 10 years has a lot less to learn than a dev of 2 years that they’re STILL learning. It keeps you sharp and versatile. Which brings us back to point #1, if you’re well versed in your foundations, learning new stuff is pretty easy…
Well, that’s it yung’uns… Any questions or something you need more explanation on, check out this Vlog where we go into detail on all the points and of course, feel free to check out the links below to our courses, you won’t regret it <SHAMELESS PLUG3>. I’m going to go talk to our location director… -Enjoy.
Hard to learn, easy to write … but slow to code with
Full disclosure: I love Java and in some ways, it can be easier to write than faster-to-write languages like JavaScript, Python and PHP. That being said, I wouldn’t use JAVA today in most situations… I know, I know, I can hear the rage-typing right now as the JAVA cavalry sweeps down the hill, charging towards me, but hear me out…
It’s hard to learn, even compared to other languages (like PYTHON, JAVAscript or PHP). It’s hard because “…you have to declare everything. …You have to explicitly write out everything your code is doing. …There’s a lot less things done automatically for you.” Which can be good: as a programmer that means there’s a lot less errors creeping in because there’s not really any “implied coding” (explanation in the video), BUT the coding you do write is super-detailed and verbose.
ALSO: It’s dog-slow at run time when writing desktop applications (never mind mobile apps).
-Totally dating myself here- JAVA was a great language for it’s time in the 90’s. “Because when you wrote JAVA it just worked…and it was very consistent. …JAVAscript: relative to JAVA was very inconsistent …it had some really weird, wonky behaviors and it could cause some really stupid little bugs that could cause you to pull your hair out trying to chase them down in JAVAscript, whereas you didn’t have that occur with JAVA.” I’m also not saying that JAVAscript is bad, in fact most companies toady are leaning towards lighter, faster languages and JAVAscript fits that build (especially when compared to JAVA).
So there you have it, from a guy that loves JAVA. It’s super verbose and heavily detailed in the writing (which also means less errors because you’re being explicit), and that writing code takes much more time, much more time means much more work and money/cost: “I wouldn’t do it.”
Check out the video for a more in-depth explanation PLUS what’s coming up with us with STUDIOWEB and other fundamental stuff we’re working on; super exciting stuff!
What Programming Languages do the Most Popular Websites Use? The results may surprise you!
So, I was on what the kids call wiki-wiki-pedia the other day and I thought I’d look up what programming languages the most popular websites use. I know, most people look for civil war factoids or if their favorite band from their teenage years is still around but I guess I’m just weird like that…
Now, I’ll be honest with you, it’s better to watch this vid to see firsthand what I’m talking about but, quick spoiler, on the front end (that’s to say “code that lives in the web browser”.) it’s all JavaScript. But what’s most surprising is the back end where it’s almost all JAVA, PYTHON, C, C++, PHP, etc. Yup, pretty surprising (or not, if you’re pretending to be one of those “I’ve seen it all” programmers). The reason I bring this to your attention is that I want to “give you some insight into how effective a programming language is; how ‘serious’ a programming language is…Some people look at a programming language and say ‘it’s not serious, it can’t work on big projects’.” Well when you consider what these giants of the industry are doing (and you’re assuming they know their onions), you start to see that these languages are still very capable of doing the “heavy lifting”.
But seriously, check out the vid to put it all into context.
Also, blink and you might miss it: another quick dig at RUBY (mwahaha). Enjoy!
Today, the Web is a much more sophisticated place (dynamic shopping carts, blogs, DOM scripting, Ajax etc) … a Web that requires much more sophisticated web designers. To be a competitive and modern web designer these days, you have to learn more than just HTML and CSS .
The ‘foundation’ languages of web design today are:
You don’t have to become a full-fledged nerd coder but you should at least understand the basic concepts and be able to read and write basic scripts. This way, when a client or your boss comes to you with some shopping cart script that he wants you to install … you wont be freaking out because you don’t understand a thing.
So in keeping with my goal of training you guys and girls up, I just wanted to announce my latest video tutorial; a course on Javascript: Beginners Javascript.
… OK, not the most exciting title, but the video tutorials are perfect for people new to programming. Some details:
Beginners Javascript is designed to teach total beginners Javascript programming. By the end of the 5 hrs of video training (over 39 individual videos) you will feel comfortable reading and writing usable Javascript code for everyday web tasks like spawning windows, validating forms and creating simple page effects.
The table of contents:
Introduction (10:09)
First Javascript (10:21)
What is a programming language (6:18)
Javascript event handlers part 1 (8:58)
Javascript event handlers part 2 (6:40)
Javascript event handlers part 3 (4:50)
Javascript errors part 1 (6:39)
Javascript errors part 2 (4:39)
Javascript variables part 1 (10:53)
Javascript variables part 2 (10:01)
Javascript execution (4:21)
Javascript functions part 1 (8:46)
Javascript functions part 2 (6:22)
Javascript functions part 3 (6:32)
Javascript functions part 4 (9:27)
if statements part 1 (7:33)
if statements part 2 (6:52)
if statements part 3 (8:55)
Javascript loops part 1 (8:25)
Javascript loops part 2 (5:58)
Javascript object; a birds eye view (8:31)
Javascript arrays part 1 (3:36)
Javascript arrays part 2 (7:44)
Javascript arrays part 3 (5:28)
Javascript functions cont. part 3 (8:13)
Javascript functions cont. part 4 (10:16)
Javascript functions cont. part 4-b (9:57)
Javascript functions cont. part 5 (9:18)
Introduction to the DOM part 1 (8:31)
Introduction to the DOM part 2 (3:37)
Javascript forms part 1 (14:50)
Javascript forms part 2 (15:10)
Javascript forms part 3 (6:58)
Javascript forms part 4 (8:51)
Creating a toggle menu part 1 (6:59)
Creating a toggle menu part 2 (10:39)
Linking to external Javascript files (5:46)
Spawning windows with Javascript (9:24)
Javascript frameworks, conclusion to course (4:24)
The DOM is short for: Document Object Model. This is basically a virtual map of the currently loaded web page. You can use this map along with the help of Javascript, to travel about your web page and do things like:
Insert tags
Remove tags
Insert text
… And a whole lot more.
The DOM is the key to all those cool Javascript and Ajax affects that we now see all over the Web. Check out my new video that introduces you to the DOM and I also teach you an exercise I came up with to help you better understand the DOM:
These are part of my new growing collection of Javascript video tutorials that aim to teach total beginners how to read and write practical Javascript.
I would like to point out that I’ve invested in making the sound for these videos as clear as possible … so let me know what you think.
I just wanted to make a quick announcement: I’ve released about 40 minutes of new video tutorials on beginners Javascript. Check out my new micro-site:
This is a ‘sneak peak’ of a new video tutorial course that targets total beginners to Javascript and programming in general. If you want to learn Javascript, I think these videos will be helpful.
These videos are not designed to be a tutorial, but rather, they are a lecture. None the less, these videos can help give you at least a basic understanding of what Ajax is all about.
Anyway, they are free, so what do you have to loose!
😉
If you guys want a proper killersites style (simple, practical and to the point) video tutorial, please let me know.
A while back a wrote a JavaScript script that automatically styled an HTML table. In a nutshell, the script automatically changes the background color of every 2nd row in an HTML table.
Anyway, someone recently sent me an updated version of the script. You will probably want to read the original article before looking at these changes.
From the email:
I did some simplification on the code for zebrastripes. I don’t bother with the last array bit because TR elements have the bgColor attribute.
