The popularity of JavaScript has risen sharply since 2000, transforming developer culture and creating opportunities to use the language in ways the world has never seen before. Unfortunately, the rapid rise in JavaScript’s popularity has also created a number of knowledge gaps.
Some of the most significant gaps are the hardest to see. Many different technologies blend together with JavaScript so well that it’s tough to tell where JavaScript ends and the other technology begins. I call this the “peanut butter” effect, because everything seems to go well with peanut butter.
The truth is, there are many different flavors of…
Originally written in 2017, Updated for 2021.
Austin continues to land in the “Best Of” news for continued growth. The population growth rate still stands at roughly 120 people per day (157 gross, ~35 people leave each day too). Half of the growth comes from other cities in Texas while the other half comes from out of state.
Austin’s historical lower cost of living led to a reputation of affordability. Combining this with a relaxed lifestyle, attractive climate, and plenty of activities produced a people magnet. Austin evolved into a destination city, and the momentum never slowed down.
This progression…
If you’re a JavaScript developer, you’ve probably heard the phrase, “Don’t pollute the global namespace.” This rule of thumb has saved developers many hours, and still has some merit. However, advancements in JavaScript have given way to new opportunities for using the “global” space in a safer manner.
Original Thinking
JavaScript developers originally embraced a “scripting” mentality. It was very different from today’s more common “application development” mentality. During those times, scripting libraries started to emerge — like jQuery. The jQuery library used a $ sign as a global namespace (a namespace is just a global object). By using an object, it…
Using the assign method, loops, and the spread operator
Objects are a powerful part of JavaScript. They are the inspiration for JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). As a fundamental component of application development, there are many ways to work with them.
This short guide offers insights into JavaScript objects and how to combine them using plain JavaScript. None of the examples or demonstrated concepts require special libraries, frameworks, or other code. These techniques will work in standard JavaScript runtimes. The merits of each technique are also described.
Upon completion, readers should have a good understanding of which techniques are available and how to choose the most appropriate technique for any…
This question was originally asked on Quora. The original response was sent to over two million Quora users. This article expands upon the answer.
Google trends suggests “javascript” interest is in decline.
One glimpse at a downward trending chart from the world’s most popular search engine could easily make one believe people have grown tired of JavaScript. This is only part of the picture though.
Using Google trends as the sole measure of public interest is a flawed approach. Google trends only measures what people search for on Google. Remember, search engines aren’t actually a source of technical knowledge —…
Software is a living ecosystem. It’s composed of code libraries, logic, data streams, and other detailed components that work together.
Documentation is supposed to be a “guide” for navigating this technical ecosystem. However; truly useful documentation is still difficult to produce and consume.
Documentation’s intrinsic value is dependent on the context in which it is consumed. For example, an authoritative book or wall-of-text provides anything and everything about a subject. A tooltip in a code editor will describe options for a function. Which is more useful in the context of programming? …
APIs are inherently dynamic, but it doesn’t mean every part of the API infrastructure must be dynamic. The “Static API” concept is an alternative data engineering pattern, which can benefit you, and possibly your wallet.
Static APIs can:
- Reduce cloud computing costs.
- Simplify data architecture & management.
- Scale faster than dynamic solutions.
What is a Static API?
A static API consists of pre-generated assets. Many APIs transmit data as JSON or XML, which can be pre-generated. They can be stored as simple files on a server, object store, or CDN as static assets. In crude terms, a static API serves pre-generated responses.
Retrieving Static Data
By…
See the 2021 edition of this article for the most recent insights.
Austin continues to land in the “Best Of” news for it’s continued growth. The population growth rate currently stands at roughly 120 people per day (157 gross, ~35 people leave each day too). The lower historical cost of living in Austin led to a reputation of affordability. Combining this with a relaxed lifestyle, attractive climate, and plenty of activities produced a people magnet. Austin evolved into a destination city, and the momentum isn’t slowing down.
This progression has a significant impact on the talent pool. Austin continues to…
Love it or hate it, JavaScript has become a prominent language beyond the browser. Node.js popularized the use of JavaScript development on the backend. The global JS community took it significantly further, leveraging Node and npm as a form of DevOps and code distribution. The next major wave, in my humble opinion, is greater emphasis on the use of JavaScript to produce executables.
What is a JS Executable?
A JavaScript executable is just a program written in JavaScript, then compiled to a runnable file. In other words, a .exe or .bin file (or no extension on macOS).
UPDATE: If you’d rather watch the recorded talk, it is embedded at the end of this article.
Remodeling a condo in a 50 year old building is a miserable experience. An even worse idea is doing the physical work yourself while trying to run a tech consultancy/software dev firm. Living in the space while you do it is downright masochistic. My advice: don’t.
However; if you really want to update your living conditions and have a DIY attitude, you may choose to take the work on yourself. If you don’t want to take the extra time to learn professional software…
Corey Butler
I build communities, companies, and code. Cofounder of Metadoc.io. Created Fenix Web Server & NVM for Windows.
