Tag: jQuery

Breaking Bad (Loops in JavaScript Libraries)

JavaScript Libraries are important (e.g., jQuery, Lo-Dash, Underscore), but in the case of asynchronous loops (`forEach` and `each`) they create a lot of confusion… Lo-Dash is not equal to Underscore, unless a special underscore-compatible version is being used.

It was sort of a surprise for me when I discovered inconsistencies in the most popular JavaScript libraries in how they handle their each and forEach loops. This post compares:

  • forEach Loop in Native JavaScript
  • each Loop in Lo-Dash
  • each Loop in jQuery
  • each Loop in Underscore.js
  • forEach Loop in Underscore.js

forEach Loop in Native JavaScript

JavaScript Libraries are important (e.g., jQuery, Lo-Dash, Underscore), but in the case of functional loops (forEach and each) they create a lot of confusion (for loop can be broken with ‘break’). Let’s inspect the example of native JavaScript code for the forEach method:

[1,2].forEach(function(v){
  alert(v);
  return false;
})

This will display us two alert boxes. Try the native JavaScript code yourself in JSFiddle.

This is an expected behavior in most cases because with each iteration we invoke a new function. Unlike the for (var i=0; i<arr.length; i++) {} code that has no function/iterators.

Continue reading “Breaking Bad (Loops in JavaScript Libraries)”

Cheat Sheets for Web Development

Web development usually involves a large number of languages each with its own syntax, keywords, special sauce and magic tricks. Here is a collection of web development cheat sheets, in no particular order, which I’ve amassed by browsing the Internet over many years of web development

Cheat sheets are great ways to organize frequently used information and keep it handy. I used cheat sheets for learning and memorizing during my crams at school, and use them now for reference.

Cheat sheet for Web Development
Cheat sheet for Web Development

Web development usually involves a large number of languages each with its own syntax, keywords, special sauce and magic tricks.
Here is a collection of web development cheat sheets, in no particular order, which I’ve amassed by browsing the Internet over many years of web development. They cover the following topics:

  • jQuery
  • CSS3
  • Git
  • Heroku
  • HTML5
  • Linux Command Line
  • Mod reWrite
  • CoffeeScript
  • JavaScript
  • CSS2
  • JavaScript DOM
  • Mac Glyphs
  • Node.js
  • PHP
  • RGB Hex
  • Sublime Text 2
  • SEO
  • WordPress

Get zip archive at http://www.webapplog.com/wp-content/uploads/web-dev-cheat-sheets.zip.

Full list of the files:


jquery12_colorcharge.png
cdiehl_firefox.pdf
CSS Help Sheet outlined.pdf
css-cheat-sheet-v2.pdf
css-cheat-sheet.pdf
CSS3 Help Sheet outlined.pdf
css3-cheat-sheet.pdf
dan-schmidt_jquery-utility-functions-type-testing.pdf
danielschmitz_jquery-mobile.pdf
davechild_css2.pdf
davechild_html-character-entities.pdf
davechild_javascript.pdf
davechild_linux-command-line.pdf
davechild_mod-rewrite.pdf
davechild_regular-expressions.pdf
dimitrios_coffeescript-cheat-sheet.pdf
gelicia_sublime-text-2-shortcuts-verbose-mac.pdf
Git_Cheat_Sheet_grey.pdf
heroku_cheatsheet.pdf
HTML Help Sheet 02.pdf
html5-cheat-sheet.pdf
i3quest_jquery.pdf
javascript_refererence.pdf
javascript-cheat-sheet-v1.pdf
JavaScript-DOM-Cheatsheet.pdf
javascriptcheatsheet.pdf
jQuery-1_3-Visual-Cheat-Sheet.pdf
Mac_Glyphs_All.pdf
Node Help Sheet.pdf
PHP Help Sheet 01.pdf
pyro19d_javascript.pdf
rgb-hex-cheat-sheet-v1.pdf
salesforce_git_developer_cheatsheet.pdf
samcollett_git.pdf
sanoj_web-programming.pdf
SEO_Web_Developer_Cheat_Sheet.pdf
skrobul_sublime-text-2-linux.pdf
WordPress-Help-Sheet.pdf
Help Sheets.zip

Rapid Prototyping with JS is out!

Rapid Prototyping with JS is a hands-on book which introduces you to rapid software prototyping using the latest cutting-edge web and mobile technologies including NodeJS, MongoDB, BackboneJS, Twitter Bootstrap, LESS, jQuery, Parse.com, Heroku and others.

The Book is on LeanPub

Rapid Prototyping with JS is a hands-on book which introduces you to rapid software prototyping using the latest cutting-edge web and mobile technologies including NodeJS, MongoDB, BackboneJS, Twitter Bootstrap, LESS, jQuery, Parse.com, Heroku and others.

The book has 84 pages (in PDF format) or 13,616 words to be precise, step-by-step set-up, best practice advices, web development overview, 11 code examples (also available ready-to-go in GitHub repository azat-co/rpjs), flexible pricing ($9.99–19.99).

Order your copy of Rapid Prototyping with JS at LeanPub: leanpub.com/rapid-prototyping-with-js.

Rapid Prototyping with JS
Rapid Prototyping with JS: Learn how to build web and mobile apps using JavaScript and Node.js

LeanPub platform allows readers to receive infinite future updates (current version of the book is 0.3) and read the book in the most popular digital formats: PDF, ePub/iPad, MOBI/Kindle. The PDF version has footnote links which make it suitable for printing.

Download a free sample at samples.leanpub.com/rapid-prototyping-with-js-sample.pdf.

What Readers Say

Rapid Prototyping with JS is being successfully used at StartupMonthly as a training manual. Here are some of our trainees’ testimonials:

“Thanks a lot to all and special thanks to Azat and Yuri. I enjoyed it a lot and felt motivated to work hard to know these technologies.” — Shelly Arora

“Thanks for putting this workshop together this weekend… what we did with Bootstrap + Parse was really quick & awesome.” — Mariya Yao

“Thanks Yuri and all of you folks. It was a great session – very educative, and it certainly helped me brush up on my Javascript skills. Look forward to seeing/working with you in the future.” — Sam Sur

Who This Book is For

The book is designed for advanced-beginner and intermediate level web and mobile developers: somebody who has just started programming and somebody who is an expert in other languages like Ruby on Rails, PHP, and Java and wants to learn JavaScript and Node.js.

Rapid Prototyping with JS, as you can tell from the name, is about taking your idea to a functional prototype in the form of a web or a mobile application as fast as possible. This thinking adheres to the Lean Startup methodology. Therefore, this book would be more valuable to startup founders, but big companies’ employees might also find it useful, especially if they plan to add new skills to their resume.

Prerequisite

Mac OS X or UNIX/Linux systems are highly recommended for this book’s examples and for web development in general, although it’s still possible to hack your way on a Windows-based system.

Contents

Acknowledgment

Introduction

  1. Who This Book is For
  2. Prerequisite
  3. What to Expect
  4. Notation
  5. Web Basics: Hyper Text Markup Language, Cascading Style Sheets, JavaScript
  6. Agile Methodologies: Scrum, Test-Driven Development, Continuous Deployment, Paired Programming
  7. Node.js
  8. NoSQL and MongoDB
  9. Cloud Computing
  10. HTTP Requests and Responses
  11. RESTful API

Getting Started

  1. Development Folder
  2. Browsers
  3. IDEs and Text Editors
  4. Version Control Systems
  5. Local HTTP Servers
  6. Database: MongoDB
  7. Other Components: NodeJS, jQuery, LESS
  8. SSH Keys
  9. GitHub
  10. Windows Azure
  11. Heroku
  12. Cloud9

Building Front-End Application

  1. JSON
  2. AJAX
  3. Cross-Domain Calls
  4. jQuery
  5. Twitter Bootstrap
  6. LESS
  7. BackboneJS
  8. Example of using Twitter REST API and jQuery
  9. Parse.com
  10. Message Board with Parse.com
  11. Message Board with Parse.com: REST API and jQuery version
  12. Pushing to GitHub
  13. Deployment to Windows Azure
  14. Deployment to Heroku
  15. Message Board with Parse.com: JavaScript SDK and BackboneJS version
  16. Deploying Message Board to PaaS
  17. Enhancing Message Board
  18. Building Back-End Application

Building “Hello World” in NodeJS

  1. NodeJS Core Modules
  2. Node Package Manager
  3. Deploying “Hello World” to PaaS
  4. Deploying to Windows Azure
  5. Deploying to Heroku
  6. Message Board: Run-Time Memory version
  7. Test Case for Message Board
  8. MongoDB Shell
  9. MongoDB Native Driver
  10. MongoDB on Heroku: MongoHQ MongoHQ URL
  11. BSON
  12. Message Board: MongoDB version

Putting it All Together

  1. Different Domain Deployment
  2. Changing Endpoints
  3. Message Board Application
  4. Deployment
  5. Same Domain Deployment

Further Reading

About the Author

Order your copy of Rapid Prototyping with JS at LeanPub: leanpub.com/rapid-prototyping-with-js.

Super Simple Backbone Starter Kit / Boilerplate

During AngelHack, more details in my previous blog post, I struggled to find simple BackboneJS Boilerplate to start building our fashion prototype quickly.
If you are not familiar with BackboneJS it is a very powerful MVC framework for building thick client applications. It has fully RESTful API support via it’s model methods. So after half an hour of going through Backbone Boilerplate and other samples and tutorials I ended up using Sample App with Backbone.js and Twitter Bootstrap as a foundation.

So after this experience I decided to come up with my own super simple BackboneJS boilerplate or starter kit. It has bare minimum but all the necessary components:

To make it work just download zip or fork and clone it from GitHub.com: https://github.com/azat-co/super-simple-backbone-starter-kit. Then launch index.html in your favorite HTTP web server.

It’s a single-file application. Everything Backbone related is in app.js. Templates are in separate files and loaded via RequireJS, and Text plug-in for RequireJS.