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Mycroft Holmes wrote:
many who would like to stab it through the heart or burn it at the stake.

I doubt it.

Far too quick an end for it. How about a very slow steam roller running it over, starting with it's "toes"?

Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Like this?[^]

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson

Nah, the roller was moving far, far too fast.

Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Is there no Sarlacc pit nearby?

Quote:
"In its belly, you will find a new definition of pain and suffering as you are slowly digested over a…thousand years."
―C-3PO translating for Jabba the Hutt

I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.

Mycroft Holmes wrote:
Caveat - I have not been through this dilemma, I am currently resisting anything to do with the web stack since they trashed Silverlight.

well it was a microsoft product, what did you expect?

I hate JavaScript like the plague, so I can't tell you any resources you could try. My way of learning is time consuming: Start a pet project, set your goals high and don't even try to stay on the beaten path. Don't look so much at tutorials. Choose a design and try to implement it yourself.

Yor first shot will most probably not be perfect, but running into problems is the whole point. Don't get frustrated and go out of your way with refactoring or redesigning until you can live with the results. Go as far as starting all over again when you feel you have reached a dead end. This way you will gain a good understanding of the language, the framework and the tools at your disposal.

Speaking of that, frameworks and tools come and go, especially with javaScript. Don't waste too much time on them and try to focus on things that stay, like algorithms, design and architecture. Then learning yet another way to do the same old stuff will not be much of a problem.

I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.

Don't learn - just copy-paste from SO and hack at it until it sort of works.

That's what everyone else is jDoing.

Well, to preface this... I've been using JavaScript since the 90s, then a few years back I learned way more than I ever thought I knew about it from a super smart coworker at the time. So only doing really hardcore stuff for only a few years now.

But, I'll say this. The web is sporadic. People don't really take the time to write well thought out content like a book does. Back in the 90s the best book I ever read on the subject was called the JavaScript Bible. It's still around actually if you get a newer edition, since it's has had 7 revisions. Things have changed now, so I'm sure there are a number of good books on the subject.

My advice, get a good book on plain vanilla JavaScript and start a personal project to work on with it. Reading stuff online alone won't really teach you much. You have to work on a project.

Also, as much as I love jQuery... I still use it a lot but it is dying as some of issues it addressed are being handled by native JavaScript these days. So, if I had to learn it all again, personally I'd start with vanilla JavaScript. Spend some time with it. Understand the semantics of the language (they're different because JavaScript is more functional then OOP) and only after a solid foundation would I consider building on top of that with libraries like jQuery.

Not really sure what interests you, but a suitable project to learn with would of course be a client-heavy one, such as a game. If you're looking for ideas, see if you can make a Tetris clone in pure JavaScript for instance. Those are always fun.

And remember, to get most things done in JavaScript you use callbacks and function chains like crack cocaine due to its functional nature, much like you would with LINQ chaining in C#. And by default, every last remote call is async. If you need to update the DOM based on a remote API call for instance it helps to remember that.

Jeremy Falcon

modified 8-Nov-17 3:13am.

I have been reviewing some code from google music lab's experimental music projects. It's really interesting.

I am not the one who knocks. I never knock.
In fact, I hate knocking.

Yeah, people don't realize how much Google has helped the web. They have a ton of awesome APIs they expose to the public. If it turns out being a fun project, I'd be interested to see what comes of it.

Jeremy Falcon

IMHO, the most important thing is to NOT to learn JS via one of those popular libraries... Learn plain JS first...
Here some resources for that:
JavaScript | MDN[^]
JavaScript The Good Parts[^]
JavaScript Course: The Good Parts | Pluralsight (based on the book above[^]
Build A JavaScript Framework[^]

It is very important to UNDERSTAND how the inner-works of JS way before you try any application - that will save you a lot of swearing...

Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.

Thanks, learning vanilla JS is really the way to go.

I am not the one who knocks. I never knock.
In fact, I hate knocking.

The one additional thing you'll want to force yourself to do is become familiar with the relevant standards documents:

ECMAScript Language Specification
HTML Standard
CSS Snapshot 2017

Painful, I know, but sometimes there's nothing like getting knowledge directly from the source.

Oh, and hard core JavaScript has a high learning curve akin to F#. It's different. Don't worry about the naysayers saying they hate it. It's the defacto language for the client web. The language is pretty nifty but radically different than say C#. In reality, it's the development environments for it that need some work (they're much better this day and age), so get used to using your developer tools in Chrome, etc. as these will literally be a life saver.

Jeremy Falcon

Thank you, Jeremy.
This is what I actually wanted. As I said, I can get the work done, the problem is that it takes a few tries to make things work and sometimes it's really counter-intuitive (which really means I know zilch).
Learning vanilla JS is what I want to do.
I know that a lot of people hate JS (as do I), but I also understand that there's no way around it,
now that clients want to build their application in the latest new and shining JS framework coz they heard it's "better".
(sigh) nosedive it is then.

I am not the one who knocks. I never knock.
In fact, I hate knocking.

You're welcome. And, I think you'll learn to like it once you get past the WTFs with the learning curve that is. Laugh | :laugh:

Since it's always fun to see demos, try doing this without JavaScript. It would be impossible...

Tearable Cloth v2[^]

Even if you use WebGL, canvas, et al they are controlled by JavaScript. So learning it is essential for client interactivity.

Jeremy Falcon

That's so cool. Big Grin | :-D

I am not the one who knocks. I never knock.
In fact, I hate knocking.

*cough* Typescript. Just sayin'.

This space for rent

It can be a good tool - especially if you are used to typed languages... But, at the end of the day it translated to JS and that what runs on the clients machine, so using TS does not relieve you from learning JS...

Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.

Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote:
using TS does not relieve you from learning JS...

Indeed it doesn't (nor was I suggesting that it does). What you do get from this, is well written examples of the language when the code has been transpiled so it becomes easier for you to grok how certain things should be structured.

This space for rent

I am not a fan of javascript, but it has become a serious and mighty programming language over the years.

It is depending on the developer and it skill to use it in strict mode.

Press F1 for help or google it.
Greetings from Germany

When it comes to Javascript, I started by crying. That turned into screaming. Now I just quietly whimper.

Latest Article - Class-less Coding - Minimalist C# and Why F# and Function Programming Has Some Advantages

Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny

Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802

I do not understand why so many people hate and whine about JavaScript. I've been using it for years and once you understand how web programming works, JS is easy. Then I found jQuery which was really confusing at first until I got the hang of it and now it is awesome.

It is not that hard nor that bad. w3schools has some good information. I'd suggest doing a project and then just google how to do what it is you need to do. Learn by doing, that's what works best for me.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.

There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

Hi,

I would highly recommend these[^] videos by Douglas Crockford.

I have been using JavaScript off-and-on since the late nineties but there are a lot of caveats. An "interesting" language and things have been changing quite a bit with module loading and the like.

Once you get the hang of it you'll want to probably get going on one of the MV* frameworks. I have used Ember.js (3 years) before but currently I prefer CanJS[^] as I like the design and the fact that it is more library-focused and not so much a framework.

Regards,
Eben

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