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Written Jan 3rd, 2011

Full disclosure here. I have been programming in Javascript since about 1998. I do not spend much time in the language as code I write is mostly on the server side. On the occasions I have had to use Javascript I can say I am not a big fan. I have chalked up this experience to a lack to real understanding of the language. But, after twelve years one would think they would have may some headway.

There have been occasions when I have sat down and tried to gain a better understanding of the language, its idiom, quirks, and best practices. I have pretty much failed each time. I have in my library Javascript books that date back to IE3 and IE4. Back in the day when Netscape was one of the two predominant browsers.

In the past few years I have worked on projects that have made me focus more on user interfaces and front-end application development. I have been fortunate enough to find nice UI controls done in Javascript and JQuery. Controls that are quite impressive and do not take much understanding of the Javascript language to implement and use.

But, the more one works in creating user interfaces the more one finds they are in need of control and functions that just do not exist. I thought, I am a decent engineer, if these folks can develop such nice controls using Javascript and JQuery why can't I?

My recent attempts to create such functionality has caused a great deal of pain, suffering, and gnashing of teeth. Once again I found Javascript to be kicking my ass. In life we need from time to time lessons in humility. This certainly is one of those times.

I must confess that I would have given up on Javascript years ago except for one tiny problem. There is NO other alternative that runs native in the browser! Also, my recent work is such that I will never be able accomplish all of my design goals unless I can get my arms around this language.

So, I began yet another quest to find some resources to help me. Since I love third party books I began my search there. One title I stumbled upon was "Javascript: The Good Parts." An interesting title given my predicament. This led me to an hour long You Tube video by the author Douglas Crockford. He is a long time Javascript developer and the inventor of JSON. You can check it out on your own.

For me it was nice to here an expert talk about some of the really crappy design in this language. Despite his perspective on what was wrong with the language he was able to convince me that there were good facets to the language. At a time when I am between a rock and a hard place this was really nice to hear. It helped quite a bit already having a programming background in Java, and also a long history of structured programming that goes all the way back to C. I may not end up subscribing to everything he advocates but it has been a revelation running into his views at this point in time. My biggest take-away was that I really needed to go back to the drawing board.

As such it is my goal this year to better master Javascript. In taking this journey it is also my goal to integrate this knowledge with what I have learned about JQuery. As I am a big fan of toy code examples I am planning on posting these efforts on my website for other that may fall into my predicament.

Regards,
Eric Matthews

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