Why I’m Becoming a JavaScript Convert
I remember the first time I played with JavaScript, it was around 1999, and I was 16. I had bought the reference book ‘JavaScript for dummies’ (a seminal work in the field) and was having a lot of fun adding interactive widgets to my website — I remember specifically ripping off the Windows 98 ‘Start Menu’ …
Fast forward a few weeks, and I am quickly becoming frustrated with cross-browser compatibility problems. Furthermore, there was a strong prevailing prejudice against JavaScript — this helped push me out of the world of front-end web-development and towards ‘software-development’.
It’s now 11 years later, when I look at the world of ‘software-development’, the most exciting software products I can think of are on the web. I recently started work at FreshBooks, a company making one of these exciting products. While trying to figure out my niche as developer in the company, I found myself working on a lot of front-end stuff. This has pushed me into using JavaScript, for the first time since I was a frustrated teenager.
Things I’ve learned:
- Closures in JavaScript are amazing!
- Prototypes rock.
- Leaning on libraries like jQuery makes cross-browser annoyances much less annoying.
- JavaScript is an elegant language! it’s not a toy (this shocked me.)
This brings me to a bet I made with my co-worker on the flight from Toronto to jQuery conference in San Francisco.
“Mark”, I said, “I bet I could build Tetris in JavaScript, during this plane trip.”
To which Mark replied,
“I doubt that.”.
What is relevant about this? — I feel the hastily hacked together Tetris code I wrote on the plane is a great demonstration of the power of JavaScript.
Let’s look at the design:
- I used John Resig’s Simple JavaScript Inheritance. This is an awesome micro-library that wraps prototypes into a function that gives them behavior closer to classical inheritance.
- I used jQuery for DOM manipulations, event handling, etc.
- I used an HTML 5 canvas for drawing.
Without further adieu, here’s the obscenely slap-shod code I wrote in 3 hours on the plane:
Play It
So there you have it, pretty sloppy, but I feel an awesome argument for how powerful JavaScript has become, and will continue to become as technologies like HTML 5 get wider adoption.
