I just wrapped up six months of hard work authoring my new Pluralsight course “Building Applications with React and Flux“. During that time I dissected over 30 open source projects in an effort to establish common patterns and … Read on...
Category Archives: JavaScript
Webpack vs Browserify
In the land of JavaScript, no one is king for long.
Just last year Grunt was effectively dethroned by Gulp. And now, just as Gulp and Browserify are finally reaching critical mass, Webpack threatens to unseat them both. Is there … Read on...
Is Separating HTML and JavaScript Harmful?
I’ve spent the last many years religiously honoring the principle of separation of concerns. Separating concerns produces code that’s easier to read, maintain, and test. Right? Well, as I’ve found, virtually every “best practice” has exceptions. We have to … Read on...
7 Ways to Handle Circular Dependencies in RequireJS
When working with RequireJS, you’re likely to run across two modules that need to reference each other. When you create a circular reference using the standard RequireJS define statement on both sides, the module that’s loaded last fails and is … Read on...
Cache Busting via Gulp.js
Have you ever thought about how many HTTP requests your app is wasting? Many developers think the native caching mechanisms of browsers are sufficient. However, did you know every time a page is loaded, an HTTP request is still typically … Read on...
AngularJS: The De Facto Standard for SPA Development?
One year ago, I started a large Single Page Application (SPA) project. I spent a few weeks Googling and biting my nails, trying to choose between the various options for SPA development. I considered four leading players:
… Read on...Writing Code? Know Your Boundaries.
Today’s developers are cursed blessed with a massive list of libraries and technologies for solving problems. And some of the worst sins against code stem from simply selecting the wrong tool for the job. It’s recently become clear to me … Read on...
JavaScript Configuration Object Pattern: JSON Saves the Day
So you’re building a modern web app? That means you’re likely running a variety of client-side libraries and custom business logic in JavaScript. And one of the first hurdles you run into is “Hey, I need some data from the … Read on...
KnockoutJS: Maintain Input Focus While Tabbing and Rebinding
Single page applications pose a unique and interesting set of problems. Libraries that offer two-way binding like KnockoutJS and AngularJS make it trivial to completely redraw a screen with new data delivered from the server via AJAX calls. However, what … Read on...
Warn Users of Unsaved Changes with jQuery
In web apps it’s helpful to warn the user if they attempt to navigate away after making changes without hitting save. But the tricky part is, how do you track when they’ve made changes? This is actually pretty trivial to … Read on...