JavaScript: The Good Parts

Closure

An inner or nested function can reference variables in its outer functions, even after the outer function has exited, such as when the outer function returns the inner function.

Currying

A function is given some arguments and returns a function that will be passed the rest of the arguments later. This has two benefits: complex arguments can be calculated once and stored, and the number of arguments is reduced.

Memoization

I just call this caching the function result in a Dictionary.

'getting it to work' in book: Clean Code, Martin

The following quote is NOT a favorite. In fact, I nearly choked on it.

"Perhaps you thought that 'getting it to work' was the first order of business for a professional developer. I hope by now, however, that this book has disabused you of that idea."

These sentences are in a section of formatting code. While I firmly advocate readability and maintainability of code, I strongly believe that working code is the highest priority--the "first order of business".

My suspicion is that the author intended to persuade coders not to simply hack together something that works without regard to the future. I agree that 'getting it to work' is not the only order of business, but polishing defective code is a waste of time.

Book: Clean Code, Robert C. Martin, p. 76

Debugging the Development Process by Steve Maguire (book review)

Debugging the Development Process

I frequently refer to the section titled "Know Your Coding Priorities" (p. 18).

• Size
• Speed
• Robustness
• Testability
• Maintainability
• Simplicity
• Reusability
• Portability
• Readability

Know Your Coding Priorities

If you were to ask three different friends to drop by the supermarket to pick up some asparagus, green beans, and corn, would it surprise you to find that one friend bought canned vegetables because were the cheapest, another bought frozen vegetables because they were easiest to cook, and the third bought fresh vegetables because they were organically grown and tasted the best? Can you at least imagine such a thing happening?

The three friends buy different types of vegetables for the same reason one programmer will emphasis speed in his code, another will emphasize small size in hers, and a third will emphasize simplicity--their choices differ because their priorities are different.

(p. 17)

Visualizing Data: Exploring and Explaining Data with the Processing Environment (book review)

Contains a lot of (Java) code, especially on capturing data. Little on design approaches for visualization of different types of data. What design suggestions exist, delve into details like the length of a dash and what font to use. Published in 2007, this book is showing its age. Touch devices are not mentioned.

Interactive Data Visualization for the Web (book review)

Examines, with code samples, D3 and JavaScript to render data using several chart types.

Data Visualization: A Successful Design Process (book review)

An excellent, complete coverage of data visualization techniques with a large collection of charts, graphs, maps and other ways to visually display information.

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood (book review)

Math, linguistics and history--a great combination. Bonus--computer science and quantum physics. The best combination.

What's New in CSS3 (book review)

This free e-book is a very high-level discussion of ongoing changes to the CSS3 modules. General information is given for each module, but specific CSS properties are not listed. If you want an executive overview of CSS enhancements and deprecations in some 30 pages, this book is helpful. However, this book lacks the details needed by a developer.

Code Burgundy the Long Escape (book review)

Purchased this book from the author at a WW 2 reenactment. Now that I know his war experience, I hope to shake his hand again. The hand he almost lost to enemy fire, but was saved by a French doctor in the resistance. The first half of the book is the author's story, followed by the story as told by one of his fellow escapees. The last part of the book relates Katasaros' return visit to France and the French resistance who treated his wounds, provided food and shelter, and helped him and many others back to freedom.

The book is lightly edited leaving the reader with the impression that one is listening to a vet share his past. The personal, unpolished tone and style combine with numerous photos and scanned documents to draw the reader into Katasaros' trials and travels. This is truly a positive story of honor and courage exhibited by many people who share a common bond of love and respect--the French for Katasaros and the other Allied airmen who sacrificed life and limb, and Katasaros for the French resistance fighters who risked their lives to rescue him and other downed airmen.

Having been captured twice by the Gestapo and, as a fugitive, fled across France, the author declares "Cherish your freedom".

Review: LightSwitch Succinctly

LightSwitch Succinctly by Jan Van der Haegen

My rating: 0 of 5 stars



Brief description of the Microsoft LightSwitch dev tool and framework to create data-centric Silverlight applications (either Windows or Web). Well written and organized, but I didn't realize it was for Silverlight till the end of the book. The book is a short, quick read, so well worth the small investment of time. IMO, LightSwitch is most appropriate for in-house, small application, but not enterprise product development, especially with Silverlight's uncertain future.



View all my reviews