The JavaScript Execution Context & Stack | Hacker News Reader

The JavaScript Execution Context & Stack

davidshariff.com

34 pointsMamady15 comments

Stupid fucking sidebar. Not only does it move with my scrolling, but it covers content!

And this guy creates "stunning applications & designs used by millions of people"?

And the content is fixed width, and wider than my browser window when I first hit it. I hope there is something in there to detect really small displays otherwise the page will be unusable on small-to-smallish screen devices (netbooks and 10" tablets or smaller).

I suspect from the technical nature of the article he is a front-end programmer and not a designer, and from the display issues I would guess he works in a large enough team that he rarely has to worry about front-end design as someone else is responsible for that.

He labels himself as a "front-end engineer", which suggests his speciality is stuff inside the browser window.

And his site suggests either he is not very good at it, or he is comfortable enforcing what he believes the web is on the visitors to his site, i.e. minimum browser canvas width of about 1200 pixels. At that point the pseudo-left-hand menu doesn't obstruct the content.

Has there been a major site redesign in the last hour? In both Firefox and Chrome I see a variable-width content area and the sidebar moves to the top of the viewport if the browser width is too narrow for it to fit on the side.

yes, that left hand nav is now permanently horizontal across the top. That's changed today.

Not to pile on the poor guy, but he does explicitly say he "creates designs" at the top header.

I'm surprised that an 'in-depth' article completely ignores closures and the peculiarities of their execution stack.

[edit]: FWIW, here's a more detailed explanation about all this that seems very straightforward and complete (from 2004). http://jibbering.com/faq/notes/closures/#clIRExSc

Strange, seems quite "responsive" now (on Chrome 20). The sidebar jumps to the top for a narrow window. And the text reflows to window width.

He must've changed it. Content is only minimally covered.

However, the tweet thing on the right still annoyingly moves around, and the bar on the left still scrolls with the page.

Unlike a lot of sites, it read great on my WP7 phone. Would it be surprising if the article was intended to get feedback from HN while testing some new layout technique?

You could always play the "Chrome > Inspect Element > Delete Node" game I often do with websites that decide I need some tools or advertisements constantly in my face.

I'm also annoyed by the moving social sidebar that I stop reading immediately. Just make it fixed. Scrolling is a huge pain.

It didn't cover content for me, but I think it's annoying anyway. Instead of using fixed positioning, which the browser will keep in place no matter where you scroll without any annoying jumps, he updates the position with Javascript just because he wants the sidebar to lineup with the top of content when you load the page and to stay near the top of the screen while you scroll.

It's stunning from how annoying it is, and lets not forget that Craigslist is also a design used by millions of people, so his assertions don't automatically mean he is a great designer, although I prefer the simple if cumbersome design of Craigslist to an annoying jumping sidebar.

I see no mention of closures, callbacks or setTimeout/setInterval. Is this some kind of joke?

No, it's an article that lacks some (not that) advanced stuff.

A joke is more like "Knock, knock. Who's there?" etc.

Well a joke is more like that jumping sidebar with all the social sharing.

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