marcuswestin

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Devil advocating:

I coded exclusively in javascript from 2006-2011. Most of that time was spent at Meebo, where we authored one of the most sophisticated JS application in existence at the time. It was great stuff!

I've worked extensively with node.js 2011-mid2013, launching multiple backends written partially and exclusively in node. Lots of fun!

On https://github.com/marcuswestin I maintain multiple widely used open source projects, much of it JS.

In the past 4 weeks I've rewritten my current product's entire nodejs backend to a statically typed language. Why? Because static type analysis allows you to develop more accurate code faster and with lower maintenance cost.

I've been a strong advocate for "javascript everywhere" for a long time. However, these days I believe that there is exactly one fantastic use case for javascript: delivering rich application experiences in web browsers.

So you may be right: perhaps this line of arguing is fading. But in that case I'm a real outlier.

(and with all that said, the most important thing to consider is this: what tool will best allow you and your team to build and maintain your intended product?)

@il, thanks for posting this.

I'm now donating $10 per month, and consider it money well spent.

@Everyone: Tag along and sign up for a monthly donation!

A fast objc/javascript bridge that works on iOS and OSX today: https://github.com/marcuswestin/WebViewJavascriptBridge

Tools merely empower us to do better what we were already doing. The tool is never bad.

We should probably take clues from other professions. A scalpel is never bad, and cutting up a person can be ethically correct.

I haven't thought carefully about this, but it seems that intention is the most important factor, followed by actual outcome. (Eg doing bad things without intent isn't necessarily unethical behavior. But some bad actions are so gruesome that it is hard to forgive the lack of foresight. Recklessness you might call that)

We did plenty of that as well :)

Nice :) I'm curious to see how long the http://slidescroll.com/demo_presentation holds up as HN comes barging in! Right now, every time someone clicks that link the presentation starts over at the beginning for everyone.

I'm a UoC comp sci alumnus working at silicon valley startups since graduation in '08. Though a fantastic place in many ways, it's not one to encourage actually building stuff. If you're a hacker who loves to see code run and solve real world problems you may be frustrated at the UoC. I was :) on the other hand, if you go through with their BS degree in CS then you will have learnt a lot of fascinating theory.

Best of luck my friend! And ping me at marcuswestin@gmail.com to say hi or if you have any questions. Cheers :)

If you include how much your salary, bonuses, equity and health care costs the business, does it change your calculations?

This tool complements WebViewJavascriptBridge really well for HTML5 apps on iOS. (https://github.com/marcuswestin/WebViewJavascriptBridge)

Users with the Clover app installed gets a push notification instead of a text message. Tapping it takes you to a screen which asks if you want to log in to the site. Tapping yes logs you in (the site long-polls in this case)

We implemented and used this approach exactly for login and a few other things at Clover. People we observed using it were mostly confused. We switched to "enter your phone number and we'll text you a on-time code", where the phone number became the unique identifier for the user. Worked much better.

I believe this creates a centralized venue for prospective employees to show their motivation and fit for the job. That sounds like a great benefit to me!

Nice! Also relevant: localStorage wrapper for all browsers without using cookies or flash. https://github.com/marcuswestin/store.js

Perhaps worth using under the hood for locache?

XSS By bflesch@bf-itservice.de :) nice work

svg

Great idea! Sounds cleaner but I think it'd be more code injected into the webview than the current approach.

Nothing worth doing is easy - inspirational stories like your's always seem to involve near crash-and-burn dips (whether that part of the story actually gets told, or not).

Here's to not giving up - keep up the great work guys!

I tend to build all my DOM in object oriented javascript, and always give the root element of a UI component the same class name as the name of the JavaScript class. See eg https://github.com/marcuswestin/Focus/blob/master/js/ui/pane.... The CSS selectors then mirror the structure of thr JavaScript files as well as the hierarchy of the resulting UI.

Did not know that! :P

I guess browser-require will still be useful, since you can import the same files in node and in the browser

no, it does not :)

That's one of the big differences - I'd say the other big difference is that it comes with a compiler that bundles all your required modules into a single javascript file for production

The synchronous XHR requests are only used in your development environment. For production, use `node browser-require/compile.js`, which will compile all your required javascript modules into a single file. It really doesn't make sense to asynchronously request all of your javascript files on production pages.

require.js does asynchronous file loading and is supposed to be deployed as-is in production. Browser-require makes it easy to develop your code using synchronous require statements and straight-forward dependency management. For production it has a compiler that combines all the required files into a single file (which is the only way you should serve your javascript in production)

kudos

Can't get past the login page :/

I viewed http://github.com/languages a couple of hours ago, and ruby was still at #1. Very cool that js is now on top of the hill!

(for the disbelievers: it's really not that hard to fathom, especially considering the recent growth of legitimate JavaScript runtime environments)

Keep rocking the boat JS! We need it

There are two hard problems in computer science. Naming, cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors.

Meebo - we're kicking butt so hard it hurts! Ping me at marcus@meebo-inc.com and check out meebo.com/jobs.

Offices in CA, NY, and elsewhere.

Yup - no pragmatic advice offered really, just a theoretical idea. Perhaps the most interesting point is simply that it's hard to put a value to the work of a teacher.