david-mark

'use strict' Considered Pointless and Harmful

What is strict mode?

According to the MDN reference, it is:

ECMAScript 5's strict mode is a way to opt in to a restricted variant of JavaScript [sic].

It goes on to say:

david-mark

Often see library code similar to this:

// NOTE: Do not use this or similar code

(function(global) {
  'use strict';

  global.$ = {};
})(window);

david-mark

Forget AMD and that's straight from the source. Sorry for the long build-up on the history, but if I'm to convince you to forget this non-technology, I think it's best you know where it came from. For those in a hurry, the executive summary is in the subject line. ;)

In Spring of 2009, I rewrote the Dojo loader during a requested renovation of that project. The primary pattern used to make it more practical was:

dojo.provide('foo', ['bar1', 'bar2'], function() {

[module code]

});

david-mark

Have been fighting with some RWD "expert" on Wikipedia of late. At the time of this writing, my edits to the related article are still visible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_Web_Design

RWD is just a buzzword. According to the article (and a fairly recent book it seems), it incorporates these techniques:

1. Use EM units to size text (and containers of text of course).
2. Use media queries
3. Let the browser scale images (by using em's instead of pixels)

david-mark

Was asked to look at this thing again; only reviewed the JS portion. Last I checked, the CSS was similarly reality-challenged. Graphics are nice, but are tantamount to the paint job on a used car. Under the hood, this thing is all junk. It's hard to imagine the innards of any Web or mobile device-based application would end up like this, which raises the question of whether the authors have ever written such applications (or any amount of meaningful JS).

/**
 * @class Ext
 * @singleton

There (still) are no "classes" or "singletons" in JS (starting off on the wrong foot by mangling JS terms).

david-mark

Having had some of the first words on "modern" host object detection and testing, feel like it's time to try to issue a final word. At least I hope it is the last word as I've seen a lot misinformation spread over the last several years. The Web is great for that. :)

The original observations and concepts came about from discussions on comp.lang.javascript (CLJ) and were written up by Peter Michaux almost a decade ago.

The first rule to remember is that - with regard to detection - we don't know anything about host objects. How are they implemented? Why do they behave like they do? We can never really know as - unlike objects native and built into javascript (JS) implementations - there are no ECMA specifications for host objects. They are described in t

david-mark

#Why Does jQuery Still Contain "Sizzle"?

The download of jQuery 3.1 contains the huge and complicated attempt to simulate the standard Selectors API called "Sizzle", allegedly to fix browser bugs.

It also attempts to make all CSS selectors work in supported browsers, but that's fairly pointless. If you need to support queries IE 8, then don't use CSS selectors that are unsupported in IE 8 (you'll know when you hit one as a friendly exception will be thrown). Same goes for IE 9 and 10, which are the only other browsers alleged to be supported by jQuery that contain significant gaps in CSS3 support. And even for those, it's a pretty short list of selectors that are missing in the browsers and supported (or attempted) by Sizzle.

As we'll see, jQuery doesn't support IE 8 at all, other than through old (1.x) and largely unmaintained versions that may well have problems in newer browsers (jQuery's designs have always required pe

david-mark

var express = require('express');

var subtitlesUrl = 'http://your-local-ip:8000/subtitles.vtt';

var app = express();

app.use(function(req, res, next) {
  res.header('transferMode.dlna.org', 'Streaming');
  res.header('contentFeatures.dlna.org', 'DLNA.ORG_OP=01;DLNA.ORG_CI=0;DLNA.ORG_FLAGS=01700000000000000000000000000000')
  res.header('CaptionInfo.sec', subtitlesUrl);

david-mark

#Understanding Cross-browser Scripting

Cross-browser was invented around the turn of the century and is needed more today than ever. Unfortunately, it is also massively misunderstood, both by library developers and their users.

##What Cross-Browser Scripting is Not

Before getting into what cross-browser scripting is, let's look at what it is not. Cross-browser scripting does not imply that scripts will work in every browser and configuration known to man. Certainly a script that does work in every conceivable environment would be considered cross-browser, but such expectations are neither realistic, nor a requirement for a script to be considered cross-browser.

Depsite marketing claims, popular libraries such as jQuery and Lodash are neither cross-browser nor cross-platform. It's critical to understand that they are multi-browser and multi-platform, working in a handful of environments deemed worthy by their authors at the time of each version release. Th

david-mark

Angular jqLite

jQuery and Angular

Angular doesn’t depend on jQuery. In fact, the Angular source contains an embedded lightweight alternative: jqLite. Still, when Angular detects the presence of a jQuery version in your page, it uses that full jQuery implementation in lieu of jqLite. One direct way in which this manifests itself is with Angular’s element abstraction. For example, in a directive you get access to the element that the directive applies to: