Web Development

Mast

17:26

When are semi-colons idiomatic in JS and when aren't they?

What I've seen so far is confusing.

jacwah

18:26

My girlfriend wants to learn about web development

But I don't really know any of that stuff

So I was wondering if anyone has any book to recommend

Dan Pantry

@Mast: Use them as a statement terminator.

jacwah

For a complete beginner

Dan Pantry

@jacwah I never really read books, unfortunately, I just dove in

jacwah

@DanPantry I'm not really a teacher and I don't know the stuff either

So I thought it would be easier

Dan Pantry

Hm

web development is a very nebulous term

Do you mean front end (browser based) or back end (server) or full stack/

I assume you mean front end

jacwah

18:28

I know but she doesn't really know what she wants to learn

Like "make a cool website"

Dan Pantry

and when you say web dev, do you mean design and UX or ACTUAL development

@jacwah youre fucked

jacwah

So I thought - "Aha! JS + CSS + HTML"

Dan Pantry

LOL

Ismael Miguel

Yes you are

It's not just that

Dan Pantry

'make a cool website' is, uh, again, nebulous. And complex

jacwah

18:29

I know!

Dan Pantry

HTML + CSS + JS is definitely the way to go but you definitely want to tackle them one at a itme.

jacwah

But I was thinking JS fiddle is a good tool

Dan Pantry

they're a lot more complex than they were, say, 5 years ago.

jacwah

Really?

Ismael Miguel

@jacwah Does she know anything about programming?

Dan Pantry

18:30

You have semantic HTML, CSS (Which I only PROPERLY just learned in the past few months actually), and then you have JavaScript which is an entire programming language on its own

jacwah

@IsmaelMiguel No

Ismael Miguel

Then you are going to have 2 years of excrutiating pain

Dan Pantry

@jacwah yes. HTML5 came out. Now you no longer can use div soup (or you shouldn't). CSS has been dramatically expanded with animations and transitions. JavaScript has an entirely new standard coming out later this year (hopefully)

You are, essentially, learning 2.5 languages at once to do web development.

(html being the .5)

And then you have to bear in mind all of the pre and post production tools like build tools which can be in shell, javascript, ruby...

It would be a better idea to nail down what your girlfriend actually wants to make (less nebulous than 'a cool website') and decompose that into separate parts.

then learn the bits required for each of those parts.

jacwah

The goal isn't really to learn everything there is about it but to get a taste of what it's like and to get something that looks nice to feel good about

Dan Pantry

@jacwah, in which case, your girlfriend will want to learn about design stuff first.

get her sketching things on a note pad and how she wants to lay things out.

or photoshop if she's so inclined

then learn html and css (NOT JAVASCRIPT) and get her to code the website using those.

jacwah

18:32

@DanPantry That's a good idea

Dan Pantry

Nettuts is a really good resource for building sites from scratch

they walk you through it and the tutorials are free

if you pay a premium fee (£25?) you ca get access to the source materials too.

You can also look at lynda.com for instructional videos but they are really only for the very beginner and don't teach you much and again, it's not free, £25/month

Ismael Miguel

@DanPantry If you watch Good Mythical Morning, they have a code to get you soemthing free from there

Or used to

jacwah

Thanks for your advice

Dan Pantry

no problem, I'm glad to see more people - especially women - gettin into it

jacwah

Yeah, me too

Dan Pantry

18:35

that's not to be sexist but there is a serious lack of women in web dev and computer science in general

lol i just noticed my comment was stickied....

jacwah

@DanPantry Rather the opposite

Dan Pantry

My ex girlfriend actually got hounded out of comp sci because she was the only woman taking the course

Basically

jacwah

I guess that happens a lot

Ismael Miguel

Sadly

Mast

@DanPantry So not behind every function?

Dan Pantry

18:40

@Mast eh? code example?

Mast

@jacwah Not around here, enough girls in comp sci nowadays.

Dan Pantry

@Mast I know of none who still study. This makes me sad because how else am I going to find a hunnie who likes computer science and league of legends :^)

Mast

tasklist.push({
"key" : item.sourceKey
});

That's appropriate, right?

Dan Pantry

yeah you'd want a semi colon there @Mast

you generally want a semi colon at the end of every statement

Or you can omit then entirely if you really want, javascript will just treat each new line as a new statement

Mast

Yea, but what is and what isn't a statement in JS? I mean, if var can be a function...

Dan Pantry

18:44

var foo = function() {} is a function expression, which is a statement.

if (and variations like for) are all blocks

Mast

Yea, seems good. And every call of foo would be a statement as well.

Dan Pantry

function foo() {} is a function declaration, also a block

basically any time you make an assignment or invoke a function

it's a statement

any time you use control flow or define a function

its a block

statements need ;

blocks dont

Ismael Miguel

Or newlines

Mast

And if they're both, just give em one.

Dan Pantry

yeah, ; or newlines ^

yes @Mast

It's very similar to C's rules

except we don't put a ; at the end of int main() {}

Mast

18:46

I do ^^

Dan Pantry

I mean in Javascript, we don't

jacwah

@DanPantry But you wouldn't really create empty functions in C

Dan Pantry

int main() {} is not the same as var foo = main() {}

Mast

There's a ; behind the .listen() of my server, which is basically my main

Dan Pantry

@jacwah no it was just an example :) there's no lamdbas in C so I'm working with what I got!

Basically, after you do one thing in Javascript, use a semi colon

unless it's a function declaration or control-flow

or a new line if you don' want to use semi colons

Mast

18:48

I like semicolons.

Dan Pantry

Most people do, and a lot of snippets in editors use them, which is why I use them.

Ismael Miguel

To add in all that, you can also chain statements

var a, b=5, c=function(){}; c(),b=6,a=6;

Which is awful

Mast

Yea, what's that good for...

Ismael Miguel

Save bytes

Mast

Useless.

Dan Pantry

18:51

No, it's not.

Ismael Miguel

And then theres objects, strings, numbers and arrays

Mast

I'm used to compiled languages, characters get dumped anyway.

Dan Pantry

I mean, yo ushould never do what @IsmaelMiguel did

keep one statement per line, ideally

Ismael Miguel

Please

Dan Pantry

But minifiers are essential parts of the web

(That's another reason to use semi-colons, although a lot of minifiers can understand newlines as terminators)

Ismael Miguel

18:53

But minifiers do a lot more than removing comments and joining statements

Dan Pantry

Thats true, they mangle names

to save bytes

Ismael Miguel

Then also convert if(a == b){ c(); } into a==b&&c();

Dan Pantry

they are essentially an optional version of an optimizing compiler

Ismael Miguel

(Short-cut evaluation FTW!)

Mast

Or put everything in base64 and run something like eval(decode64(gibberish))

Ismael Miguel

18:54

@Mast That wastes space

it has 1/3% of overhead

Mast

Not if the ENTIRE script is inside that gibberish.

Dan Pantry

You never want to use eval

pretend it doesn't exist

if you're using eval you're doing magic voodoo

Mast

I know, just saying that's how I think of minifiers.

Dan Pantry

decoding an entire js script from base64 would take some time too

the less time it takes to display your app to the user, the better

Mast

If it takes too long, use a different language ^^

Dan Pantry

18:57

you have no alternative in the browser..

and that's the only place you'd use a minifier

Mast

Obfuscators are used anywhere though.

Protecting licensing and more of that.

Dan Pantry

security throug h obfuscation doesn't protect anything lol

Mast

That's what I keep saying.

Dan Pantry

afk playing loL

Ismael Miguel

Obfuscators are smarter minificators

They don't do much on Javascript

jacwah

19:03

@IsmaelMiguel Already unreadable?

Ismael Miguel

@jacwah No, you can get the decoded source when it is executed.

Transcript for