I’m sure you’ve heard the proverb, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” probably many times. Its written origin dates back to the 18th century, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was much, much older. And though the work we do has little to do with actual chains, this proverb is every bit as relevant to us.
Remember when Azer Koçulu unpublished more than 250 of his modules from... Read More
Lazy loading is a common software design pattern that defers the initialization of objects until they are needed. Lazy loading images started to become popular on the web back in 2007, when Mika Tuupola drew inspiration from the YUI ImageLoader utility and released a jQuery plugin. Since then, it’s become a popular technique to optimize page loading and the user experience. In this article I... Read More
There’s a false belief in the web development community that CSS animation is the only performant way to animate on the web. This myth has coerced many developers to abandon JavaScript-based animation altogether, thereby (1) forcing themselves to manage complex UI interaction within style sheets, (2) locking themselves out of supporting Internet Explorer 8 and 9, and (3) forgoing the beautiful... Read More
Scrolling effects have been around in web design for years now, and while many plugins are available to choose from, only a few have the simplicity and light weight that most developers and designers are looking for. Most plugins I’ve seen try to do too many things, which makes it difficult for designers and developers to integrate them in their projects.
Not long ago, Apple introduced... Read More
Front-end development is no longer about individual frameworks. Tools are available — we merely have to choose. To make the right choices for your project, you need to start with a general approach, or methodology. But most methodologies have been created by big companies? Are they still useful for small companies, or do we need to reinvent them at a small scale?
You probably already know... Read More
Have you ever come across a bit of JavaScript like $(".cta").click(function(){}) and thought, “What the $('#x') is that” If it looks like gibberish to you, then please read on. If you think that snippet of code couldn’t possibly be real, then please browse some jQuery examples. They are full of such constructions.
This article covers the key concepts that underly such intimidating... Read More
Session storage is a new feature introduced by the W3C’s “Web Storage” specification. It’s supported in Internet Explorer 8+, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera Desktop (for a complete list, please consult “Can I Use”).
var total = parseInt( sessionStorage.getItem( "total" ) );
var quantity = 2;
var updatedTotal = total * quantity;
sessionStorage.setItem( "total", updatedTotal ); // '240',... Read More
After recently writing an article on “Writing A Better JavaScript Library For The DOM”, I realized that the topic is indeed a very complex one and that it's important to understand what exactly live extensions are and how they work.
In today's article, I will answer most questions that were asked regarding "live extensions" and help you get going with this new concept. Read More
At present, jQuery is the de facto library for working with the document object model (DOM). It can be used with popular client-side MV* frameworks (such as Backbone), and it has a ton of plugins and a very large community.
As developers’ interest in JavaScript increases by the minute, a lot of people are becoming curious about how native APIs really work and about when we can just use... Read More