Variable assignment in Django templates, sort of May 29th, 2008
Use and abuse of the “with” programmatic statement to make your Django template code less mad.
Compiling languages down to Javascript May 12th, 2008
If it’s really the case that browsers, virtual machines and IDEs will one day converge, then the first steps would be to run Java, Ruby and other languages in a browser using Javascript. (Hat tip to Nick for the timely links.)
[Edit: run Python using Javascript too.]
“You have to have something bad happen to you” January 7th, 2008
Steve Yegge on code’s worst enemy:
… This brings us to the second obviously-bad thing that can go wrong with code bases: copy and paste. It doesn’t take very long for programmers to learn this lesson the hard way. It’s not so much a rule you have to memorize as a scar you’re going to get [...]
Pretending that Javascript is XSL, part 3: hCard to vCard December 20th, 2007
In previous posts (part 1, part 2) I established the possibility that there were advantages to making Javascript more functional, to bring it in line with CSS and XSL. I didn’t say what these were, particularly, but I then provided a few bits and pieces on top of jQuery to make Javascript just that: functional [...]
Pretending that Javascript is XSL, part 2: jQuery++ December 19th, 2007
If you’re here, then you probably came from here, and you want to make Javascript more functional. If you didn’t come from there—and this is getting a bit like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book, isn’t it?—then you might want to go there first, to see if you want to be here.
So: functional Javascript. Not just functional, but [...]
Pretending that Javascript is XSL, part 1: XSL, CSS and JS side by side December 18th, 2007
There are three main technologies that your browser employs to present HTML for you: XSL, CSS and Javascript. The first two of these are functional: that is, they turn your incoming (X)HTML documents into a set of functions, or behaviours if you like. Because CSS isn’t generally considered a language, let alone a functional one, [...]
Working out chaotic things December 10th, 2007
I’m so impressed with Radiohead. I was a fan back in the days of The Bends (y’know: before they literally, if not metaphorically, sold out), and have more affection for Pablohoney than most. But in an era when it’s trivial to get whatever music you want for free off your mate who happened to buy [...]
Programming shouldn’t be degrading September 19th, 2007
Steve compares “graceful degradation” with “progressive enhancement.” Mostly he takes issue (rightly) with the rhetorical spin that the former applies to the idea of building a website. But I think you can compare them with each other as if they were two different types of crowbar instead: two ways of prising open the task in [...]
Software simple and software facile September 12th, 2007
Assaf writes about, among other things, REST as a simplifier of development against an existing system:
REST plays the same role as open source and open APIs: It eliminates tooling and vendoring as artificial barriers to adoption.
Interestingly, a corollary to this was brought up at Barcamp Brighton this weekend. During Gareth Rushgrove’s talk about REST and [...]
The point-to-point is the point September 4th, 2007
A comment on Ask the Wizard’s post about obviousness bemoans the non-obviousness of a particular social network’s use:
You wouldn’t happen to have a video you could link to of that person who showed you Twitter being valuable. Why? Because I (still) don’t get it…
I know how he feels. I still don’t get MySpace, and according [...]