to learn jQuery if already using prototype
in [JavaScript]
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From: J.S.Criptoff on 19 Apr 2008 12:32 On 19 ÁÐÒ, 15:40, "Richard Cornford" <Rich...(a)litotes.demon.co.uk> wrote: > J.S.Criptoff wrote: > > While c.l.j regulars are ridiculing John Resig's first > > javascript book he's writing the second one - "Secrets > > of the JavaScript Ninja". > > <snip> > > That would not necessarily have to such a bad thing as it may at first > appear to be. The first book was published in 2006 and it is possible to > learn a great deal in two years. Granted I don't think that John Resig's > attitude will lend itself to facilitating his learning anything > effectively. > > Richard. In two years? Are you kidding, Richard? John Resig gave a presentation for the local ACM of Northeastern University and covered the basics of javascript a few weeks ago. Weeks. Look at his slide, Richard: Type coersion 0 == false null == false !"foo" == false And listen to guru-ninja's explanation: "Zero is equal to false. Zero gets coerced into becoming Á boolean value... Same thing with nulls...". from 5:50 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7485992465859932389
From: Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn on 19 Apr 2008 15:00 Richard Cornford wrote: > Andrew Dupont wrote: >> On Apr 17, 10:57 am, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote: >>> Yours is an "appeal to authority" fallacy, BTW. > > I didn't think that was an appeal to authority, more of an appeal to > bulk, in some sens. Quoting people who approve of something and concluding that therefore this something must be good is the classical example for the logical fallacy of appeal to authority, also known as "ipse dixit" ("he himself said it"). Unfortunately, out of general appreciation of the other person, several regulars around here tend to fall victim to this fallacy as well, without recognizing it. We should strive to avoid such fallacious arguments, especially as they only weaken a good case when confronted with an argument that is fallacious as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority PointedEars -- Use any version of Microsoft Frontpage to create your site. (This won't prevent people from viewing your source, but no one will want to steal it.) -- from <http://www.vortex-webdesign.com/help/hidesource.htm>
From: Richard Cornford on 19 Apr 2008 16:06 J.S.Criptoff wrote: >Richard Cornford wrote: >> J.S.Criptoff wrote: >>> While c.l.j regulars are ridiculing John Resig's first >>> javascript book he's writing the second one - "Secrets >>> of the JavaScript Ninja". >> <snip> >> >> That would not necessarily have to such a bad thing as it may That really should have been; "... have to be such a bad thing ..". >> at first appear to be. The first book was published in 2006 >> and it is possible to learn a great deal in two years. Granted >> I don't think that John Resig's attitude will lend itself to >> facilitating his learning anything effectively. > > In two years? Are you kidding, Richard? Not at all. The bulk of what I have learnt about javascript was learnt in the period from 2002 to 2004. Two years is plenty of time, if you put the effort in and are receptive to the idea that you really didn't know it all to start with. > John Resig gave a presentation for the local ACM of > Northeastern University and covered the basics of > javascript a few weeks ago. Weeks. Look at his slide, > Richard: > > Type coersion > 0 == false > null == false > !"foo" == false > > And listen to guru-ninja's explanation: "Zero is equal to > false. Zero gets coerced into becoming ? boolean value... > Same thing with nulls...". <snip> Well, I did say that his attitude would get in the of his potential to learn. He dropped into a thread on this group with the subject "prototype - Good/Bad/Why?", which commenced 15th February 2008 and in which the section of his first book that reads:- "In JavaScript, null, 0, '', false, and undefined are all equal (==) to each other, since they all evaluate to false. This means that if you use the code test == false, it will evaluate true if test is also undefined or equal to null, which may not be what you want." - and goes on to state that:- "Listing 3-12. Examples of How != and == Differ from !== and === // Both of these are true null == false 0 == undefined" - John Resig: Pro JavaScript Techniques. 2006 - was directly criticised for its demonstrably false statements about javascript (and also the competence of the book's technical editor (who apparently works for Google) as a result of letting those errors pass uncorrected). If he had hung around and paid attention to his critics he would not have been repeating that same mistake just a couple of weeks ago. But then the code:- | makeArray: function( array ) { | var ret = []; | | // Need to use typeof to fight Safari childNodes crashes | if ( typeof array != "array" ) | for ( var i = 0, length = array.length; i < length; i++ ) | ret.push( array[ i ] ); | else | ret = array.slice( 0 ); | | return ret; | }, - was still in the last (1.2.3) release of JQuery more than six months after John Resig had been directly asked to justify it during his previous visit to this group. He did not attempt to justify it (which would not have been that difficult if it could be justified at all [1]), but apparently also did not grasp the reason for the criticism. Interestingly I observed Matt Kruse (who is the nearest thing to a supporter JQuery has among the regular contributors to this group, and someone who can easily outgun anyone directly involved in JQuery development when it comes to javascript) directly asked however was responsible for the - if ( typeof array != "array" ) - code to own up to it in a post on the JQuery development group. However, when I checked back a week later to see if anyone had the intellectual integrity to own up to their mistake I found that Matt's post had been deleted from the group. Well, we get used to the intellectual freedom of Usenet, where criticism is just a matter of public record. While those more familiar with blogging and (self?) moderated Google forums might see deleting their critics as a satisfactory approach to avoiding realising their mistakes. Richard. [1] For those who need to be told; javascript primitives and native and built in objects may only result in the strings 'string', 'undefined', 'object', 'function', 'number' and 'boolean' from a typeof operation (with no known implementation bugs in this area). Host objects are allowed to return any value (or even throw exceptions), such as when the methods of ActiveX object result in the string 'unknown' when a typeof operation is applied to them. So, if the code - if ( typeof array != "array" ) - makes any sense at all there must be an object property of a host object in a browser (and since JQuery only works with the default configurations of just four browser it must be one of those four browsers) with a - slice - method that results in 'array' when a typeof operation is applied to it. It should not be at all difficult to name the object/property and browser/browser version in question, and so justify code that otherwise looks like a long running mistake that is being repeated in the face of direct criticism.
From: Richard Cornford on 19 Apr 2008 17:20 Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote: > Richard Cornford wrote: >> Andrew Dupont wrote: >>> On Apr 17, 10:57 am, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote: >>>> Yours is an "appeal to authority" fallacy, BTW. >> >> I didn't think that was an appeal to authority, more of an >> appeal to bulk, in some sens. > > Quoting people who approve of something and concluding that > therefore this something must be good is the classical example > for the logical fallacy of appeal to authority, also known as > "ipse dixit" ("he himself said it"). It is certainly an appeal to something, but it often feels as if that something is not "authority" much of the time. After all, why should NASA, Apple or CNN be considered authorities on web development at all. You would not cite someone who was perceived as having web development expertise in support of opinions on space exploration, computer hardware design or news broadcasting so why attempt to do so the other way around. And Google is just a joke in any list of 'authorities' on web development. I noticed at the beginning of last week that they have (after just half a decade) finally managed to improve the accuracy of their adding-up code on Google groups to an accuracy better than the previous plus or minus 60% (and so radically re-arrange their 'all time top posters' list for comp.lang.javascript), and the next day I tried to show someone that they had done something about that code only to find that the page containing the list was no longer working at all (and stayed non-functional for the rest of the week). Their code is clearly such a mess that whenever they try to fix one of its faults it promptly unravels somewhere else. > Unfortunately, out of general appreciation of the other > person, several regulars around here tend to fall victim > to this fallacy as well, without recognizing it. Yes, and it seems to be getting to be me who keeps being cited as an authority. I suppose that I probably should not worry about that from a personal point of view because for each opinion of mine that is accurately represented there will also be reasoned statement of justification for that position somewhere on the public record. Though it is perhaps a pity that reasoned arguments are apparently not seen as standing or falling independently of any 'authority' that makes them, and so should be presented in themselves. > We should strive to avoid such fallacious arguments, > especially as they only weaken a good case when confronted > with an argument that is fallacious as well. That would be good. But I can certainly see how the Prototype.js/JQuery argument is starting to get so old that people are reverting to knee-jerk generalisation as an alternative to going over it all again. Richard.
From: VK on 19 Apr 2008 17:52
On Apr 19, 12:13 am, John G Harris <j...(a)nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote: > On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 at 11:34:01, in comp.lang.javascript, VK wrote: > >On Apr 17, 9:32 pm, Gregor Kofler <use...(a)gregorkofler.at> wrote: > > <snip> > > >> > CNN (betaversionhttp://beta.cnn.com/) uses Prototype > > >> Super slow loading - about 50% of the 630kB payload is eaten up by JS > >> files... > > >It takes 3sec on my 4Mb/sec downstream DSL for the initial page > >display where the download itself takes 0.39sec You may want to > >consider switching from Dial-Up to something more speedy ;-) > > A lot of sailors have to use dial-up via INMARSAT. Do you have a cheery > word for them ? As a person: "Good and safe trip to all of you!". As a web developer: nothing. Unless of course some particular project will require to accommodate the content delivery to the most thin clients and/or most narrow bandwidth. In the latter case we will do anything possible within the budget for that: from light weighted HTML to WML. But no one will change the Web in whole neither for Inmarsat nor for GSM cell phone surfers. |