JavaScript, write much less, do much more

I’d only ever played around with JavaScript as a way of achieving something within a development environment. I’d given little thought to object orientation and code reuse- ability, focusing more on write once, use once and move on as soon as the thing was working.

Then I read DOM Scripting: Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model which changed everything for me. Off the back of that I moved onto Advanced DOM Scripting: Dynamic Web Design Techniques. Just as good although significantly more complex. I did feel at least that I had a good grasp of JavaScript and its client side implications.

Things are different now, everything about how we write code and deploy it is unrecognisable from a decade ago. Time and expense are an issue with everything we do and with applification gaining momentum none of us can hang around.  Now we’re using frameworks, in my case the jQuery library, for our client side scripting. Development can be fast, although the environment on which the framework is being laid can often present issues surrounding access, especially if you’re dealing with legacy code.

For myself there are two drawbacks to using a framework. The first is the Framework itself which must be downloaded to the client browser, along with any plugins, which can be weighty and as with any JavaScript can cause havoc in an untested environment. The second is less to do with the framework itself and more to do with the developer, who no longer writes his own code, but rather gives instructions to someone else’s. Not the same level of code satisfaction but just the results are just as much fun.

So I’ve gone from reading  about JavaScript using the Document Object Model to reading about frameworks that all but dispense with the considerations of the former.

Happy days.