Fine Tuning your Javascript: YUI Js lectures

Almost all the people I know who use Javascript have learnt it in bits and pieces. Myself, as well, have learnt Javascript on a need basis; if I run into a situation where I don’t know how the to handle it in the language, I look it up and proceed.

Very few people actually take the time to learn Javascript as a language, since the majority consider it to be a scripting language, something that is incomplete and not fully formed. This is probably the main reason why most of the Javascript code out on the web is crap.

With the rise of Web 2.0, Javascript has come into its own as the main source of behavior on web pages (HTML being the presentation and CSS being a bit of both I guess). Without Javascript, there would be no Web 2.0.

I came across a series of amazing lectures by Douglas Crockford, Yahoo!’s Javascript Architect. There are 3 series of lectures, each broken down into 3-4 smaller parts:

1. The Javascript programming language (111 mins) (.ppt file)
2. Advanced Javascript (67 mins) (.ppt file)
3. An Inconvenient API: The Theory of DOM (78 mins) (.ppt file)

 

After going through the first series of lectures, I had so much of my code in mind that I wanted to rewrite (I haven’t gone through the other 2 series yet, but I found the first one really really useful). If you want to get your Javascript straight, these lectures are the best starting point. I really like Crockford’s style and the way he delivers (heck, he’s Yahoo!’s main Javascript dude, he HAS to be good).

It’s good to skim through the power point slides before and after watching the lectures, just to get a clear picture. But as in all cases of learning a new language, nothing beats actual coding. Keep these concepts in mind, and have a look at these proposed Javascript coding standards, and you’ll be on your way to writing good clean Javascript.