Don’t slip a concrete dildo into someone’s box of Fruit Loops. They won’t be happy with your Morning Breakfast Surprise. Put the concrete dildo in a clearly labeled box, with instructions. Then when someone encounters a problem, “Hey, something is screwing me here. Maybe it’s the concrete dildo?” at least they know to ask.
Category: Development
Feb13
Jan19
Mock geolocation
Useful if you’re working on a website meant for mobile devices. Firefox 3.5 has geolocation, but I use this with Safari and GreaseKit. Replace with whatever latitude and longitude you prefer, naturally.
if (!('geolocation' in navigator)) {
navigator.geolocation = {
watchPosition: function(success, f, options) {
var broadcast = function() {
var position = {
coords: {
latitude: 30.2696384,
longitude: -97.74947,
accuracy: 10000,
},
timestamp: (new Date()).valueOf()
};
success(position);
};
broadcast();
window.setInterval(broadcast, 10000);
}
};
}Jan2
A stream-of-consciousness browsing session brought me to this writeup on how the Source engine deals with lag. Also serves as a parable for web developers — don’t rely on the client to validate input, for the same reason that a game server can’t trust a participant to tell it if that bullet hit anything. See also Ninjam, a clever latency workaround for online jam sessions. And consider that even without the inherent delays of Internet traffic, the speed of light would be a constraint on distant collaboration.
Nov25
Thomas Fuchs just pushed out the alpha 5 release of scripty2. This is the first release to include the small handful of UI controls I’ve been writing. The controls are designed to be compatible with jQuery UI’s Theme API — meaning that, for instance, a theme built with ThemeRoller could be dropped into a site using scripty2, and vice-versa. More to come!
Sep12
The “Configurable” pattern
If you don’t know about Raphaël, you’d better ask somebody. It provides a vector drawing API that works in all major browsers (by abstracting between SVG and VML).
I’ve been working on a JavaScript charting library called Krang. Krang is designed to take a data set and produce any chart (line chart, pie chart, bar …
Aug28
Deep-extending objects in JavaScript
Today I’m going to be talking about Object.extend without much introduction or context. Bear with me. This is a prerequisite blog post for something I’ll be talking about in a few days.
Extending objects in JavaScript
Prototype has a function named Object.extend. It takes two objects and copies all properties from the second object onto the first. …
Aug25
Panel audio from The Ajax Experience
I just discovered the existence of audio (and slides) for two of the sessions I was involved with at The Ajax Experience 2008, held in Boston last September.
Which is to say: I knew that audio existed, but didn’t know it was yet available anywhere.
The first was PPK’s main-hall session: Top 10 Cross-Browser Issues. This was …
May23
Yesterday, Sunlight Labs announced Apps for America 2. The follow-up contest marks the recent launch of data.gov
by soliciting apps that find interesting ways to crunch that site’s numbers. (Not sure if I’ll enter yet; I haven’t had much time to see what data.gov has to offer.)
May8
InfoQ posted a “virtual panel” in which framework authors answer questions about HTML5. Thomas Fuchs and I, among others, answer questions about how (if?) HTML5 will make our lives easier, and what more we want out of JavaScript in the future.
Mar24
Dean Edwards explains how the standard “callback” pattern in JavaScript is too brittle for something like a “DOM ready” event. Prototype appears to be the one major library that handles this “correctly.” WIN!
