On the tenth day of festivus my colleague gave to me, ten lizards leaping!
Blog: Tarcio’s top ten great reads on the web.**
Here at DiUS, we run interest groups – they are small gatherings of people that share a common interest, or passion about a particular subject. We call them SIGs (Special Interest Groups) and one of these groups is our Web/JS SIG.
During the course of the year, a lot of information is shared amongst ourselves and we thought…
How great would it be if we could share some of what we think is great with the wider community!
Thus on the tenth day of festivus we decided to put together our list of the Top 10 great reads that focus on the web in general: JavaScript, HTML and CSS. Enjoy!
A Cartoon Guide to Flux
Why is it a great read?
2015 saw the web jump into the React bandwagon and Immutable data structures are coming more and more into focus as a result of that. Although Flux is not the flavour of the month when it comes to handling data – there are better libraries out there – it does follow the same principles and this article explains the concept brilliantly.
JavaScript code smells
Why is it a great read?
Simple, funny, useful. Although not really a read but a video, Elijah Manor goes to great lengths to provide us with great tools to make our daily JavaScript code better in every way. Thirty minutes of your time will be well spent and you will be in a much better place when it comes to supporting your JavaScript code.
DIY Home Automation
Why is it a great read?
Who doesn’t want to clap their hands and have their home lights lit? Or simply mutter the word “coffee” and the brew process starts? This fantastic little library uses Node in a Raspberry Pi or Arduino to make your day to day life a little bit easier. Although at early stages, it’s a great starting step for DIY adventures.
Immutable Data Structures in JavaScript
Why is it a great read?
Following up on the Flux post above, this great write up by James Long distills the way to better data structures and libraries that do a great job while keeping the memory footprint low. It touches on good libraries that address issues with immutability providing options for serialization and more complex data structures. Be sure to check out Falcor from Netflix.
Lazy, composable and modular JavaScript
Why is it a great read?
Architecting an application is hard work. Add functional programming on top of it and you are adding another level of complexity. That’s why it’s great when we have someone like Mudit Ameta, explaining like we are 5 the possible ways we can breakdown small pieces of code to make it more functional and, ultimately, more scalable.
Tasks, Microtasks, Queues and Schedules
Why is it a great read?
An in-depth look into the JavaScript event loop. Jake Archibald goes into the nitty-gritty details of the event loop and provides us a clear picture on how we should write our code, when it will get executed and possibly how we can reduce race conditions in JS. Technical, in-depth, makes you a better developer… ticks all the boxes!
Creating better CSS
Why is it a great read?
Everyone wants to write better code: code that makes sense, that is maintainable and most importantly, that is scalable. CSS always presents a challenge, doesn’t matter your level. This article by Jake Bresnehan gives us some really good talking points before diving into a project to ensure the team is on the same page.
12 Little Known Facts about CSS
Why is it a great read?
Every language has its secrets and CSS is no different. Following up from his post from a year ago, Louis Lazaris gives us another 12 secrets that can certainly make a difference when we have to meet those complex UI guidelines.
Flexboxes FTW!
Why is it a great read?
What can I say? With Microsoft dropping support of IE8/9/10 in January 2016 we will be in a really good place and CSS Flex boxes are really hot. Like, really hot. Ben Gremillion gives us a future with Flexboxes for designing page structures. Make sure you follow the links in the “Further reading” section as there’s some really good stuff in there.
Accessibility is a tough, tough goal to achieve properly. Most of it will be achieved to a basic level but, to take to the next level, is almost a project on its own. Heydon Pickering does an awesome job at making sure the screen readers react appropriately to events in your website with the aria-live attribute. Make sure you checkout this collection of accessibility resources from the author and his book Apps for All: Coding Accessible Web Applications.