Hayden Library - QH353.P4745 2018

Online Resource

Malabou, Catherine

Episode Summary

Douglas is a language architect and helped with the development of JavaScript. He started working with JavaScript in 2000. He talks about his journey with the language, including his initial confusion and struggles, which led him to write his book JavaScript: The Good Parts.

Douglas’ take on JavaScript is unique because he not only talks about what he likes, but what he doesn’t like. Charles and Douglas discuss some of the bad parts of JavaScript, many of which were mistakes because the language was designed and released in too little time. Other mistakes were copied intentionally from other languages because people are emotionally attached to the way things “have always been done”, even if there is a better way.

Doug takes a minimalist approach to programming. They talk about his opinions on pairing back the standard library and bringing in what’s needed. Douglas believes that using every feature of the language in everything you make is going to get you into trouble. Charles and Douglas talk about how to identify what parts are useful and what parts are not.

Douglas delves into some of the issues with the ‘this’ variable. He has experimented with getting rid of ‘this’ and found that it made things easier and programs smaller. More pointers on how to do functional programming can be found in his book How JavaScript Works 

Charles and Douglas talk about how he decided which parts were good and bad. Douglas talks about how automatic semicolon insertion and ++ programming are terrible, and his experiments with getting rid of them. He explains the origin of JS Lint. After all, most of our time is not spent coding, it’s spent debugging and maintaining, so there’s no point in optimizing keystrokes.

Douglas talks about his experience on the ECMAScript development committee and developing JavaScript. He believes that the most important features in ES6 were modules and proper tail calls. They discuss whether or not progression or digression is occurring within JavaScript. Douglas disagrees with all the ‘clutter’ that is being added and the prevalent logical fallacy that if more complexity is added in the language then the program will be simpler. 

Charles asks Douglas about his plans for the future. His current priority is the next language. He talks about the things that JavaScript got right, but does not believe that it should not be the last language. He shares how he thinks that languages should progress. There should be a focus on security, and security should be factored into the language. 

Douglas is working on an implementation for a new language he calls Misty. He talks about where he sees Misty being implemented. He talks about his Frontend Masters course on functional programming and other projects he’s working on. The show concludes with Douglas talking about the importance of teaching history in programming. 

Panelists

• Charles Max Wood

With special guest: Douglas Crockford

Sponsors

• Sustain Our Software

• Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan

• Views on Vue

Links

• JavaScript: The Good Parts

• How JavaSript Works

• “This” variable

• ECMAScript

• C++

• JS Lint

• ECMA TC39

• Dojo

• Promise

• RxJS

• Drses

• Misty

• Tail call

• Frontend Masters course JavaScript the Good Parts

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Picks

Charles Max Wood:

• Superfans by Pat Flynn

• SEO course Agency Unlocked by Neil Patel

Douglas Crockford:

• The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth

• Game of Thrones

• Follow Douglas at crockford.com

Douglas Crockford self-described as the person who discovered that JavaScript has good parts is on this week's My JavaScript Story. Charles and Douglas talk about how Douglas got introduced to programming. and how he specialized in JavaScript.

Douglas realized that there's going to be a convergence of TV and computing very early in his career. So a lot of his career has been bridging those two things, helping the evolution toward digital media. After working for Atari he went to work at Lucasfilm where he stayed for 8 years.

Charles asks Douglas what he is working on now, and what his plans are for the future. Douglas is planning to write more books one of which is Math for Programmers.

Host: Charles Max Wood

Joined by Special Guest:  Douglas Crockford

Sponsors

•  

• Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan

• My Angular Story

• React Native Radio

• CacheFly

•  

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"The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood will be out on November 20th on Amazon. Get your copy on that date only for $2.99

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Links

• JSJ 392: The Murky Past and Misty Future of JavaScript with Douglas Crockford

• JavaScript: The Good Parts

• How JavaScript Works by Douglas Crockford

• https://www.crockford.com

•  

Picks

Charles Max Wood:

• https://www.mypillow.com/

Dewey Library - KH136.W64 P53 2017