Please help us Oh Great Masters

[Tom Cole]

I bet 50% of the posts I've read lately have had at least one bad thing
to say about every website or book dedicated to javascript.

There are clearly a few posters (you know who you are) who either are
or consider themselves to be the "comp.land.java script elite". You guys
may be the brightest, most seasoned developers out there, and hats off
to you. You may not be, how the heck would I know. But...

Not to be too critical (which sounds a lot like "Not to interrupt..."
which means clearly, I am planning to interrupt.....) but I've seen a
whole lot of these "Javascript elite" telling us beginners/hobbyists
just how much all the Javascript information on the web sucks, it's not
right, don't buy book A, B or C 'cause they all suck, no-one out there
knows what they're doing, prototype (and every other javascript library
out there) is junk.....yada, yada, yada.

Why don't a few of you gurus start writing some information that is
correct, that shows the "proper" way to do it? While this newgroup may
be a respository of good (or even great and also some sucky)
information, it's also one hell of a bad way to learn to program,
especially given that we've only got incorrect websites and sucky books
to get us started. Seriously, God forbid I came to this newgroup and
asked "How do I program in Javascript". I'd get some long four page
monologue on how this newgroups isn't to do people's work for
them....blah, blah, blah.

So, elite, "How do I learn to program in Javascript?". I already
(apparently) know how not to.

[Richard Cornford]

Tom Cole wrote:
<snip>

Why don't a few of you gurus start writing some information that is
correct, that shows the "proper" way to do it? While this newgroup
may be a respository of good (or even great and also some sucky)
information, it's also one hell of a bad way to learn to program,

As far as javascript programming is concerned it is. There is a
constant parade of questions, many of which can be addressed with small
self-contained scripts which will then be subject to critical peer
review, allowing issues raised to be addressed/correct and the results
to be exposed to another round of critical peer review. You can learn
every well and very quickly by participating in such an environment.

especially given that we've only got incorrect websites and sucky books
to get us started. Seriously, God forbid I came to this newgroup and
asked "How do I program in Javascript". I'd get some long four page
monologue on how this newgroups isn't to do people's work for
them....blah, blah, blah.

More likely you would get a response suggesting that an ability to
create a well formulated and specific question is a pre-requisite for
good programming.

So, elite, "How do I learn to program in Javascript?". I already
(apparently) know how not to.

If you know what you are doing wrong stoop doing it and do something
else, whatever it was that informed you what you were doing wrong
previously should enable you to identify whatever is wrong in what you
do next.

Richard.

[Tom Cole]

Richard Cornford wrote:

Tom Cole wrote:
<snip>

Why don't a few of you gurus start writing some information that is
correct, that shows the "proper" way to do it? While this newgroup
may be a respository of good (or even great and also some sucky)
information, it's also one hell of a bad way to learn to program,

As far as javascript programming is concerned it is. There is a
constant parade of questions, many of which can be addressed with small
self-contained scripts which will then be subject to critical peer
review, allowing issues raised to be addressed/correct and the results
to be exposed to another round of critical peer review. You can learn
every well and very quickly by participating in such an environment.

I agree, my question was more from the perspective of a complete
beginner. He/she can't learn the fundamentals here, it would take
forever. Specific questions, on the other, sure...

The problem is everytime I've seen a newbie reference a book or
website, someone tells them how much junk it is. So where do they get
the core knowledge from in order to actually have a specific question?
I don't see any evidence where the "experts" in this group are helping
one bit to solve the problem of bad material. They just point it out.
(It's like telling someone, don't step there, there's poop. But no-one
ever cleans it up).

>

especially given that we've only got incorrect websites and sucky books
to get us started. Seriously, God forbid I came to this newgroup and
asked "How do I program in Javascript". I'd get some long four page
monologue on how this newgroups isn't to do people's work for
them....blah, blah, blah.

More likely you would get a response suggesting that an ability to
create a well formulated and specific question is a pre-requisite for
good programming.

That is exactly the response I would expect to get (and just got, your
point taken). But I bet I can draw a puppy better than you.... :^)

>

So, elite, "How do I learn to program in Javascript?". I already
(apparently) know how not to.

If you know what you are doing wrong stoop doing it and do something
else, whatever it was that informed you what you were doing wrong
previously should enable you to identify whatever is wrong in what you
do next.

"I" am doing fine. I've been scripting since very early on. And while I
don't have full mastery of the advanced concepts, it's because I don't
want to. If it gets that "advance" I'd prefer to use a tool more
designed for the task (IMHO of course).

The "I" I was using here is more of a royal "we". "How do we (newbies)
learn to program in Javascript". Apparently we have already learned how
not to (having been repeatedly told so by the comp.lang.javas cript
elite). See what I mean?

But...there are tons of newbie's that post questions and I see more
snippy on-liners that seem more designed to remind the newbie just how
stupid we "perceive" him to be than actually helping. Telling someone
that something is a bad idea, telling them why it's a bad idea, and
then not telling them how to do it right gets one nowhere. I saw a
question recently that asked "What three good javascript books would
you buy?". Fair enough question. I prefer to learn by reading whenever
possible. I bet I've got more CS books in my library than any other
genre. So what response do you think he got? "There aren't three good
books.". Now that's funny. I personally found that to be not as true as
the "elite" probably meant it to be, but I got his point. There's only
one problem, not a single "good" book title was given. Not one. Ha-ha.
While this may not be a great example, there are 1000 more just like it
in this group.

Blame it on the coffee. There was no creamer this morning.

>
Richard.

[Richard Cornford]

Tom Cole wrote:
<snip>

Telling someone that something is a bad idea,
telling them why it's a bad idea, and
then not telling them how to do it right gets one nowhere.

What are you asking for then? Telling people how to do things badly?

I saw a question recently that asked "What three good javascript
books would you buy?". Fair enough question. I prefer to learn by
reading whenever possible.

I also prefer to read paper books.

I bet I've got more CS books in my library than any other
genre.

I have never owned a CSS book.

So what response do you think he got? "There aren't three
good books.". Now that's funny.

It is unfortunate, but true. In a world where an average javascript
book is filled with false statements about javascript, significant
omissions and advice ranging from the poor to the suicidal the best
that has been managed is the identification of one book that qualifies
as least bad (by some margin). The result is that no second or third
recommendation is possible.

I personally found that to be not as true as
the "elite" probably meant it to be, but I got his point. There's only
one problem, not a single "good" book title was given. Not one. Ha-ha.

One assumes that someone starting to post to c.l.j. has read the FAQ,
and so the one recommendation that exists.

While this may not be a great example, there are 1000
more just like it in this group.

Out or 30,000 posts a year?

By and large well asked/formed questions (in well-formed posts) with
subjects that could not trivially be acquired using search engines will
get reasonable responses (subject to the people who can provide those
answers having the time to write them).

Richard.

[Matt Kruse]

Tom Cole wrote:

>>Why don't a few of you gurus start writing some information that is
correct, that shows the "proper" way to do it?

One of the problems is, when someone has an advanced understanding of a
topic, there is usually little desire to go back and write beginner-level
instructions. When you can write about more interesting topics like
closures, memory leaks, oo techniques, etc, why would you want to instead
spend time writing about how to include a js file on a page and field
questions from people at that level?

I think the best advice is to go buy "Javascript : The Defintive Guide" and
use it as a resource until you understand javascript to the level that it
can teach you. At that point, you'll probably know enough to find the
resources on the web that will be most helpful.

I'm not saying I qualify as a "guru" in your definition, but I have tried to
write up some best practices and other information to help people step up a
bit in javascript:
http://www.javascripttoolbox.com/bestpractices/
and listed some key resources everyone should use:
http://www.javascripttoolbox.com/resources/
and tried to provide a "search portal" that only searches known-good web
sites and newsgroup authors for answers:
http://www.javascripttoolbox.com/search/

And really, in the end, most questions aren't really about javascript, but
about the DOM or different DOM behaviors in browsers. Javascript as a
language is not often the cause of problems.

I don't see any evidence where the "experts" in this group are helping
one bit to solve the problem of bad material. They just point it out.

I wouldn't say the experts aren't helping one bit. Look at the resources
attached to the FAQ. They are excellent write-ups of different topics and
extremely relevant.

But I do agree that much of the time spent here telling people that they are
wrong or trying to cater to the clueless could be much better spent writing
new articles, sharing robust code, and documenting browser quirks and
behaviors. It would be more benficial to all.

>>So, elite, "How do I learn to program in Javascript?". I already
(apparently ) know how not to.

The problem of "elitism" in javascript is not unique. It is something that
happens in many technical discussion areas.
I made a post about this very topic a few years ago:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....9c5756071c7e97

The "I" I was using here is more of a royal "we". "How do we (newbies)
learn to program in Javascript".

Don't put the pressure on the "experts". Instead, when "newbies" learn
things that they couldn't easily find, _they_ should also be writing up
their findings for people at their level who are looking to learn the things
that they just learned.

Blame it on the coffee. There was no creamer this morning.

This problem is addressed in section 54.6.5.3 of the FAQ, you idiot.

;)

--
Matt Kruse
http://www.JavascriptToolbox.com
http://www.AjaxToolbox.com

[Noggon]

Tom Cole wrote:

I bet 50% of the posts I've read lately have had at least one bad thing
to say about every website or book dedicated to javascript.

There are clearly a few posters (you know who you are) who either are
or consider themselves to be the "comp.land.java script elite". You guys
may be the brightest, most seasoned developers out there, and hats off
to you. You may not be, how the heck would I know. But...

Not to be too critical (which sounds a lot like "Not to interrupt..."
which means clearly, I am planning to interrupt.....) but I've seen a
whole lot of these "Javascript elite" telling us beginners/hobbyists
just how much all the Javascript information on the web sucks, it's not
right, don't buy book A, B or C 'cause they all suck, no-one out there
knows what they're doing, prototype (and every other javascript library
out there) is junk.....yada, yada, yada.

Why don't a few of you gurus start writing some information that is
correct, that shows the "proper" way to do it? While this newgroup may
be a respository of good (or even great and also some sucky)
information, it's also one hell of a bad way to learn to program,
especially given that we've only got incorrect websites and sucky books
to get us started. Seriously, God forbid I came to this newgroup and
asked "How do I program in Javascript". I'd get some long four page
monologue on how this newgroups isn't to do people's work for
them....blah, blah, blah.

So, elite, "How do I learn to program in Javascript?". I already
(apparently) know how not to.

I'm nowhere near elite at JavaScript, there are some real gurus out
there. Perhaps if I tell you what books I read that helped me, it would
help you.

First I picked up david flanagan's infamous (at least here!)
"JavaScript : The Definitive Guide"

A good move, but a extremely premature one for me. Couldn't grasp a
word, well, I could, but it made hard work of it with me.

So I picked up Thomas Powell's "The Complete Reference".

Not the best book on javascript, no way, but it is very good for
newbies like me. Explained concepts that flew straight over my head in
davids book.

After studying that, applying techniques etc, I was ready to move back
to David Flanagan's Book on JavaScript. (And realise what a great gem
it is, its basically as good as it gets.)

Sometimes the only way to "get good", is to commit errors! Well, more
importantly, the bit where you realise that that was a bad idea and to
move on to a better method.

[scriptguru]

Matt Kruse напи�ав:

I think the best advice is to go buy "Javascript : The Defintive Guide" and
use it as a resource until you understand javascript to the level that it
can teach you.

I also recommend "JavaScript Bible" bat Danny Goodman. I really like it
as a reference (it is a bit old but contain many info about
compatability with different browsers). It also contain many simple
explanations for newbies. On the disc you can find .pdf reference
prepared for printing.
To learn Regular Expressions I recommend the best book ever "Mastering
Regualr Expressions" by Jefferey Friedl.

Val Polyakh
http://trickyscripter.com

[Laurent Bugnion]

Hi,

Tom Cole wrote:

I bet 50% of the posts I've read lately have had at least one bad thing
to say about every website or book dedicated to javascript.

There are clearly a few posters (you know who you are) who either are
or consider themselves to be the "comp.land.java script elite". You guys
may be the brightest, most seasoned developers out there, and hats off
to you. You may not be, how the heck would I know. But...

<snip>

As a long time poster to CLJ, I got to say that the general tone of some
of the answers sometimes bothers me too. That's the main reason why I
took a break from it for a while. I also post on Microsoft's ASP.NET
newsgroup, and have been wondering why the tone is very different there.
My guess is that most posters on the ASP.NET group are professional
software engineers, while many posters here are hobby programmers.
JavaScript doesn't request any IDE to be written, and can be executed in
browsers, which every PC (or almost) has at least one instance of
installed. Debuggers are free, and even without any debugger, one can
still write code and test it using alerts and the likes. As a
consequence, the average level of posted code is by far not as good for
JavaScript as it is for C# or other more "profession al" languages. This
could explain why there is some feeling of anger at some questions asked
over and over again.

Generally, people who post in the ASP.NET group ask structured and
informed questions, and do so after they tried to write code themselves.
Additionally, the examples available in MSDN or in other websites and
blogs are usually of very good quality. That's not the case for
JavaScript unfortunately. A big part of the replies given here is to
correct problems caused by erroneous code posted on the many, many
websites and "libraries" around. The very nature of JavaScript, with its
flexibility, its unique features makes it very easy to make mistakes.
Additionally, the many browsers, with their incompatibiliti es, make it
difficult to produce cross-browser compatible code.

The best advice one can give to a beginner is to buy a good paper book
(you know which one...) Paper books are reviewed by many persons before
being published (I was lucky to review the french translation of David
Flanagan's book a few years ago, a very long and rewarding work). The
average quality, though errors cannot be completely avoided, is better
than web-based "reference" sites. After that, it's very important to try
it for yourself ("you" as majesty ;-) and to try to understand what you
do before you post a question. Obviously, questions like "I want to do
something, can anyone tell me how" will be less welcomed than "I tried
this and have this error, but don't understand why".

Note that it's never been as easy to write good code and to debug it as
now. JavaScript is getting more popular every day with the hype around
AJAX. Good IDEs support you in writing good code (I am very partial to
Visual Studio 2005, but there are many others). Mozilla's documentation
is online again (http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/JavaScript). The
browsers are more compatible now than ever. IE7 will be a huge
improvement over IE6. Microsoft finally committed to distribute
libraries (ATLAS) which are fully tested on IE, Firefox, Safari and
later Opera. Also, more professional software developers are doing
JavaScript now because they want to do AJAX or DHTML effects. So there
is hope ;-)

I should really get back to writing code now ;-)

Greetings,
Laurent
--
Laurent Bugnion, GalaSoft
Software engineering: http://www.galasoft-LB.ch
PhotoAlbum: http://www.galasoft-LB.ch/pictures
Support children in Calcutta: http://www.calcutta-espoir.ch

[Noah Sussman]

I am not a guru by any means. But I began life as a "creative artist,"
and I later taught myself how to also be a programmer (tho I did take a
few CS classes along the way).

I remember very well the frustration of being in the position where all
of my questions were "too trivial" for anyone to answer, or even to
find on Google (good luck finding out what an "array" is if you don't
already know, for example).

So anyway, your post struck a chord with me, and here are my thoughts.

First of all, here are a few pieces of specific advice for learning
JavaScript.

- If the browser throws an error, fix it, even if your program is doing
everything it is supposed to. Errors are indicative of sloppy
practices, which will bite you in the ass later, when you start writing
larger scripts.

- Check your code in at least IE and Firefox, even if you only need to
support one of the two. Cross-browser bugs can be indicative of latent
bugs that will emerge later on, as users do things you didn't expect
with your code :)

- Use a text editor that has both syntax highlighting and automatic
formatting. There are lots of good editors to choose from.

- Use Jesse Ruderman's JavaScript shell, which allows you to run JS
code and see the result, without having to toggle back and forth
between browser and text editor. It's great for trying out sample code
from a book. If you use Firefox, the shell comes as a bookmarklet as
well, and you can use it to work with the DOM of _any_ page, which
makes it an excellent debugging tool.
http://www.squarefree.com/shell/

- If you use Firefox, use Jennifer Madden's View Rendered Source Chart
extension. This allows you to view the _current_ DOM as HTML, which is
wildly useful for debugging. This extension has saved me hours of
debugging time, I can't recommend it highly enough.
http://jennifermadden.com/scripts/Vi...redSource.html

Tom Cole wrote:

I bet 50% of the posts I've read lately have had at least one bad thing
to say about every website or book dedicated to javascript.

There are clearly a few posters (you know who you are) who either are
or consider themselves to be the "comp.land.java script elite". You guys
may be the brightest, most seasoned developers out there, and hats off
to you. You may not be, how the heck would I know. But...

One way to tell whether someone is worth listening to, is to look at
their old posts; by searching for their user name within the
comp.lang.javas cript group. I do this quite a bit, especially when
taking advice about "cross-browser" issues.

Not to be too critical (which sounds a lot like "Not to interrupt..."
which means clearly, I am planning to interrupt.....) but I've seen a
whole lot of these "Javascript elite" telling us beginners/hobbyists
just how much all the Javascript information on the web sucks, it's not
right, don't buy book A, B or C 'cause they all suck, no-one out there
knows what they're doing, prototype (and every other javascript library
out there) is junk.....yada, yada, yada.

I myself have never found a JS book other than Flanagan that I would
consider paying for. However, the problem may be that you're asking
experts to recommend beginner-level books. Experts don't generally
actually use beginner-level books, so it might be worth your time to
ask some "newbies" or "intermedia te programmers," which books _they_
consider worthwhile.

Why don't a few of you gurus start writing some information that is
correct, that shows the "proper" way to do it? While this newgroup may
be a respository of good (or even great and also some sucky)
information, it's also one hell of a bad way to learn to program,
especially given that we've only got incorrect websites and sucky books
to get us started. Seriously, God forbid I came to this newgroup and
asked "How do I program in Javascript". I'd get some long four page
monologue on how this newgroups isn't to do people's work for
them....blah, blah, blah.

So, elite, "How do I learn to program in Javascript?". I already
(apparently) know how not to.

I wish that someone had told me on the day I wrote my first script:
learning to program JavaScript is mostly about just learning to program
_at_all_. Learning to program in _any_ language, helps when
programming in _any_ language. Basic concepts apply to computer
languages everywhere. Some of these concepts include scope,
associative arrays, and data types and structures. For more on "how to
be a programmer," I really love this essay by ESR:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#skills1

When you get a bit more advanced, it will be worth your time to look at
another programming language, called Scheme (and another called Lisp),
which is very similar to JavaScript. There is a great deal of
literature about learning to program in Scheme. Be warned that Scheme
has a very different-looking syntax from JS, however.

I hope this helps you out. Thanks for the good post, and thanks to
everyone else who responded as well.

[Ivan Marsh]

On Tue, 12 Sep 2006 14:20:30 -0700, Noah Sussman wrote:

I remember very well the frustration of being in the position where all
of my questions were "too trivial" for anyone to answer, or even to find
on Google (good luck finding out what an "array" is if you don't already
know, for example).

That's where RTFM come in I'm afraid.

If you haven't read up on the basics of the systems and languages you're
working with then why should it be expected that someone is going to do
the work for you.

It amazes me how many times someone asks a question about doing something
that clearly violates the browser security scope or confuses client-side
with server-side scripting.

That's chapter one in any book on how webservers work. How can anyone
expect to write web applications without having any idea how the engine
they're writing them for works?

I'm not going to ask a mechanic how to change a pushrod in my car if I
don't know the basics of how an internal combustion engine works...
chances are I wouldn't know what a pushrod was.

Yes, there are some arrogant, tactless people on the net... but you have
to do the background work yourself. The frustration of those with
experience being asked remedial questions is just as valid as the
frustration of the person not getting their remedial question answered.

I am in no way a programming guru, that's why I RTFM.

--
The USA Patriot Act is the most unpatriotic act in American history.
Feingold-Obama '08 - Because the Constitution isn't history,
It's the law.