What Steve Jobs and Apple are and aren’t

This post describes my opinion on Steve Jobs’s legacy. I see myself between the camps of Apple haters and Apple fanboys. Apologies if my use of past and present in this post isn’t always correct – it is about the legacy (present) of someone who is not alive, any more (past).

A quick overview of JavaScript

Update 2011-12-29: New material on IIFEs, bind(), and strict mode.

This post gives an overview of JavaScript that is as short as possible, but explains every major feature. Give the language a chance! You have to learn its quirks, but then it is fun to program in.

Real-world Twitter

“Big Words” is a very simple iPhone app idea: Use your mobile device to display Twitter-style messages to other people, in the real world. Fittingly, one of its creators is a Twitter co-founder.

JavaScript: Why the hatred for strict mode?

There seem to be people who hate ECMAScript 5’s strict mode. This post shows that this hatred is not justified and provides work-arounds for features that are missing.

Wall Street isn’t successful

The article “Wall Street Isn't Winning It's Cheating” (by Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone) argues that the Occupy Wall Street protests are not about “hating the rich”:

Mobile apps – dead within three years?

On 2011-09-08, Seth Sternberg, CEO of Meebo made a bold prediction:

Prediction: Mobile apps are dead in 3 yrs - mobile web wins. Faster cloud connection and faster chips. PCs all over again. Implications?

This tweet packs a lot of stuff into very few characters. Let’s look at the assertions.

String concatenation in JavaScript

There are two ways of doing string concatenation in JavaScript. This post demonstrates them and explains which one is faster.

Three recommended articles on Steve Jobs

If you still don’t have enough of news about Steve Jobs then here are three articles that shed light on some lesser known aspects of his life.

Enums for JavaScript

This post describes a JavaScript implementation of enums, enumerations of symbols. The idea originally comes from Allen Wirfs-Brock, via a thread on the es-discuss mailing list.

Printing objects on Node.js

Problem: If a data structure is too deeply nested, Node.js stops showing the details. This post presents two solutions.

Siri versus Google Voice Actions

Quoting “Head To Head: Siri Vs. Google Voice Actions” by Greg Sterling for Search Engine Land:

Universal modules (browser, Node.js): imports and universal tests

Update 2011-11-19. This post is now superseded by “Bridging the module gap between Node.js and browsers”.

This post explains how to write modules that are universal – they run on browsers and Node.js. A previous post showed a simple way of doing so, this post presents a more sophisticated solution that also handles modules importing other modules. Additionally, we use the unit test framework Jasmine to write tests for those modules that are equally universal.

Will Intel’s Tizen mobile operating system succeed where MeeGo failed?

Tizen [1], Intel’s new mobile operating system, is supposed to succeed where MeeGo failed. However, the article “From MeeGo to Tizen: the making of another software bubble” by David Neary for VisionMobile expresses doubt:

Four statistics that explain the “Occupy” protests

Update 2011-10-27: Wall Street isn’t successful

Quoting “Here Are Four Charts That Explain What The Protesters Are Angry About...” by Henry Blodget for Business Insider:

Universal unit testing (browser, Node.js) with Jasmine

Update 2011-11-19: Bridging the module gap between Node.js and browsers. [With the given information, you can write your unit tests as modules that run on both platforms.]

This post gives a quick introduction to the JavaScript unit test framework Jasmine. It has the advantage of allowing tests to be run both in browsers and on Node.js.

What’s new in Firefox 8 for end users and developers

This post describes the highlights among the new Firefox 8 features for end users and developers [source: Mozilla Firefox Beta Release Notes].

A JavaScript class pattern that starts with a function

There are too many JavaScript class patterns and inheritance APIs out there. Here is another one. The twist: Its core construct is a function, not an object literal.

Why do people queue up to buy the iPhone 4S?

The Gadget Blog has surveyed people standing in line for the iPhone 4S at the London Regent Street Apple Store [via MacRumors]. Interesting findings:

The power of the Asynchronous Module Definition

Update 2011-11-19: Bridging the module gap between Node.js and browsers

This post explains Asynchronous Module Definition (AMD), a standard for defining modules in JavaScript and contrasts it with the currently very popular CommonJS synchronous modules.

logo.js – JavaScript has a (semi-)official logo

On Oct 4th, Chris Williams (@voodootikigod) published logo.js on GitHub.

Google Dart – overview and comments

Today, it has finally happened: At the GOTO conference, Google has officially presented its new programming language, Dart. This post gives an overview of Dart and provides a few comments on how it fits into the current programming language landscape.

“Buck (2011)” – of horses and men

“Buck” is a documentary about Buck Brennaman, the main inspiration of the book “The Horse Whisperer”. It offers interesting insights into horses and humans.

Apple’s introductions: is the iPhone 4S disappointing?

Update 2011-10-08: New section “Voices on the web”.

This post gives and overview of the introductions that Apple has made on Oct. 4, 2011. It will also tackle the question whether the iPhone 4S is disappointing.

Unix shell: search for a text via “find” and “grep”

This post shows you how to use “find” and “grep” to search for a text string in all files that are directly or indirectly contained in a given directory.

New on DZone: HTML5

DZone has always been a great source of content for developers, especially for the Java community. Now they have introduced a new zone, which aggregates content on HTML5.

Displaying a square root with HTML

This post shows two ways of displaying a square root with HTML.

Amazon’s new Kindles – overview and ramifications

This post summarizes what Amazon has introduced on Sep 28, 2011 and explains the ramifications of the introductions.