We’re finally back after spring break, and we’re going to be moving on from JavaScript while we learn about Bootstrap. Bootstrap is a set of open source libraries which provide pre-built foundations for creating responsive and good looking websites. It’s an easy episode with easy and fun homework I think you’ll enjoy.
Before we got started I talked about a fantastic post Will (aka @beiju) wrote to me to help me understand JavaScript objects better. If you’ve been struggling like I have or just want a nice reference written in conversational style, check it out at Objects in Javascript Explained (for PBS) – by Will aka @beiju.
The following explanation is from an old friend of the show, Will (also known as @beiju). Unbeknownst to us, he’s been following along with Programming By Stealth all this time and just popped his head up for the first time in quite a few years.
Will wrote the following in an email to Bart and me:
In recent episodes Allison has been audibly frustrated about objects. I noticed a disconnect in Allison’s understanding of objects that I think is causing all of this. I wrote up a short explanation (at least, it was short when I started) that I think will close the gap. I attached it as an HTML document, complete with imperfect syntax highlighting and tiny font to make you feel at home. It’s written in a conversational style talking directly to Allison. I start with restating things that I think you (Allison) are already comfortable with and take a series of small steps, each with some code examples that you can use to prove that I’m telling the truth, until I arrive at the link that Allison’s missing.
I liked it enough I wanted to make sure it was shared with the entire Programming By Stealth family. So here is Will’s fantastic explanation of objects.
As our last episode of Programming By Stealth before our spring break, Bart wraps up our Cellular Automaton. He goes through his solution to the PBS 49 challenge first, and then he walks us through three examples of how a user could produce three different representations with our code. He demonstrates how to build a Conway Game of Life, the Maze Rule, and Brian’s Brain. It’s fun to see it all wrapped in a bow ending this long project. We’ll be back on March 31st with a whole new project.
This week Bart and I celebrate 50 episodes of Programming By Stealth. As Bart points out, we’ve been at this for two years now. I’m so happy he’s stuck with me on this and he says he’s got literally years of material yet to go. To commemorate this occasion, Bart got the crazy idea to build a web app live on video. We used a YouTube Live Hangout on Air while he shared his screen. He started with a blank canvas and when he was done we had a working web app. The video is probably a better experience but the audio is supplied for those who prefer it. We did try to narrate what was going on to help with the audio.
As promised last week, Bart Busschots brings us the second half of Programming By Stealth 49. We start by going through a lot of revision on JavaScript objects. It’s really great to have all of this all in one place, and I got to ask a few questions that have been bugging me for a long time. I understood every bit of this and really enjoyed it, but I’m not going to lie, his little 6-part test after the revision baffled me a bit. But after we slog through that part, Bart gets us back on track improving our Cellular Automata. I never realized that we didn’t actually define whether our cells are dead or alive!
Bart’s tutorial for this lesson is at bartbusschots.ie/… starting where he inserted the line, “Note: This is the point in the notes where the first podcast episode ends and the second begins.”
In this week’s episode of Programming By Stealth, Bart had intended to work on improving our Cellular Automata, but we ended up spending a lot more time on reviewing the challenges from last week that we stopped before getting to the new stuff. The good news is that we’re going to do the Cellular Automata improvements in only one week (it will be PBS 49B), and we have no homework for the week! As always, Bart’s excellent tutorial shownotes are available at bartbusschots.ie/….
Bart decided to take a closer look at the JavaScript keywords ‘this’ and ‘static’ and boy am I glad he did. He said it was the hardest lesson he’s put together so far. It’s a convoluted topic but he gives great explanations as always. You can find his tutorial at bartbusschots.ie/…
In this installment of Programming By Stealth, Bart teaches us about inheritance (relationships between classes) and polymorphism. Now he said polymorphism is a concept that throws most first-level college students, but in an odd twist, I didn’t find it confusing at all! Plus, he lets us play with cows, ducks and turkeys in his example so it’s loads of fun.
We also have a great new study tool created by Dorothy, aka MacLurker. She created an index of terms so you can jump right to the blog post where Bart talked about the term. I’ve been using it and it’s grand! You might want to bookmark podfeet.com/blog/pbs-index.
As always, Bart’s most excellent written tutorial is available at bartbusschots.ie/….
In this installment of Programming By Stealth, Bart adds one more thing to the list of changes to arrays, and that’s the spread operator. Then we’ll learn how to get rid of the “const self = this” kludge for callbacks using the arrow functions. After that, we learn the basics of classes, a concept introduced in ES6 which brings JavaScript into the world of other C-style languages.
Bart’s excellent written tutorial for this installment is available here: bartbusschots.ie/…
Bart at the end asks a question – would you be interested in learning how to build command line apps using JavaScript? So far we’ve only be working on web apps, but command line apps will allow us to manipulate things in the file system, the network and even to the Internet itself without using a web browser. Let us know via email to me at allison@podfeet.com, or write up your thoughts in our Facebook group at podfeet.com/facebook or our Google Plus group at podfeet.com/googeplus or you can even tweet us at @podfeet and @bbusschots.
In this week’s Programming By Stealth, Bart starts by actually giving me credit for leading him to rethink his strategy on the use of const and let. He was nudged along in the strategy by the most awesome Jill.
Then Bart goes on to reveal even more of the joy that is JavaScript ES6. He explains ES6 Arrays, how to loop through Arrays, and in a change that brings a tear to my eye, the simpler way you can now loop over Strings and how concatenation is a thing of the past when building strings. This is truly a joyful show!
