JSFoo 2013

• Do you want to avoid the pitfalls in JavaScript during development cycle itself?

• Do you want to enforce your team to follow a Standard and/or Best practices in JavaScript development?

Get on to CoffeeScript!

This presentation introduces you to CoffeeScript, to prevent the usage of bad parts in JavaScript programming. Also have a structured, readable and maintainable JavaScript application.

Outline

JavaScript is “The Language of Web”, winning the race against VB-Script, Java (Applets) etc.
JavaScript sustained the race, because it interacts better with the DOM APIs, than other languages. Today, every browser in the world supports JavaScript!

However, it is forgotten that JavaScript is a programming language, with a very good Object Oriented (OOP) and Functional programming model at its heart.
In addition, the learning curve for JS is very short and quick - within minutes, if you are familiar with programming languages; couple of hours, if you are a new programmer.

There are many more pros in similar lines. But the same good parts eventually created bad JavaScript programs.

What are the pitfalls that we are talking about?

1. No structured programming.

2. OOP is not utilized properly.

3. Spaghetti type code, even after using JQuery like libraries.

4. Style guide does not exist for most JS developers.

5. Lack of proper knowledge about ‘scope’ and ‘prototype’ creates fatal issues.

6. Similarly, lack of interest or knowledge on optimizing JS code.

7. …

How to alleviate?

• Write Maintainable, Organized & Optimized code while sticking to the Good parts of JavaScript.

• Build JavaScript application in Object Oriented mechanism than just writing DOM events.

• Don’t use JavaScript, use another language! …?

Now, let us have some Coffee - CoffeeScript!

CoffeeScript elegantly expresses and accentuates the Good parts of JS and smoothens out some of the Bad parts, all via the Ruby way of programming. CoffeeScript (CS) can indeed turn out to be a rescuer for a JS developer time and again. This presentation will discuss and highlight the necessity and the benefits of CoffeeScript, with illustrated example.

Requirements

This talk is for all levels of JavaScript developers. Since the talk is about CoffeeScript, to avoid the bad parts of JavaScript, UI Developer at any level can attend this session

Speaker bio

Veda Balan is a Developer with Verisign, Inc. He has been working on different Products all through his career - all of them are Web applications having a strong dependency on JavaScript.
The best practices and knowledge from other Programming languages are tried and tested in JavaScript applications.

Veda has experience in building custom JavaScript frameworks – e.g. like jQuery – and also in building jQuery plugins. Lately, he is in Love with CoffeeScript, as it healed the wounds caused by the bad parts of JavaScript.