Fearless JavaScript Workshop

What is Fearless JavaScript?

Fearless JavaScript is an ongoing series of workshops offered by members of the Fluid community. It is designed to provide attendees with a grounding in the essential techniques of modern JavaScript programming. Topics include:

Why JavaScript?
Fundamentals of JavaScript
Using jQuery
JavaScript in Sakai
Portal and mash-up friendliness
Accessibility

Everyone is welcome to attend the Fearless JavaScript workshop. It's assumed that you have some understanding of at least one programming language, and that you'll bring a laptop to follow along with the hands-on exercises.

When is the Next Fearless JavaScript Workshop?

Fearless JavaScript 2.0

Sakai Summer 2008 Conference, Paris, France
Monday, June 30, 2008
13:30 - 16:30

Presenters

Colin Clark, Fluid Project Technical Lead, ATRC, University of Toronto
Eli Cochran, User Interaction Developer, ETS, UC Berkeley
Nicolaas Matthjis, Research, CARET, University of Cambridge

Goals

Provide developers with a strong foundation in client-side development with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS
Train prospective volunteers and collaborators in quality, accessible JavaScript programming techniques
Help communities avoid common JavaScript programming pitfalls by offering viable alternatives
Encourage the early adoption of Fluid products and philosophy

Audience

Web developers of all stripes (experience with at least one programming language, basic understanding of the Web's architecture)
Working knowledge of portlets and portals
Basic understanding of HTML and CSS

Philosophy

Unobtrusiveness
- Separation of code and content
- Graceful degradation
- Using the DOM as a API for components, leveraging jQuery's strengths
Accessibility
- Multimodal: works with keyboard and mouse
- Configurable: doesn't hardcode expectations about control or bindings
- Flexible: works with a variety of presentations and layouts
- Accessibility doesn't have to be hard
Portal-friendliness
- Comprehensive namespacing: JavaScript code and markup
- Privacy
Javascript isn't Java
- It's buggy, but it's powerful
- Prototypal inheritance
- Dynamic language
- Objects as general containers

Workshop Outline

Introductions
- Getting setup
- Using the example code

Why Javascript? (Eli)
- Why JavaScript? Why DHTML? Why AJAX? Why bother?
- Why DHTML/client-side at all?
- Why not Flash or Silverlight?
- Modern JavaScript

Javascript 101 (Colin)
- JavaScript is different
- History
- Part 1: The Basics
  - Variables
  - Numbers
  - Strings
  - null
  - undefined
  - Objects and Arrays
- Part 2: functions and scope
  - Functions are first class
  - Ways to call a function
  - Determining types
  - Prototypal Inheritance
  - Understanding this
  - Scoping rules
  - Closures
- Objects as general containers
- Type system: typeof/instanceof; truthy & falsey; coercion
- Functions are first-class objects
- Functions have context: how "this" works in JavaScript
- Inheritance
  - Instantiating functions: the "new" keyword
  - Prototypes, not classes
- Why extending built-in types sucks
- Closures: encapsulating, hiding, and currying
- Using closures for namespacing and privacy

Learning jQuery (Eli)
- Why use a JavaScript toolkit?
  - Why jQuery?
  - Other frameworks (these techniques work everywhere)
  - Comparison of Event Binding Without a Toolkit and With jQuery
- Finding stuff in the DOM: querying using selectors
- Binding events
- DOM manipulation

MyCamTools: JavaScript in Sakai (Nico)
- Goals
- Backend: sData and EntityBroker
- JSON data feeds
- Front end: Widgets
  - How they're structured
  - Libraries used
- Examples

JavaScript for Portals and Mashups (Colin)
- Portals and mash-ups put extra constraints on your JavaScript
  - Multiple instances
  - Lots of different JavaScript code running
  - High chance of collisions
  - Can't expect control of the document
- Put code in a unique namespace
- Use closures for privacy
- Be unobtrusive
- Support multiple instances
- Constrain selectors to a specific fragment
- How Fluid components are built
  - Unobtrusiveness
  - Markup agnosticism
  - Highly configurable

Javascript Accessibility (Colin)
- What is accessibility?
- Fluid's accessibility vision
- Why most DHTML is inaccessible
- Keyboard accessibility
- ARIA and assistive technologies
- jQuery plugins: keyboard-a11y and jARIA

Putting it all together: building a widget with MyCamTools and Fluid

Where to Go Next
- Fluid DHTML Developer's Checklist
- Suggested reading
- Fluid community

Previous Editions of Fearless JavaScript

Fearless JavaScript 1.0: Writing Fearless Javascript for Portlets, Widgets, and Portals
- Presented on Sunday, April 27, 2008 at the JA-SIG Spring 2008 conference in St. Paul, MN.