Book Image

Javascript Unlocked

Book Image

Javascript Unlocked

Overview of this book

JavaScript stands bestride the world like a colossus. Having conquered web development, it now advances into new areas such as server scripting, desktop and mobile development, game scripting, and more. One of the most essential languages for any modern developer, the fully-engaged JavaScript programmer need to know the tricks, non-documented features, quirks, and best practices of this powerful, adaptive language. This all-practical guide is stuffed with code recipes and keys to help you unlock the full potential of JavaScript. Start by diving right into the core of JavaScript, with power user techniques for getting better maintainability and performance from the basic building blocks of your code. Get to grips with modular programming to bring real power to the browser, master client-side JavaScript scripting without jQuery or other frameworks, and discover the full potential of asynchronous coding. Do great things with HTML5 APIs, including building your first web component, tackle the essential requirements of writing large-scale applications, and optimize JavaScript’s performance behind the browser. Wrap up with in-depth advice and best practice for debugging and keeping your JavaScript maintainable for scaling, long-term projects. With every task demonstrated in both classic ES5 JavaScript and next generation ES6-7 versions of the language, Whether read cover-to-cover or dipped into for specific keys and recipes, JavaScript Unlocked is your essential guide for pushing JavaScript to its limits.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
JavaScript Unlocked
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Summary


Modular programming is a concept closely related to OOP that encourages us to structure code for better maintainability. In particular, JavaScript modules protect global scope from pollution, divide application code into multiple files, and allow the reuse of application components.

The two module API standards that are mostly used at the moment are AMD and CommonJS. The first one that is designed for in-browser use assumes asynchronous loading. The second is synchronous and intended for server-side JavaScript. However, you should know that AMD has a substantial flaw. A well-grained application design with a plenty of modules over HTTP/1.1 may cause a disaster in terms of application performance. This is the major reason why, recently, the practice of transpiling CommonJS modules for in-browser use is on the rise.

Both these APIs shall be considered as interim standards because the upcoming ES6 modules standard is meant to replace them. At the moment, there are no script engines supporting...