Sergio and the sigil

Talk: JavaScript - Beyond the Curly Braces

Posted by Sergio on 2008-12-09

Next week I'll be speaking at the Lake County .NET Users' Group, in Grayslake, IL. The topic will be something that is near and dear to me and which I have talked and written about quite a number of times.

If you live in the North 'burbs, come and support our local group. You can register for this event here.

JavaScript - Beyond the Curly Braces

One of the greatest problems with JavaScript is its superficial syntax resemblance of C-style languages. We call it the curse of the curly braces.

That is also a very large source of frustration for developers trying to learn JavaScript beyond the basics. Thinking that JavaScript is somehow related to Java or even "It's almost like C# but a little simpler" is an unfortunate and common occurrence that can only lead to trouble.

In this session we will analyze some of the fundamental differences between JavaScript and C#/Java. We will highlight the pitfalls that can trap us and the appropriate workarounds for them.

Time permitting and if there's interest we will take a look at Idiomatic JavaScript, which will help us understand how JavaScript is being written these days. Learning about this will also help you when trying to read the source code or even the documentation and samples for popular JavaScript libraries like jQuery, Prototype, YUI, etc.