CategoryCoding

June 11, 2014 — Gulp is one of quite a few build tools available in JavaScript, and other build tools not written in JavaScript are available, too, including Rake. Why should you choose it? Gulp is a build system that can improve how you develop websites by automating common tasks, such as compiling preprocessed CSS. In this article, Callum Macrae will see how you can use Gulp to change your development workflow, making it faster and more efficient. Read more…

June 5, 2014 — In this third part of the series, Joseph Zimmerman will be taking a gander at how Marionette helps make views better in Backbone. Marionette extends the base View class from Backbone to give us more built-in functionality, and to convert all of the common code down to configuration. Some things may be mentioned in this article that refer to the previous articles, and this is part of a series about Marionette, so if you wish to learn about Marionette, you should read the whole series. Read more…

May 29, 2014 — In this article, Paul Tero will cover the key concepts that underly the JQuery object. This is a beginners’ guide to JavaScript syntax and how it is used by jQuery, which is just a JavaScript library that has a special-looking function, $, and that encourages the use of shorthand objects, anonymous functions and method chaining. After reading this, you will be able yo look a complex piece of jQuery directly in the face with no doubt or uncertainty in your mind. You will know what it does. Read more…

May 26, 2014 — Why would you even need to generate SVG on the server? The technology is entirely client-side, so what would motivate anyone to move it from there? When we talk about “generating SVG” nowadays, we mean “generating SVG with JavaScript.” The current state of browser support and libraries makes the creation of complex visuals a trivial task. There are a lot to choose from! So the right question is, how do we continue generating SVG with JavaScript while also putting the results of the generation on the server? Read more…

May 22, 2014 — MongoDB is a technology that’s revolutionizing database usage., and Node.js has been overtaking the world of server-side programming with surprising speed. And thanks to the fact that they both employ JavaScript and JSON, together they are a potent combination. In this article, Elliot Bonneville will teach you how to wield these tools quickly and easily. Read more…

May 19, 2014 — In this article, Nik Sumeiko will show you how to migrate a Git repository to a new host quickly and easily. When he had to move a number of Git projects to a new host, it took him quite some time to find an accurate method, but after many attempts he found a solid and effective way. The most important thing is to make sure that your branches and tags and your commit history are all moved. Read more…

May 14, 2014 — A few days ago, we published an article on Picturefill 2.0, a perfect polyfill for responsive images. Today’s article complements Tim Wright’s article and explains exactly how we can use the upcoming <picture> element and srcset, with simple fallbacks for legacy browsers. There is no reason to wait for responsive images; we can actually have them very soon. Read more…

May 12, 2014 — We’ve seen many permutations of images in responsive design and spent a lot of time spinning our wheels, banging our heads and screaming at the wall. But our tireless journey is coming to a close. The W3C and browser makers got the hint. We’ve come a long way with responsive images. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but a lot of work still has to be done. Read more…

May 6, 2014 — John Holt Ripley was working on a website that required a number of icons. “I know how to handle this. I’ll use an @font-face icon set for high-resolution screens. It’ll be a single file, to reduce HTTP requests, and I’ll include just the icons that I need, to reduce file size.” he thought. Until he ran the page in the device lab. On some devices, a number of the icons weren’t showing. Yet on the same devices, others were, so clearly it wasn’t an @font-face issue. It must have been the underlying Unicode. Read more…

April 23, 2014 — In this article, Per Buer will talk about cache invalidation specifically to readers who already work with Varnish Cache. To learn more about it, you’ll find background information in “Speed Up Your Mobile Website With Varnish.” A cache miss depends on two factors: the volume of traffic and the average time to live (TTL), which is a number indicating how long the cache is allowed to keep an object. To have a high TTL, we need to be able to invalidate objects from the cache so that we avoid serving stale content. With Varnish Cache, there are myriad ways to do this. You’ll explore the most common ways and how to deploy them. Read more…