Article: A re-introduction to JavaScript

Intro

JS is misunderstood because of its simplicity and the similarity between its name and Java, however, its power lies in its wide application in web and mobile apps.

History

  • 1995: created by an engineer at Netscape, Brendan Eich
  • 1996: first release with Netscape 2
    • JavaScript instead of LiveScript due to ill-fated marketing decision
    • JS and java(Microsystem) has little in common
  • 1996: later that year, Microsoft release JScript similar to JS
  • 1996: ECMAScript 1st edition after Netscape submitted JS to Ecma International
  • 1999: ECMASccript 3rd edition
  • 2009: Dec. ECMAScript 5th edition
  • 2015: Jun. ECMAScript 6th edition

    Confusion:

  • ECMAScript: short for ‘European Computer Manufacturers Association Script’; it’s a standard for script language derived from JavaScript, ensuring the consistency between Netscape, Microsoft and other Web script implementations
  • JavaScript: a widely-used scripting language used in Web pages to affect how they look or behave for users; it shares some similar syntax with Java, e.g. semicolons to terminate a statement, curly braces to delineate code block, looping and iterative structures; however, different vendor, maintained by diff consortium, diff language features such as object orientation and strong typing are major instances the two differ
  • TypeScript: open-source, developed by Microsoft, a strict syntactical superset of JS, for development of large applications and transcompiles to JS

The Types

Numbers

“double-precision 64-bit format IEEE 754 values”

  • Math method
  • parseInt()
    • parseInt('123', 10); // 123
    • parseInt('11', 2); // 3
  • parseFloat() always uses base 10 unline parseInt()
  • NaN
    • NaN +5; // NaN
    • isNaN(NaN); //true
  • special values Infinity and -Infinity
    • 1/0; // Infinity
    • -1/0; // -Infinity
    • isFinite(1/0); // false
    • isFinite(NaN); // false

Strings

Stings are like objects, they have methods as well

'hello'.length; // 5
'hello'.charAt(0); // "h"
'hello, world'.replace('world', 'mars'); // "hello, mars"
'hello'.toUpperCase(); // "HELLO"

null

a deliberate none-value, only accessable with key word null

undefined

a var hasn’t been assigned yet, undefined is a const

boolean

with values true and false Any value can be converted to a boolean according to the following rules:

  1. false, 0, empty strings (“”), NaN, null, and undefined all become false.
  2. All other values become true.

Variables

let, const, var let and const are block-scoped var const values are never intended to change

Operators: + - * / % && ||

Bitwise operators: don’t know what they are but will read when needed

Control Structures

basic if else statement

var name = 'kittens';
if (name == 'puppies') {
  name += ' woof';
} else if (name == 'kittens') {
  name += ' meow';
} else {
  name += '!';
}
name == 'kittens meow';

do-while ensures the loop is run at least once, whereas while doesn’t

for loop:

for (var i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
  // Will execute 5 times
}
for (let value of array) {
  // do something with value
  // You could also iterate over an array using a for...in loop, however this does not iterate over the array elements, but the array indices. Furthermore, if someone added new properties to Array.prototype, they would also be iterated over by such a loop. Therefore this loop type is not recommended for arrays.
}
for (let property in object) {
  // do something with object property
}

ternary operator for conditional expressions:

var allowed = (age > 18) ? 'yes' : 'no';

switch

switch (action) {
  case 'draw':
    drawIt();
    break;
  case 'eat':
    eatIt();
    break;
  default:
    doNothing();
}

Objects

just like dict in python

var obj = {
  name: 'Carrot',
  for: 'Max', // 'for' is a reserved word, use '_for' instead.
  details: {
    color: 'orange',
    size: 12
  }
};

obj.details.color; // orange
obj['details']['size']; // 12

function Person(name, age) {
  this.name = name;
  this.age = age;
}

// Define an object
var you = new Person('You', 24); 
// We are creating a new person named "You" aged 24.

Arrays

forEach()

['dog', 'cat', 'hen'].forEach(function(currentValue, index, array) {
  // Do something with currentValue or array[index]
});

a.push(item); // to append an item

Arrays come with a number of methods. See also the full documentation for array methods.

Functions

the core to understand JS. functions are objects too. EVERYTHING in JS is an object.

arguments

function add() {
  var sum = 0;
  for (var i = 0, j = arguments.length; i < j; i++) {
    sum += arguments[i];
  }
  return sum;
}

add(2, 3, 4, 5); // 14

Rest Parameter Syntax: the syntax which suggests the rest of the parameter?

function avg(...args) {
  var sum = 0;
  for (let value of args) {
    sum += value;
  }
  return sum / args.length;
}

avg(2, 3, 4, 5); // 3.5

However, the arguments passed in should be individual numbers. what if it’s an array?

function avgArray(arr) {
  var sum = 0;
  for (var i = 0, j = arr.length; i < j; i++) {
    sum += arr[i];
  }
  return sum / arr.length;
}

avgArray([2, 3, 4, 5]); // 3.5

we can also reuse the function avg() :

avg.apply(null, [2, 3, 4, 5]); // 3.5

or using the spread operator

avg(...numbers)

anonymous functions

var avg = function() {
  var sum = 0;
  for (var i = 0, j = arguments.length; i < j; i++) {
    sum += arguments[i];
  }
  return sum / arguments.length;
};

This enables all kinds of clever tricks, e.g. call them recursively:

var charsInBody = (function counter(elm) {
  if (elm.nodeType == 3) { // TEXT_NODE
    return elm.nodeValue.length;
  }
  var count = 0;
  for (var i = 0, child; child = elm.childNodes[i]; i++) {
    count += counter(child);
  }
  return count;
})(document.body);

Custom objects

EVERYTHING is object in JS. Functions with capitalised names are like classes, called ‘constructors’ in JS, should be called by new.

function personFullName() {
  return this.first + ' ' + this.last;
}
function personFullNameReversed() {
  return this.last + ', ' + this.first;
}
function Person(first, last) {
  this.first = first;
  this.last = last;
  this.fullName = personFullName;
  this.fullNameReversed = personFullNameReversed;
}

Object.prototype

Interestingly, you can also add methods to the prototype of built-in JavaScript objects.

var s = new Person('Simon', 'Willison');
s.firstNameCaps(); // TypeError on line 1: s.firstNameCaps is not a function

Person.prototype.firstNameCaps = function() {
  return this.first.toUpperCase();
};
s.firstNameCaps(); // "SIMON"

Inner functions

If a call function relies only on one or two other functions, it should be nested and become a inner function. An inner function can access the vars in their parent functions’s scope. Inner functions keeps the overall numbers of global functions down, less pollution.

Closures: some excellent introductions

A closure is the combination of a function and the scope object in which it was created. Closures let you save state — as such, they can often be used in place of objects.

function makeAdder(a) {
  return function(b) {
    return a + b;
  };
}
var add5 = makeAdder(5);
var add20 = makeAdder(20);
add5(6); // 11
add20(7); //2 27

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