Douglas Crockford: “The JavaScript Programming Language”/3 of 4 @ Yahoo! Video

Key points from the presentation are:-

1. function are first class object
2. function can be passed, returned and shared just like any other value.
3. function inherit object and store name value pair.
4. function are container like objects
5. functions are equivalent to Lambda
6. Lambda has enormous expressive power
7. Unlike most power constructs, lambda is secure
8. function statement var foo = function foo(){// statements to execute}
9. In JavaScript, one function can contain other functions.
10. An inner function has access to the variable and parameter of function that it is contained within.
11. This is called static scoping or lexical scoping
12. JavaScript also supports Closure
13. The scope that an inner function enjoys continues even after the parent function has returned.This is called Closure
14. Closure are one of the most powerful features of JavaScript
15. JavaScript is the first lambda language to go mainstream
16. when a function is called with too many arguments, the extra arguments are ignored
17. When the function is called with too less arguments, the missing values are set to undefined
18. Methods can be invoked in four ways
19. Function Form –> functionObject(argument)
20. Method Form –> thisObject.methodName(arguments) and thisObject[“methodname”](arguments)
21. Constructor Form –> new Function(“x”,”y”,”return x*y”)
22. Apply form –> functionObject.apply(thisObject, arguments)
23. When a function is invoked, it also gets a special parameter called arguments.
24. arguments contain all of the arguments from the invocation
25. It is an array like object (it is not a full array)
26. arguments.length gives the number of arguments passed.
27. In JavaScript, you can extend the built-in types(like String, Boolean)
28. Do not use eval function
29. Built in wrapper types like String, Boolean, Integer are not useful
30. Global variables are evil
31. Implied global are evils too.
32. Always use functional scope.

These were some of the points from the talk.

Douglas Crockford: “The JavaScript Programming Language”/2 of 4 @ Yahoo! Video

Key Points from the Presentation are :

1. The statements in javascript are separated from each other with semicolon. If you place each statement on the separate line, javascript allows you to leave the semicolon.But it is a good idea to put semicolon.
2. Expression statements are expressions which have a side-effect.
3. Statements discussed are :- if, switch, while, for, throw, try/catch/finally, function, var, return
4. If statements is the control statement that allows JavaScript to make decisions,or to execute statements conditionally.
5. If statement is written like this  if(expression) statement
6. if the expression is null, undefined, 0,”” or NaN it is converted to false.
7. Switch statement in JavaScript are different from switch statement in C,C++ or java. In those languages, the case expression must be compile time constant.They must evaluate to integer or other integral types and they must evaluate to same type.
8. JavaScript switch statement is not nearly as efficient as the switch statement in C, C++, and Java. Since the case expressions in those languages are compile-time constants, they never need to be evaluated at runtime as they are in JavaScript. Furthermore, since the case expressions are integral values in C, C++, and Java, the switch statement can often be implemented using a highly efficient “jump table.”
9. There is a special version of for loop which exists for objects

   for(var name in object){
   of(object.hasOwnProperty(name)){
   // do something
   }
   }
   

10. In the var statement, if no initial value is specified for a variable, the value of the variable is undefined
11. throw statement can throw error or any subclass of error
12. throw can also be useful to throw a string that contains an error message, or a numeric value that represents some sort of error code.
13. Do not use with statement because the code that uses with is difficult to optimize.
14. The try/catch/finally statement is JavaScript’s exception-handling mechanism. The try clause of this statement simply defines the block of code whose exceptions are to be handled. The try block is followed by a catch clause, which is a block of statements that are invoked when an exception occurs anywhere within the try block. The catch clause is followed by a finally block containing cleanup code that is guaranteed to be executed, regardless of what happens in the try block. Both the catch and finally blocks are optional, but a try block must be accompanied by at least one of these blocks.
15. Every function will have a return statement, sometimes return will return some value and sometime it will be return without any expression.

These were some the important points from the talk. I have not covered functions and objects in this blog. I will share those in future posts.

Douglas Crockford: “The JavaScript Programming Language”/1 of 4 @ Yahoo! Video

Key Points from the Presentation:-

1. JavaScript is completely independent of Java.It has nothing to do with java except the name resemblance. (Please listen to presentation to find out why)
2. It is not a scripting language but a complete Functional Programming Language
3. It is the most Popular Programming Language
4. JavaScript has design errors
5. All the books on JavaScript in market are bad except JavaScript the Definitive Guide 4th Edition.
6. The first name of JavaScript was LiveScript which was created by Netscape
7. LiveScript was the first language to be put into the browser.
8. NetScape and Sun Microsystems joined hands and renamed LiveScript to JavaScript
9. NetScape and Sun Microsystems joined hands to beat MicroSoft
10. Microsoft reverse engineered JavaScript to create a language called JScript
11. JavaScript is a small but sophisticated language
12. Key Ideas :-

• Load and go definition – This means that programs are executed as source code as text
• Loose Typing
• Object as generic container
• Prototypal Inheritance — Which means Objects can inherit objects
• lambda -Function as first class objects
• Linkage through global variables

13.  When you use parseInt function always use radix parseInt(“08”,10)
14. JavaScript is case sensitive
15. JavaScript syntactically belongs to C family
16. == and != do type coersion
17. === and !== are faster and more reliable.
18. Bitwise operators are slower because JavaScript does not have Integers to first 64 bit floats are converted to 32 bit integer and then reconverted to 64 bit float.

These were some of the important points from the talk.
I will share my learning on javascript as i move along.