A New Baseline for Front-End Devs

A new baseline
for front-end developers
Rebecca Murphey • April 2012 • BerlinJS

Friday, April 20, 12

rmurphey.com • @rmurphey • bocoup.com


Our emphasis shifts from trivia to tools as we are
required to automate, streamline, and bullet-proof
our processes.


bit.ly/front-end-dev-baseline


javascript

you already know:
jQuery, underscore, basic JavaScript

you should know:
jQuery-less JavaScript, prototypal inheritance,
Function.bind, basics of Backbone, Ember,
canJS or similar


https://github.com/rmurphey/js-assessment


4
5 beforeEach(function() {
6 a = [ 1, 2, 3, 4 ];
7 b = {
8 foo : 'bar',
9 baz : 'bim'
10 };
11
12 fn = function() { };
13 });
14
15 it("you should be able to determine the location of an item in an array", function() {
16 // define a function for fn so that the following will pass
17 expect(fn(a, 3)).to.be(2);
18 });
19
20 it("you should be able to add the values of an array", function() {
22 expect(fn(a)).to.be(10);
23 });
24
25 it("you should be able to remove an item from an array", function() {
27 var result = fn(a, 2);
28 expect(result).to.have.length(3);
29 expect(result.join(' ')).to.be('1 3 4');
30 });
31
32 it("you should be able to add an item to the end of an array", function() {
34 var result = fn(a, 10);
35 expect(result).to.have.length(5);
36 expect(result[result.length - 1]).to.be(10);
37 });
38
39 it("you should be able to create an array from two arrays", function() {
41 var c = [ 'a', 'b', 'c' ],
42 result = fn(a, c);
43

eloquentjavascript.net


git & github

you already know:
creating a new repo, cloning a repo, branching
and merging locally

you should know:
collaboration workflow, pull requests, code
reviews


modularity
& builds

you already know:
to keep scripts out of your <head>,
to limit the number of http requests,
to reduce http overhead via minification

you should know:
AMD, RequireJS / Almond,
UglifyJS, Closure Compiler


1 ({
2 baseUrl : 'app',
3 dir : 'build',
4 paths : {
5 lib : '../lib',
6 plugins : '../lib/plugins',
7 app : '.',
8
9 jquery : '../lib/jquery',
10 underscore : '../lib/underscore',
11 backbone : '../lib/backbone',
12
13 use : '../lib/plugins/use',
14 text : '../lib/plugins/text'
15 },
16
17 use : {
18 underscore : {
19 attach : '_'
20 },
21 backbone : {
22 deps : [ 'use!underscore', 'jquery' ],
23 attach : [ 'Backbone' ]
24 }
25 },
26
27 modules : [
28 {
29 name : 'app/main'
30 }
31 ]
32 })


r.js -o your.build.js


dev tools

you already know:
console.log, console.dir, editing CSS,
the network tab, Firebug or Chrome dev tools

you should know:
breakpoints & step debugging, $0,
timelines & profiles, other browsers


command line

Is it unreasonable to ask for a GUI so that
whatever I’m doing works like all the other
programs I use all day?
Dark_Prism on Reddit


Now you can berate me for not understanding
the Terminal if you like, but I’ll trade your
ruby gems for my under-colour removal and
dot gain, any day of the week. How hard
should this be?
Andy Clarke, author of “Hardboiled Web Design”


you already know:
either that the command line is amazing,
or the command line is terrifying

you should know:
ack, ssh, find, curl, git, npm; creating aliases
for commonly used commands


templates

you already know:
to send data, not HTML, from the server; to
build HTML as a string & insert it into the
DOM all at once*

you should know:
various templating libraries & tradeoﬀs,
the RequireJS text! plugin


1 define([
2 'app/components/base',
3 'text!app/templates/searchForm.html'
4 ], function(C, tpl) {
5 return C({
6 template : tpl,
7
8 events : {
9 'submit .search-form' : '_onSearch'
10 },
11
12 _onSearch : function(e) {
13 e.preventDefault();
14 var term = $.trim(this.query('.js-input').val());
15 if (!term) { return; }
16 this.trigger('search', term);
17 }
18 });
19 });


you already know:
that CSS is diﬃcult to maintain, that you
should be modularizing your CSS, that you
should combine & minify CSS for production

you should know:
SASS, Stylus, and/or LESS; RequireJS
for plain CSS optimization


1 border-radius()
2 -webkit-border-radius arguments
3 -moz-border-radius arguments
4 border-radius arguments
5
6 body
7 font 12px Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif
8
9 a.button
10 border-radius 5px


1 $blue: #3bbfce;
2 $margin: 16px;
3
4 .content-navigation {
5 border-color: $blue;
6 color:
7 darken($blue, 9%);
8 }
9
10 .border {
11 padding: $margin / 2;
12 margin: $margin / 2;
13 border-color: $blue;
14 }


CAUTION: THIS IS A LIE


you already know:
you should be testing your code, but it’s
hard to know where to start

you should know:
modularizing code makes testing easier;
baby steps are better than no steps at all


We desperately need more resources to teach
people how to get started with testing.


automation

code quality

you already know:
subtle flaws in code can ruin your day,
a project’s existing style

you should know:
JSHint, pre-commit hooks, editor plugins


you already know:
w3schools.com is abhorrent

you should know:
MDN, dochub.io; prefix all your JS searches
with “mdn” (or !js on duckduckgo)


A good programmer is a lazy programmer;
only lazy programmers will want to write the
kind of tools that might replace them in the
end. But for a lazy programmer to be a good
programmer, he or she must be incredibly
unlazy when it comes to learning how to
stay lazy.
Paraphrased from Philipp Lenssen,
“Why Good Programmers are Lazy and Dumb”


rmurphey.com • @rmurphey • bocoup.com

bit.ly/front-end-dev-baseline


A New Baseline for Front-End Devs

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