Blog

Building Backbone.js Apps With Ruby, Sinatra, MongoDB and Haml

IntroductionIn this post we're going to explore writing Backbone.js applications with a Ruby back-end. To assist with this, we're going to use Sinatra - a DSL (domain sp...

Big news! I'm joining Google.

Some exciting news to share today! I'm joining Google as a Developer Programs Engineer on the Chrome team.I'll be lucky to join an incredibly talented team of developers...

Unit Testing Backbone.js Apps With QUnit And SinonJS

This article will be appearing in my forthcoming book on Backbone.js and continues the section on unit testing. We previously looked at Jasmine and will now look at QUnit and Si...

Learning Javascript Design Patterns

Slides: Building Decoupled Large-Scale Applications With JavaScript And jQuery

Hey guys. Here are the slides for a talk I gave at jQuery Conf (Europe), where I presented a number of effective design patterns for scaling and decoupling your JavaScript (and ...

Scaling Your JavaScript Applications (Videos And Slides) From Async

Developers creating JavaScript applications these days usually use a combination of patterns like MVC/MV*, modules, widgets and plugins for their architecture.Whilst this works ...

My Interview On SitePoint About Backbone.js And Backbone Fundamentals

Episode 145 of The SitePoint Podcast is now available. This week interview host Louis Simoneau (@rssaddict) interviews me about Backbone.js and the free online book I'm in t...

Understanding MVC And MVP (For JavaScript And Backbone Developers)

Last updated: 16th Jan, 2012.Before exploring any JavaScript frameworks that assist in structuring applications, it can be useful to gain a basic understanding of architectural ...

Short Musings On JavaScript MV* Tech Stacks

Lately, there have been a number of developers getting in touch to discuss the tech stacks for their web applications. In this short post, I'd like to focus on the JavaScrip...

jQuery UI Bootstrap - A New Bootstrap-inspired Theme For Your Widgets

I recently released the first version of a new project called jQuery UI Bootstrap - a Twitter Bootstrap inspired theme for UI widgets. For a demo of the theme or to download it,...

Backbone Fundamentals - A Free Work-In-Progress Book For Developers Of All Levels

About a week ago, I began working on a new article about Backbone.js. It was due to cover some concepts and insights intermediate or advanced users might appreciate, but I found...

Auto-saving CSS And JavaScript Changes Locally From The Chrome Developer Tools

[vimeo clip_id="33765496" width="535" height="301" title="1" byline="0" portrait="1"] Today we're going to take a look at how you can greatly simplify how you locally d...

Polyfilling The HTML5 Gaps With JavaScript

We all want to use the hot new features being implemented in modern browsers right away, but there's a small problem holding us back: how can we use these great new capabili...

The Smashing Guide To Moving The Web Forward

In this article I’d like to talk about how you can help give back to the Web and a new project that seeks to make this process easier: MoveTheWebForward.org. If you’...

Large-scale JavaScript Application Architecture

Developers creating JavaScript applications these days usually use a combination of MVC, modules, widgets and plugins for their architecture. They also use a DOM manipulation li...

Reliable Cross-Browser Testing: Internet Explorer

In a perfect world, cross-browser testing would be straightforward. We would download a legacy version of a browser, run it, and be able to instantly test our pages and scripts ...

Exploring JavaScript's Logical OR Operator

In JavaScript, logical operators are used for boolean logic where a boolean value may be returned depending on the outcome of an expression. With the || (OR) operator, since val...

Getting Involved With Open-Source In 10 Minutes (Podcast)

Today I'd like to talk about how you can involved with open-source, making the web a better place and standards. Interested? Hit the shiny play button below (or click here&n...

Writing Modular JavaScript With AMD, CommonJS And ES Harmony

When we say an application is modular, we generally mean it's composed of a set of highly decoupled, distinct pieces of functionality stored in modules. As you probably know...

More Lessons From A JavaScript Code Review

Before we start, I’d like to pose a question: when was the last time you asked someone to review your code? Reviewing code is possibly the single best technique to improve...

Announcing the jQuery Standards Team

 We all know that web standards are important. They help ensure the code we write works across different technologies, for people of different abilities and most importantl...

Demystifying jQuery 1.7's $.Callbacks

A brand new feature introduced in jQuery 1.7 is $.Callbacks, which we'll be taking a look at today. $.Callbacks are a multi-purpose callbacks list object and if you'...

Essential jQuery Plugin Patterns

I occasionally write about implementing design patterns in JavaScript. They’re an excellent way of building upon proven approaches to solving common development problems, ...

Essential JavaScript Namespacing Patterns

In this post, I'll be discussing both intermediate and advanced patterns and approaches for namespacing in JavaScript. We're going to begin with the latter as I believe ...

Future-proofing your Software Engineering career

Practical strategies for engineering careers in the future

The 70% problem: Hard truths about AI-assisted coding

A field guide and why we need to rethink our expectations

User-centric engineering

Engineering with user empathy is the foundation of great products

There is no right time. Just time and what you do with it.

How to thrive in imperfect conditions

Comparison is the thief of joy

Navigating comparison with mindfulness

Focus on what you can control

Actionable advice for empowerment

10 lessons from 12 years at Google

My lessons learned along the way.

Grow your influence like a leader, not a boss

Extending your influence past your immediate circle isn't as straightforward as you'd like to hope. But there are a few strategies you can employ to help.

How to build an effective technical strategy

Building a tech strategy requires a lot of moving parts. Learn about what routes to take and whether decisions should be top-down.

How to keep up with tech trends and upskill sustainably

With so many developments in the tech world it's difficult to keep up. Here are some strategies to stay on top of your upskilling.

Navigating competing priorities as an engineer

How can you prioritize when everyone's ask is an urgency and you don't have time to fit it all in?

Managing the chaos of context switching

It's time to examine the good, the bad, and the very ugly elements of context switching. Even better, we'll take a look at some strategies for managing it.

Focus on outcomes over outputs

Software engineering teams should focus on outcomes over outputs to deliver the best user and business value.

What makes an effective software engineer?

Being a good software engineer is not necessarily the same as being an effective one. Here, Google's Addy Osmani identifies the ten key traits of effective software engineers.