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radium-v243 karma

I'm going to be brutally honest here, and I'm probably going to get down-voted, but I'm not impressed with the underlying code for the project. I don't even know where to begin.

You're obviously passionate about Javascript, but runtime engines and best practices have changed dramatically in the last few years. Some things that stick out could easily be chocked up to coding style or preference, but when those preferences aren't well-adjusted to current-day standards, it leads to a perpetuation of those bad practices and hinders the growth and evolution of web development overall.

I'm posting this here, instead of on Github, because these aren't quite bug reports. I'd be more than happy to contribute though.

  1. Syntax and readability are more important than shortcuts.

    Cutting corners in the interest of character count is useless. It's better to be able to read the code than to have to interpret it line-by-line.

    For hinting, I recommend JSHint. It'll be nicer than JSLint, but it'll still likely hurt your feelings.

    Here are some JSHint errors/warnings that popped up:

    The body of a for in should be wrapped in an if statement to filter unwanted properties from the prototype.

    Expected an identifier and instead saw 'arguments' (a reserved word).

    Expected a 'break' statement before 'case'.

    A lot of syntax errors can be solved by linting or hinting, and following a style guide. Here's Google's Javascript Style Guide. You'll find that most projects on Github follow the same code conventions, and for very good reason. When you make your code consistent and readable, other developers will be more likely to like you and contribute to your projects.

  2. Read Douglas Crockford's Javascript: The Good Parts and Nicholas Zakas' Maintainable Javascript.

  3. Use an AMD-style, modular system like Require.js or Yahoo Module Pattern because Global variables are evil. The basic idea behind a modular system is that every piece of functionality is broken down to its basic form, and no less. It helps to keep things organized. Even if you choose not to use a framework, following a trusted organizational pattern is a good idea. Consistency is key.

  4. Check out Backbone.js or Underscore for data manipulation.

I really like the project, but the code is unwieldy and confusing.

radium-v190 karma

Hey, I met you in Huntington at The Paramount with my sister. It was a sick show. Thanks for the opportunity to chill - you're a pretty cool guy.

Keep rollin'.

EDIT: You gave me a high-five between songs. Also the crowd was awesome that night

radium-v29 karma

Sounds like me when I started out. You're gonna go far if you stick with it.

I've always been focused on web development, to the extent that I dropped out of college because I didn't think a degree in Computer Science was necessary for what I wanted to do in life. I moved back in with my folks, and studied my ass off.

Then I was kicked out.

At the same time, I was interviewing with a relatively new startup that was going international (er, coming to the US).

Amazingly, I made it through the interview process in which they flew me to New York for a few days (I'm from the north-midwestern part of the midwest). They saw potential, but they gave me a challenge. They also sent me some books (one of which was The Good Parts. Seriously, read that shit).

The challenge was to spend three months making a project to prove that I could do what they were looking for - in my mind, I thought that they were thinking that I wouldn't be able to do it - so I did it. That project was Sticky Notes.

Looking at it now, it's pretty awful - but at the time, it was the best work I had done. They agreed, and hired me (after the whole 7 months of interviews and building the project, but it was worth it).

Since then, I've been making responsive websites with parallax scrolling, HTML5 games, contributing to projects like Less.js, and constantly studying.

EDIT: My best piece of advice: When starting out on your career path, you will learn more in the first 6 months of a new job than you have learned in the past 6 years.

radium-v1 karma

Baohaus is my favorite eatery in NYC. I think I'll walk there after posting this.

...On second thought, what's the delivery range? I'm at that awkward mashup of GrenMeatsea