Javascript is a great programming language like perl.
It is a unique language as it runs with the browser as OS or VM.
In this article we will look at the features of javascript and the
general picture.
In the case of javascript the context matters more than anything else.
Javascript cannot run in an OS. It's OS is the browser.
And there is no better debugging tool than firebug with the firefox
browser like gdb on UNIX.
Javascript is an interpreted language like perl or python and you can
install a command
line interpreter called spidermonkey on linux.
Spidermonkey will give you a js prompt.
js
js>
So you can test out all your data structure doubts and function doubts
using this.
But only the browser environment with firebug can give you real
development testing.
spidermonkey has limitations.
If you are not understanding what I am saying then don't worry. You
need to have some experience
in web development to follow what I am talking.
Now let us look at some general concepts which everyone can follow.
A web programming language , particularly web 2.0 like Ajax or jQuery
or JSON/XML requires a
thorough knowledge of the context; ie, web components.
Those are the browser, web server, DOM(Document Object Model) which is
the XML/HTML view of
the web page and of course javascript and CSS.
This is not an easy topic and cannot be covered in one article but we
will see whatever can be
covered.
Basically a GUI development toolkit will only be concerned about the
particular OS the programming
model for GUI development and the toolkit itself.
In the case of javascript based GUI development javascript is not
actually a GUI toolkit.
jQuery is a javascript toolkit/library. But the toolkit for GUI is
composed of CSS for styling/beauty, HTML
DOM for the structure and skeleton and the dynamic behavior is
dictated by javascript and Ajax.
Ajax is nothing but plainjane CGI with some pepper; it can be called
without reloading the page.
Nothing but new age CGI.
And JSON helps you obtain nested data structures(array of arrays)
from a different server other than
your web server.
In fact today nearly all web development is done using JSON. But I
don't use it in my products' web panels.
In all this GUI work you will need to do a lot of backend CGI work
which I do using perl and all browser
end programming using jQuery and javascript.
But to do this you need to understand HTML, CSS and DOM.
There is a lot of learning to do before one can program effectively on the web.
-Girish
--
Gayatri Hitech
http://gayatri-hitech.com