The Author – Bart Busschots
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Sep
16
PBS 62 of X — A Basic Bootstrap Form
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on September 16, 2018 | Leave a Comment
So far in our exploration of Bootstrap 4 we’ve focused on the kinds of features that are useful when building web pages designed to communicate information — news sites, blogs, corporate websites etc.. There is of course much more out there in the universe of websites, and one of the biggest categories we’ve totally ignored is web apps! All web apps need the ability for the user to interact with them. In other words, all web apps need web forms, and we’ve totally ignored those in our explorations of Bootstrap to date! It’s about time we rectified that, so in this instalment we’ll dip our toes in the ocean of form-related Bootstrap features.
One of the reasons I’ve delayed diving into Bootstrap forms is that it’s almost impossible to know where to begin. Bootstrap provides so many form-related features and options it’s almost overwhelming!
We’ll start our exploration of forms very simply, but bear in mind that what we’ll see today is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
You can Download this instalment’s ZIP file here.
Aug
12
PBS 60 of X — Bootstrap & jQuery
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on August 12, 2018 | 1 Comment
So far we’ve looked at three our of the four aspects of Bootstrap — the utility CSS classes, the so-called content CSS classes for styling standard HTML components, and Bootstrap’s layout functionality (the grid & the breakpoints). So far, it’s all been pure CSS, we’ve not even imported the Bootstrap JavaScript library yet!
That changes in this instalment when we make a start on Bootstrap’s final aspect, so-called components. These are re-usable generic website components, and they rely on JavaScript for some or all of their functionality. To get the ball rolling we’ll take a look at just one very simple component, the Bootstrap alert.
You can Download this instalment’s ZIP file here.
Mar
3
PBS 51 of x — Cellular Automata Wrap-up
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on March 3, 2018 | 1 Comment
This instalment will be the last before we go on hiatus for a few weeks while Allison goes off exploring Europe. When Allison comes back we’ll be changing gears and switching for focusing on JavaScript to focusing on HTML and CSS. We’ll learn about the free and open source Bootstrap 4 CSS library. This library provides many useful features, but we’ll start simple. Firstly, the library providers modern and elegant default styles for all the HTML elements we already know and love. It also provides a handful of simple CSS classes for defining page layouts (columns, rows, that kind of thing), and thirdly, it provides simple CSS classes for creating so-called responsive web pages, i.e. pages who’s layout changes automatically depending on screen size.
As this is the last instalment before the hiatus we’ll use it to wrap up our work on the Cellular Automata prototypes. We’ll start with a sample solution to the challenge from the previous instalment, and finish with a worked example where we use our prototypes to create three distinct CAs.
The final code for the worked example is included in this instalment’s ZIP file which you can download here.
Feb
18
PBS 50 of x — A Worked Example (Object Explorer)
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on February 18, 2018 | 1 Comment
In this very special 50th instalment I share my screen with Allison and we build up a simple web app together. We start with the scariest thing of all, a blank screen, and take it from there.
The web app we build up together is an object visualiser. Our simple web app consists of a text area into which we can enter JavaScript code to define an object, a <div> into which we will render a representation of the object, and a button to trigger the rendering.
Using a Screen Reader? click here.
Just about everything we use in this little exercise is revision, with one exception — we meet JavaScript’s eval() function for the first time. The eval() function takes as an argument a string, and executes it as JavaScript code. For more details, see the MDN documentation.
You can download the final code here.
Feb
3
PBS 49 of x — Improving Our Cellular Automata
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on February 3, 2018 | Leave a Comment
In this instalment we’re going to continue to consolidate our understanding of JavaScript classes by improving the Cellular Automaton classes we built together in previous instalments. This time we’ll make a start on improving how the classes represent and deal with cell states. The challenge will be to finish the task.
We’ll also take some time to revise the basics of JavaScript objects.
The ZIP file for this instalment contains my sample solution to the previous challenge.
Jan
20
PBS 48 of x – A Closer Look at ‘this’ and ‘static’
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on January 20, 2018 | 2 Comments
I had initially planned to return to our Cellular Automata classes and Conway’s Game of Life for this instalment, but based on some listener feedback I’ve decided to delay that by at least one instalment and dedicate this entire instalment to a closer look at just two JavaScript keywords – this and static instead. The two are more closely related that you might think.
The ZIP file for this instalment contains my sample solution to the challenge set at the end of the previous instalment, the starting point for the next challenge, and a JavaScript file containing all the example code snippets that appear in this instalment.
Jan
6
PBS 47 of x – ES6 Polymorphism
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on January 6, 2018 | 2 Comments
In this instalment we’ll wrap up our look at new features added to JavaScript with the release of ES6. We haven’t come even close to looking at all the new features brought by ES6, instead, we’ve just looked at a curated selection of some of the most useful new features.
Thanks to the power of the new class syntax introduced as part of ES6, we can now learn about two really important object oriented concepts which I had previously been avoiding because of how horrible the old syntax was. What we’ll be looking at are the very closely related concepts of inheritance and polymorphism.
To illustrate the concepts, and to lay the ground work for this instalment’s challenge, we’ll be making our way through a worked example. You can find the code in this instalment’s ZIP file, which you can download here.
Dec
20
PBS 46 of x – ES6 Spread Operator, Arrow Functions & Classes
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on December 20, 2017 | Leave a Comment
We’ll start this instalment by having a look at my sample solutions to the previous two instalments, and then we’ll move on to looking at three ES6 features, two of which are extremely significant. We’ll start by addressing an accidental oversight from the previous instalment when we looked at arrays. I had intended to cover the so-called spread operator together with Array.from() and the for...of loop, but it slipped mind. Once we’ve dealt with my little oversight we’ll introduce an entirely new type of function that removes the need for the const self = this kludge for callbacks. So-called arrow functions greatly simplify the use of callback in JavaScript, and in modern JavaScript, callbacks are everywhere!
Finally, we’ll make a start on my personal favourite new feature in ES6 — classes. This major change brings JavaScript into line with the other C-style languages, and, more importantly, into line with how most programmers are used to working. This takes JavaScript objects from weird esoteric things only those initiated into the JS cult can understand at a glance to intuitively understandable constructs. For those of you for whom JavaScript is your first language, classes will be nice, but for those of you coming to JavaScript form other languages, classes will be a blessed relief!
We’ll only be covering the basics of the class keyword in this instalment. In the next instalment we’ll take things up a notch when we finally explore the concept of polymorphism, the heart and soul of object oriented programming.
Dec
10
PBS 45 of x – ES6 Arrays & Strings
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on December 10, 2017 | 1 Comment
We’ll start this instalment be re-visting the question of when to use let and when to use const for variable declarations. My initial advice was to default to using let, but based on some great feedback from the the community, I’ve changed my mind, and will be defaulting to const going forward. I’ll explain why I changed my mind.
Next we’ll have a quick look at my sample solution to the challenge set at the end of the previous instalment, before moving on to some new material. Specifically, we’ll look at some of the ways in which ES6 has improved arrays and strings.
Nov
26
PBS 44 of x – ES6 Arguments & Objects
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on November 26, 2017 | 1 Comment
In the previous instalment we started our exploration of the new features ES6 brought to JavaScript with a look at block scoped variables. We learned that var will continue to work as it always has, defining function-scoped variables, but that we can now use let and const to define block-spoped variables and constants.
We’ll continue our exploration of ES6 today by looking at how function arguments have been improved, and learning about a new type of loop designed to make looping over object properties easier.
There is no ZIP file for this instalment, instead, I’ve published my solution to the challenge from the previous instalment (which is also the starting point for the next challenge) as a tagged release on GitHub. You can download it using the big green button labeled Clone or Download.