Comments on: JavaScript: Bad Practices

By: Bryan Migliorisi

Bryan Migliorisi — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:48:09 +0000

@John

‘JavaScript: The Good Parts’ by Douglas Crockford is great, but somewhat advanced.

http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas-Crockford/dp/0596517742

By: John

John — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:59:56 +0000

Very nice article. By the way, can you tell us which book do you prefer to learn advanced JavaScript and things like in this article?
Thank you.

By: zafada

zafada — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:36:56 +0000

I agree with some but not all. I do not agree with the use of third party libraries, period. Inline JS is sometimes necessary so remember that.

By: Nate Eagle

Nate Eagle — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:42:07 +0000

Just wanted to say that I found the format of this entry–here’s what NOT to do–very helpful as a javascript beginner. I commit, to one degree or another, ALL of these sins in my javascript, and it’s very useful for me to see the signs of the way I do things now with a follow-up pointer to an improved method. Thanks!

By: Jay Garcia

Jay Garcia — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:37:54 +0000

@Dave,

Lea is right. If you know and follow the Java variable/method naming convention, you can’t go wrong.

By: Lea Verou

Lea Verou — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 08:04:58 +0000

Then what’s your quick visual distinction between a variable and a method, hmm?

The entirely different semantics of the name?

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:23:48 +0000

“Only functions that are constructors should be identified with an initial captial letter, not regular functions.”

Then what’s your quick visual distinction between a variable and a method, hmm?

By: Kyle

Kyle — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 04:37:16 +0000

I especially agree with your Having long HTML strings in your JavaScript point. Not only does inserting HTML with JavaScript rob you of any SEO value for some search engines, but it’s a bad practice if a user would have JavaScript disabled.

Overall, this is a great list. Thanks

By: Maicon

Maicon — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:20:42 +0000

Very useful and elucidative article. Thank you for share.

By: James

James — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:21:22 +0000

@Sergey Chikuyonok, yes, using += on innerHTML is generally a bad idea but that wasn’t the point of the snippet – I was just demonstrating the effectiveness of joining HTML strings using a native method. And, frankly, on the inline-event-handlers issue, it’s each to his own – I for one don’t think the marginal performance benefits of inline handlers outweigh the benefit in having fully unobtrusive handlers.

@Mark van ‘t Zet, so who exactly are you accommodating to in your comments? Any proficient JavaScript developer should understand the following construct:

var fn = (function(){
    var something = {};
    return function(){
        // stuff
    };
})();

It’s illogical to constantly assume that the reader of your code is just a beginner – you should assume they have a very good knowledge of the language.