Good JavaScript APIs?

Join Date: 2014-01-02
Post Count: 675

#123134999Tuesday, January 14, 2014 9:30 PM GMT

JavaScript is probably one of my favorite programming languages. Some great APIs for it I've used are NodeJS for creating web servers and PhantomJS for creating web crawlers (bots). I've also used JScript and JScript .NET, which are technically their own languages (not APIs), but they're incredibly similar to JavaScript. JScript .NET is Windows-only (sadly) but is really good to program in. It can actually be compiled as well and can do as much as C#. There's also Chrome apps. Google Chrome acts as a window manager, and you can create JavaScript code that deals with these windows. You can also have JavaScript code interact with C++ code in a single Chrome app and they'll work cross-platform. It's a neat little thing to create desktop applications in JavaScript, but Google needs to make some sort of IDE for it like Visual Studios. Coding everything from text documents can get a bit tedious if you're trying to make it look nice. What other JavaScript things do you use?

appropriations

Join Date: 2011-07-18
Post Count: 3284

#123135229Tuesday, January 14, 2014 9:33 PM GMT

How could you forget jQuery? :P Keyboard not found. Press F1 to continue.

BlueTaslem

Join Date: 2008-05-11
Post Count: 11060

#123135893Tuesday, January 14, 2014 9:40 PM GMT

jQuery is the bane of webdevelopment debugging. Not because it's bad, but because everyone uses it for everything. Everything. Things it's entirely inappropriate to include a massive library for. Oh, you need to find the elements of a given class name and give them a simple animation? jQuery does it one line, so you should do that. Let's include a 30kb script file to avoid a for loop and knowledge of the getElementsByClassName function. That's entirely the answer to my question. /rant

Dr01d3k4

Join Date: 2007-10-11
Post Count: 17916

#123136085Tuesday, January 14, 2014 9:42 PM GMT

JQuery is useful, and CoffeeScript <3 jsfiddle/dr01d3k4/Ly7sa/ With HTML 5 you can make games like jsfiddle/dr01d3k4/JHnCV/ :D

thedoctorWeasel

Join Date: 2014-01-02
Post Count: 675

#123137052Tuesday, January 14, 2014 9:53 PM GMT

"How could you forget jQuery? :P" It's alright. I've never been a big fan because of the huge syntax change. I sort of like the syntax being like regular JavaScript. That's why I typically use NodeJS if I want to make a website and not jQuery, because NodeJS has no different or special syntax. It's just JavaScript with more tools.

thedoctorWeasel

Join Date: 2014-01-02
Post Count: 675

#123137184Tuesday, January 14, 2014 9:55 PM GMT

"With HTML 5 you can make games like jsfiddle/dr01d3k4/JHnCV/ :D" Oh, speaking of HTML5, I completely forgot WebGL. WebGL is one of my favorite APIs. I'm actually developing a 3D Dungeon Creator game in WebGL and JavaScript. chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/3d-dungeon-creator-test/galmhdabjephkeebcjeipeoeegojkakb

Prehistoricman

Join Date: 2008-09-20
Post Count: 12490

#123139916Tuesday, January 14, 2014 10:28 PM GMT

'jQuery is the bane of webdevelopment debugging' Could not agree more.

apocalypseMeow

Join Date: 2011-04-15
Post Count: 69

#123229083Thursday, January 16, 2014 1:38 AM GMT

"Oh, you need to find the elements of a given class name and give them a simple animation? jQuery does it one line, so you should do that. Let's include a 30kb script file to avoid a for loop and knowledge of the getElementsByClassName function. That's entirely the answer to my question." Use CSS transitions for animations. They're GPU optimized.

apocalypseMeow

Join Date: 2011-04-15
Post Count: 69

#123229440Thursday, January 16, 2014 1:41 AM GMT

"jQuery is the bane of webdevelopment debugging. Not because it's bad, but because everyone uses it for everything. Everything. Things it's entirely inappropriate to include a massive library for." Anyone that doesn't like jquery (or some variant like mootools, prototype, yui) is probably not writing cross browser compatible code.

thedoctorWeasel

Join Date: 2014-01-02
Post Count: 675

#123229809Thursday, January 16, 2014 1:44 AM GMT

>"Anyone that doesn't like jquery (or some variant like mootools, prototype, yui) is probably not writing cross browser compatible code." Any web browser that can't handle standard code should not even be bothered with.

apocalypseMeow

Join Date: 2011-04-15
Post Count: 69

#123230731Thursday, January 16, 2014 1:53 AM GMT

"standard code" lol. Doesn't exist in web development.

Merely

Join Date: 2010-12-07
Post Count: 17266

#123231104Thursday, January 16, 2014 1:56 AM GMT

>Any web browser that can't handle standard code should not even be bothered with. Let me introduce you to a fellow named I.E.

thedoctorWeasel

Join Date: 2014-01-02
Post Count: 675

#123236022Thursday, January 16, 2014 2:42 AM GMT

"lol. Doesn't exist in web development." You stupid? "Let me introduce you to a fellow named I.E." That's why I don't bother with IE. I write most of my JavaScript code in standard code that works on Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. I don't even bother with IE. If it doesn't work on IE, that's your fault, not mine. Except if my project is something really big, like my 3D Dungeon Creator game I'm making in JavaScript. If it's that big, I'll just write for Chrome, because Chrome's really the only one who can handle it anyways. Every other browser it's too slow. Plus, Chrome can now run C++ code in browser.