2ality - technology, life

Vacation: May

2012-05-05T19:26:00.002+02:00

Dear 2ality readers, I’ll take May 2012 off from blogging, to have more time for various projects. On Thursday, May 31, I’ll hold a keynote and a talk at the Fluent Conference in San Francisco. If you are there, let me know so that we can meet up.

Hope to see you back here in June,
Axel

Prosperity without growth

2012-04-27T10:02:00.004+02:00

Tim Jackson is Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey and author of the book “Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet”. In 2010, he held a talk on the topic of that book. This blog post summarizes it. Read more »

Google Drive – online storage

2012-04-26T02:17:00.002+02:00

One day ago, Google presented Google Drive, online storage for files. This blog post summarizes what it is. Read more »

Declaring module exports (Node.js, AMD)

2012-04-24T16:02:00.003+02:00

Modules are mostly the same in Node.js and AMD [1]: A sequence of statements that assign internal values to variables and exported values to an object. This blog post shows several patterns for doing the latter. It also explains how ECMAScript.next handles exports. Read more »

Four rules for living your life

2012-04-23T08:12:00.001+02:00

Adrian Tan held the graduation speech “Life And How To Survive It” for the class of 2008 at Nanyang Technological University (in Singapore). In it, he states four rules for living one’s life: Read more »

How numbers are encoded in JavaScript

2012-04-19T23:10:00.003+02:00

All numbers in JavaScript are floating point. This blog post explains how those floating point numbers are represented internally in 64 bit binary. Special consideration will be given to integers, so that, after reading this post, you will understand what happens in the following interaction:

    > 9007199254740992 + 1
    9007199254740992

    > 9007199254740992 + 2
    9007199254740994

Node.js: expanding shortened URLs

2012-04-17T16:09:00.000+02:00

This blog post explains how one can use Node.js to expand a URL that has been shortened by a service such as t.co (built into Twitter) and bit.ly. We’ll look at a simple implementation and at an advanced implementation that uses promises. Read more »

Offer files for download in HTML5: a[download]

2012-04-16T19:33:00.001+02:00

The new attribute download for <a> tags allows one to offer a file for download – instead of displaying it in the browser. Read more »

Firefox: “click to play” for plugin content

2012-04-13T19:34:00.002+02:00

Quoting “Opting-in to plugins in Firefox” by Jared Wein: Read more »

ECMAScript.next: arrow functions and method definitions

2012-04-12T20:20:00.000+02:00

In JavaScript, one aspect of creating a function inside a method is difficult to get right: handling the special variable this. ECMAScript.next will make things easy by introducing two constructs: arrow functions and method definitions. This blog posts explains what they are and how they help. Read more »

Sturgeon’s Law

2012-04-11T20:05:00.004+02:00

Sturgeon’s Law confirms my own suspicions:

Ninety percent of everything is crap.

Discrimination – four recent tech community controversies

2012-04-07T17:49:00.000+02:00

Recently, four controversies have swept the tech online scene: They were about perceived discriminations against women, people who prefer not to drink, and homosexuals. This blog posts describes the controversies and mentions the most interesting commentaries on them. It concludes with thoughts on how we might learn from them. Read more »

Handing variables to eval

2012-04-04T15:26:00.000+02:00

Problem: You have an object that assigns values to names and want to use those names in an expression that is to be evaluated by eval. The classic solution is to use the with statement. But that statement is deprecated [1], starting with ECMAScript 5 strict mode [2]. This blog post describes an alternative implementation technique. Read more »

Canada eliminates one-cent coins

2012-04-03T16:55:00.003+02:00

Canada will eliminate its penny. The reason is cost: Each penny costs 1.6 cents to make. Quoting “Canada's penny withdrawal: All you need to know” on CBC News: Read more »

News via 2ality: March 2012

2012-04-03T15:52:00.000+02:00

This monthly columns collects news on 2ality-related topics and links to posts where those topics were previously covered. It also lists blog posts that have been updated (so that you don’t have to follow on Twitter or Google+ to find out about them). Read more »

Converting a value to string in JavaScript

2012-03-29T15:11:00.000+02:00

In JavaScript, there are three main ways in which any value can be converted to a string. This blog post explains each way, along with its advantages and disadvantages. Read more »

Arguments in favor or the “iPad mini”

2012-03-28T02:22:00.002+02:00

A smaller version of the iPad has been rumored for quite some time. Recently, rumors have become more concrete: An “iPad mini” might come out before the end of the year, with a screen size of 7.85 inch. The article “Apple Has 163 Reasons To Release Fabled ‘iPad mini’” (by A.T. Faust III for AppAdvice) provides interesting arguments in favor of that theory. Highlights: Read more »

Learn before going to sleep, remember better

2012-03-27T16:09:00.002+02:00

Quoting “Ability to Learn Is Affected by the Timing of Sleep” by Christie Nicholson for Scientific American: Read more »

CSS Grid Layout is coming to Firefox in 2012

2012-03-26T19:58:00.002+02:00

So far, HTML5 has been severely lacking when it comes to flexible GUI layouting. All that changed when Microsoft created CSS Grid Layout [1], which, among other things, is used to write the native HTML5 applications for Windows 8 [2]. That standard provides everything that people are familiar with from desktop GUI kits (such as Java SWT). Alas, so far, Microsoft was the only one who implemented this standard in a browser. Now that has changed: CSS Grid Layout will be added to Firefox in 2012 – as mentioned in section “CSS Flexbox and CSS Grid” of “Firefox in 2011 – Firefox plans for 2012” (by Robert Nyman for Mozilla Hacks).

In case you are wondering whether “CSS Grid” is the same as “CSS Grid Layout”, there are several similarly named specifications floating around, but they really are just different versions of the same standard:

“CSS Grid Positioning Module Level 3” (5 September 2007)
“Grid Layout” (22 March 2012)
W3C Editor’s Draft: “CSS Grid Layout” (22 March 2012)

As an additional tidbit, the Firefox Platform 2012 Roadmap mentions that Work on CSS Grid Layout will start after CSS Flexbox, which is slated to be finished by Q2 2012.

Example layout:

Explanations:

auto: assign a size so that the content fits comfortably.
minmax(min-content, 1fr): the minimum size is min-content (the smallest size that still allows the content to be shown); the maximum size is “1fr”, a fraction value indicating to assign 100% of the additional space that remains after all maximum sizes have been reached.

Note: there are no absolute units such as pixels.

[Source of image: “CSS Grid Layout”]

References

JavaScript’s two zeros

2012-03-23T06:50:00.002+01:00

JavaScript has two zeros: −0 and +0. This post explains why that is and where it matters in practice. Read more »

Dallas Fed advocates breaking up large banks

2012-03-22T11:52:00.001+01:00

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (Dallas Fed) has issued its annual report. In it, it calls for a breakup of large banks. These are currently considered “too big to fail” (TBTF). The report argues that that is anti-capitalist. Read more »

Israelis and Iranians use Facebook to declare their solidarity

2012-03-19T07:19:00.001+01:00

The article “Israeli-Iranian solidarity exchange sweeps Facebook” (by Dimi Reider for +972 Magazine) reports on a touching campaign on Facebook: Read more »

What are the most popular JavaScript keywords?

2012-03-18T22:18:00.000+01:00

Ariya Hidayat has used his Esprima parser to count the most popular keywords in a corpus of JavaScript libraries. Read more »

Oracle discusses the features of Java 8, 9, and 10

2012-03-18T21:36:00.001+01:00

Quoting “Java won't curl up and die like Cobol, insists Oracle” by Gavin Clarke for The Register: Read more »

7 foods experts won’t eat

2012-03-15T08:09:00.002+01:00

Great article by Liz Vaccariello for Prevention: “The 7 foods experts won’t eat”. Those foods are: Read more »