Hotashi - Jack’s Blog

I’ve come across a few individuals who still think that Javascript – or ECMAScript — isn’t a real programming language. For example, on Facebook, there is a group called I forgot the semi-colon, which is a programming group, and in the group info it says the group isn’t for anyone who thinks Javascript is a programming language. The problem is that a lot of these so-called “programmers” think of the web as just another view for which applications written in something like Java would “dump” their data into. The is a completely wrong way of thinking about the Web, and people who think this way will never become successful developing for the Web.

Javascript is used in many places outside of the browser. It is used to develop many feature-rich applications on the Web, and a large part of the Firefox GUI is written in Javascript. Not to mention all those Dashboard Widgets you Mac users like, yep, all in Javascript.

The thing I love about Javascript is that it is flexible. Unlike languages such as Java or C++, Javascript variables are dynamically typed (like Python). This means I can define a variable and initialize it to a string, then later on assign an integer or an object to the same variable without getting some kind of incompatible type errors. You can use structural programming, functional programming, or object-oriented programming in Javascript. This allows you to choose what best fits the current application you’re developing without being restricted to one particular programming paradigm.

So for anyone who thinks Javascript isn’t a real programming language, please tell me why.

Firefox only!

I just finished writing my own Poke All script for Greasemonkey. Using it ispretty straight-forward, I basically added a single button you can use to poke everyone that has poked you. After everyone has been poke, a “close” link appears next to the Pokes header. Clicking this link will close the entire section — with a nice animation too!

You can get the script here. Or if you don’t have Greasemonkey for Firefox, you can install the Poke all Firefox extension I compiled using this compiler — just save it to disk and drag-and-drop it into Firefox, and choose to install.

Visit the script’s page on Userscripts.

I took a little time styling my del.icio.us page (well, actually it’s the whole site in general). I got tired of the plain fugly layout. Although I didn’t change too much besides the colours, I think it’s more pleasing on the eyes. I also used Greasemonkey to change the background colours on the “save by x other people” based on the number of people that save it. The original background color was too light IMO, and makes the text hard to read.

I also prefixed the active tag with “{{”, and appended “}}” to the end of it. If find this styling more visually pleasing, and more obvious than the original “!” in front of it. I also hid the “!” using Greasemonkey since it also got the same styling as the active tag.

(more…)

This is a late entry, but I was in Waterloo over the weekend so I’m just getting to this now. :)

It was Donald Knuth’s 70th birthday this past Thursday (January 10th). Anyone who studied Computer Science will probably already know who Knuth is. He is the author of one of the most important book in CS, The Art of Computer Programming. In this book, Knuth covers algorithms stretching from sorting and searching, to graphs and networks. He is also the person who popularized the beloved big-O notation that we use in algorithm analysis.

The field of Computer Science would not be the same without Knuth, so here’s to a happy belated 70th birthday! :)

I was browser around on lifehack today and found this entry for Google Experimental’s keyboard shortcuts. Of particular interest if the comment left Davosian that gives a way of adding the keyboard shortcut to your Firefox search bar.

From the post:

I added a new search engine to Firefox’s top right search field by adding the following xml file to

C:\Documents and Settings\[YOURUSERNAME]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[YOURPROFILENAME]\searchplugins:

—– googleext.xml start ————
<SearchPlugin xmlns=”http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/”>
<ShortName>Google Exp</ShortName>
<Description>Google Experimental Search</Description>
<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
<Image width=”16″ height=”16″>data:image/x-icon;base64,R0lGODlhEAAQAPfLAAATVikwdA8SnxUfgAsWpAAilholjxw4jBc7kwAlvQQ2sRMsoBUqqhMzuhY/vxw4tSgmiyM1mSUztiQ6sTE3sQ4qyxMxxRoyxiAuxR1CtBxJsBxasSJuuTFguBte0Rlf2xVc9h9W9xVjzxVr0gdj6BRh4R1o5yBcyiZbyydT1i9b2Ddb1iFY6CJg2Vpor1dzvEJu20Z0yi23QDy1REi2OUy0O1WzOVC4PU+tVUe5Sk2xQU2zRUO4UE21Ula2SmKEqWWF2HyPx2+a6X6e6Xqk1m+s78sUDs4UGdEQB9YfDdwaANEfHd0YEscjAM4mAM0qANIoD9IkGdslGswuItYgL4aP0ImP2YGZ36Opzaq2wq/S+rzX/7/e8MrS1MLO/sTb48rT8snX/83c89PZ+crq+cH1/9Dl/9Ln/93r/9fy/+Hf7P/42eDm/O7u/+T29uX2/eT2/+f4/+f5/+j/9u//8+3/9u7/9ur5/+j//+n//+v//u3//+7//e7//+////b66/T/6vX/6/f/7f/07fj/4fv/4Pj/5v/45v7/4/r+7/3/6fDw+Pfx//D/9/X/8fT/8/f/8ff/8/D///H///L8/fL///P///X7//b6/ff/+/T///b9//f///v19//w9v/09P/29v/x+f/y///z///1+v/1///2///3//j79P/58/z/8/z99/z/9v7/9P7/9vn7//v6//j9//n9//j///n///v//vv////4+v/5+//6+P/4///6/P/6/v/6///7///9+P/8+v/9+v7/+Pz////8/f/9/f79///8///9//7//////////wAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAMsALAAAAAAQABAAAAj/AEn4oIFjBw8bOnrMuJGjhowZM1T8UdYJUZ5ZcNRYWjSrVK5QU0DMmtUnzRAXEy4o6FCEy6NDTkQIq1MmRgM0eZTlCXMgQJtRSE4gmgUkwh1EiZTNUiamy6NUUExcuoJgDCdDjQg9KgVL2SNFT1hwEvKglLBWuixZ+jSrlSBdRlL04bBBkTBdpZTpIqWsFaBcTEr0QaEhl6dWlswKW6poDRUPlmAUQKWMkTJLc76QMQNGUZMWgIgkCFJnlq5WXigwkFClVZQQyuRgELAlk7JBymCZGYAF0ZEPrQixgUDAihxVdPpoAZAFUZIRfThxgvPCwAILDipk+OFG2ZIVoxApERtPfvwlvZ+kQFzPvv0MJQEBADs=</Image>
<Url type=”application/x-suggestions+json” method=”GET” template=”http://suggestqueries.google.com/complete/search?output=firefox&client=firefox&qu={searchTerms}”/>
<Url type=”text/html” method=”GET” template=”http://www.google.com/search”>
<Param name=”q” value=”{searchTerms}”/>
<Param name=”ie” value=”utf-8″/>
<Param name=”oe” value=”utf-8″/>
<Param name=”esrch” value=”BetaShortcuts”/>
<!– <Param name=”esrch” value=”RefinementBarLhsGradientPreview”/> –>
<!– Dynamic parameters –>
<Param name=”rls” value=”{moz:distributionID}:{moz:locale}:{moz:official}”/>
<MozParam name=”client” condition=”defaultEngine” trueValue=”firefox-a” falseValue=”firefox”/>
</Url>
<SearchForm>http://www.google.com/firefox</SearchForm>
</SearchPlugin>
—– googleext.xml end ————

You have to restart Firefox for this search engine (called Google Exp) to show up in the dropdown list.

D.