As of 2013, I no longer directly sell the “Modern JavaScript” book. I appreciate the interest, but you’ll need to buy it from a bookstore instead.
For a couple of years now, I’ve used, and advocated using, the MAMP application as the easiest way to run a Web server on a Mac. Currently, the best argument for MAMP is that it doesn’t affect the built-in Apache. This also means that changes to the built-in Apache (via Mac OS X software updates) don’t impact your setup, as can happen if you modify and configure how the built-in Apache runs. Although MAMP itself is free, in time I went ahead and purchased MAMP Pro. MAMP Pro is just a better interface to the MAMP stack, in particular providing an easy way to establish virtual hosts, which I use extensively (i.e., I create a new virtual host for each client or personal project). But I think it’s now time to start doing MAMP—Mac OS X, Apache, MySQL, and PHP—without MAMP, the application. Let’s look at the history and the options here to understand why it may be time for a switch. Continue Reading…
I am very, very happy to say that I received my printed copies of Modern JavaScript: Develop and Design on Monday evening (February 20, 2012). It’s safe to say that the book actually exists, after many, many delays, and should be available to you soon. My sincerest thanks to everyone for their interest in the book and for their patience.
The official Web site for the book is https://www.larryullman.com/books/modern-javascript-develop-and-design/. You can view the book’s Table of Contents there, too. And I’ve created a support forum for the book, naturally.
Over the next couple of weeks, some articles and videos I did in support of the book will be made available, and I’ll link those here as that happens.
In this edition…
- About This Newsletter
- What Are You Thinking? => PHP 5 Advanced: Visual QuickPro Guide (3rd Edition)
- On the Web => President’s Day Discount at Peachpit.com
- On the Blog => Locale-aware Date and Time Formatting in PHP 5.3
- Q&A => What are some good general programming books?
- What is Larry Thinking => Your Knowledge Portfolio
- Larry Ullman’s Book News => “Modern JavaScript: Develop and Design” Coming Soon!
As I have little to no design skill, I don’t often attempt to create my own HTML design. It’s really for the best. (When I do sites for clients, I’m normally using HTML and CSS created by an actual designer.) But when I go to write a book, I have to come up with a design to use for many of the examples. In such cases, I try to find something as simple and clean as possible, while still being a bit stylish. HTML5 goes a long way towards this end, as do the many CSS reset tools that have been around for years. Well, HTML5, CSS resets, and more have been beautifully combined in a couple of different blank HTML5 reset templates.
One is the HTML5 Boilerplate, which just came out in version 3. This is a fully-loaded template that includes key JavaScript libraries (Modernizr, jQuery, and Google Analytics), caching recommendations, server configuration, and more. You can download the template in a well-documented format, a bare-bones file, or a custom creation based upon your desired needs.
Very similar is the HTML5 Reset. It also includes Modernizr, jQuery, and Google Analytics, along with a CSS reset, but doesn’t get into the server-side configuration, caching, and such. It’s also available in a corresponding blank WordPress theme, which I’m likely to use as the basis of my next site redesign.
Even if you don’t need to use an HTML5 reset template yourself, you can learn a lot about creating a well-constructed HTML template from these. A lot of very smart people put quite a bit of thought into the ideas and functionality expressed in the templates. In sum, both represent the current best of the best practices, considering CSS3, jQuery, HTML5, meta tags, SEO, etc., etc.
