Hello and welcome to ‘This Week in JavaScript’ — another curated collection of links relating to what’s new and exciting in the world of JavaScript. The complete list is tagged jsweekly. (Don’t forget to check out our weekly .NET and front end roundups too!)
And now for this week’s finds …
Getting started
- 9 Best NodeJS Frameworks for Developers - Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform runtime environment built on Chrome’s V8 javascript engine. It is used to build fast, scalable server-side web applications. The event-driven, non-blocking I/O model makes Node.js lightweight and efficient. These features have motivated a lot of developers to adopt Node.js. Today, let us see the list of 9 best Node.js frameworks for developers.
- Improving the Quality of Front End Projects, Automatically! Pt. 3 – JavaScript and Accessibility - In this part, we’ll look at ways we can automatically check JavaScript code for style and quality, as well as an option for testing accessibility.
- A Primer on the React Ecosystem: Part 1 of 3 - If you’re approaching the React ecosystem for the first time, my hope is that by the end of this primer you’ll be comfortable enough to start building apps of your own.
- Let’s write, not generate code. Thoughts about naming stuff. - Even in programming, one of the most difficult things is picking the right words - the naming.
- Deciding what client-side storage system to use - Are you a proponent of local and session storage for hybrid apps, since web sql is deprecated? Let’s begin by thinking about the kind of data you need to store in your application.
Learning more
- A bit less complexity - Reducing a fairly complex piece of code to a simple one liner using bitwise operators.
- Horizon: A Scalable Backend Perfect for JavaScript Mobile Apps - Horizon is a scalable backend for cross-platform, JavaScript based mobile apps, especially those needing realtime functionality. It was built by the awesome people at RethinkDB and so uses RethinkDB as the default database.
- What I learned from analysing 1.65M versions of Node.js modules in NPM - NPM and open source modules are one of Node.js’ greatest strengths — and also one of it’s greatest weaknesses.
- Writing a JavaScript Framework - Project Structuring - In the last couple of months Bertalan Miklos, JavaScript engineer at RisingStack wrote a next generation client-side framework, called NX. In the Writing a JavaScript Framework series, Bertalan shares what he learned during the process.
- Backdoor Service Workers - Jeremy Keith outlines a concern about Service Workers.
Libraries
- 10 jQuery File Upload Plugins - Implementing file uploads with Ajax can be very challenging, especially if you want features like drag and drop support, image previews or progress bars. This popular article was updated in July, 2016, to reflect the current state of file upload plugins.
- Getting Started with React, GraphQL and Relay (Part 1 of 2) - React and GraphQL combined with Relay provides a promising framework for building web applications.
- ScrollTrigger - Triggers classes on html elements based on the scroll position. Uses requestAnimationFrame so it doesn’t jack the users scroll.
- A Warning About jQuery 3 - jQuery recently had a major update to version 3. With it came a subtle change that might cause some headaches for you if your aren’t prepared for it.
- jQuery 3.1.0 Released – No More Silent Errors - And here’s the cure for those headaches.
- React.js Introduction For People Who Know Just Enough jQuery To Get By - Of people who have never tried out React, some are comfortable with frontend JS frameworks like Backbone, Ember, or Angular. Some know JavaScript pretty well. Some know just enough jQuery to get by. This tutorial, targets that third group.
ES6
- ES6 for Humans - A kickstarter guide to writing ES6 for the meatsack in your life.
- Composability: from Callbacks to Categories in ES6 - Promises are a well known solution to the Callback hell problem that arises in asynchronous JavaScript programs. This solution will be more general than Promises, in fact we will take advantage of these ideas to make Promises even more composable.
Frameworks
- Create WebPage Screenshots with Node.js and PhantomJS - Automation on the web has gotten incredibly accessible and advanced, much in part to utilities like PhantomJS. PhantomJS allows you to do headless testing, network monitoring, page automation, and much more.
##IoT - Securing Your IoT Devices and Services with JSON Web Tokens - IoT security is a hot-button issue in today’s world: there are more internet-connected devices than there are people, and the amount of data being shared has exploded over the past few years. However, keeping that data safe is becoming a problem just as quickly.
- Tracking GPS data with the Tessel 2 - The Tessel 2 is a JavaScript-focused microcontroller that has a range of pre-built modules you can attach to extend its functionality. In this article, we will explore what we can do when attaching a GPS module to a Tessel 2.
- Getting Started with the Raspberry Pi GPIO Pins in Node.js - There are so many ideas we can put into action in the realm of physical computing, it is easy to be drawn into the idea of programming the world we live in! Once you have a Raspberry Pi and a breadboard, what’s next?
#testing - Unit Testing React Components - Want to know how to unit test React components? EnvatoTuts+ are offering a new short course to show you how.
##Other Stuff - JavaScript Error Monitoring - TrackJS is a service built for tracking JavaScript errors.
- CSS to React - This simple little tool is intended to help translate plain CSS into the React in-line style specific JSON representation. Making it easy to copy and paste into an inline React component.
- A Lean Approach To Product Validation - Not your usual fare from JS Weekly, but I’m sure it will resonate nonetheless. One of the biggest risks of building a product is to build the wrong thing. You’ll pour months (even years) into building it, only to realize that you just can’t make it a success. At Hanno, they saw this happening time and time again. That’s why they’ve put together a Lean Validation Playbook.
- Single Page Apps for GitHub Pages - This is a lightweight solution for deploying single page apps with GitHub Pages. You can easily deploy a React single page app with React Router browserHistory, like the one in the live example, or a single page app built with any frontend library or framework.
- Apollo 11 Source Code - OK, who fancies refactoring this little lot into JS then?
For more links like this and to keep up-to-date with the latest goings on in JS land, you can follow SitePoint’s JavaScript channel on Twitter.
Please PM us if you have anything of interest for the next issue or if there is anything you would like to see featured. Paul and Chris of Arabia.