Jquery plugin Vs javascript - javascript

Can somebody please explain the pros and cons for below.
Am having a function to get the url querystring parameters, but I need to know which is the best way to write the function. Eg: if i create the function using jquery plugin style, then every time I need to use a target element to access the function as below
$("#targetDom").getQueryString("name");
However, if I create the function using javascript classes or javascript design pattern, it would be
getQueryString("name");
This is a small example but considering large application which approach is best? is there any disadvantage in going with jquery plugin way?
Regards,
Navin

I found a while ago this sentence:
Don't learn jQuery. Just use it.
It's one of the best advices for a newbie, I think.
jQuery is just an addition to javascript. It simplifies DOM traversing/manipulation, makes easy event handling and so on, but it is not something you should start learning before you know vanilla Javascript.
Regarding your example, it is not the best thought example for jQuery plugin.
The syntax you suggested ($("#targetDom").getQueryString("name");) implies that you treat URL query string as attached somehow to the HTML element, which is wrong...

Related

How to make the javascript code easy to maintenance

All, I am working on a highly interactive web application which will need a lot of jquery or js code, And I'm finding that my code is becoming a little hard to maintain and is not all that readable. Sometimes even the author can't find the specified code.
So far what I had done for the clear code is below.
One js component in one js file .(for example. CustomTab.js is a tab component in my app.)
Using the templete to generate component HTML based on JSON.
Using Jquery UI.
Unobtrusive JavaScript.
Is there any other points I need pay attention? Anyway, Any suggestion or recommend technique for making js library/framework easy to miantanance is appeciated, thanks.
I could suggest you to use module pattern together with RequireJS to organize your JavaScript code. For the production you'll be able to use RequireJS optimizer to build your modules into one JavaScript file.
Also if you're expecting that your client-side application will be huge, consider to use some JavaScript MVC framework like Backbone.js together with the server-side RESTful service.
I use this namespacing pattern for my libraries:
MyLibrary.ListView.js:
var MyLibrary = MyLibrary || {};
MyLibrary.ListView = {
doSomethingOnListView: function() {
...
return this;
},
doSpecialThing: function() {
...
return this;
},
init: function() {
// Additional methods to run for all pages
this.doSomethingOnListView();
return this;
}
};
Whichever page needs this:
<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/MyLibrary.ListView.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(function() {
MyLibrary.ListView
.init()
.doSpecialThing();
});
</script>
You can even chain methods if a certain page requires an additional function.
This is exactly the same question which I ask myself each time. I think there are few ways to get easy maintaining code.
Contribute in javascript opensource projects and understand how they solved that problem. I think you can gather some unique solution from each project and common part of projects structure will answer to your question about maintenance.
Use prepared solutions like backbone, knockout, ember or angularjs if I am not mistaken angular doesn't give you structure but provide you powerful tool for creating pages with less code. Also check todomvc for ready-made solutions.
Read books and try to create some structure for your needs. It will be difficult and long but result (maybe few years later :)) will be awesome.
Currently I'm also working on a JS framework for my company. What I'm doing is I use OOP elements for JS. In other words I'm implementing similar code to C# libraries(not that similar, simulating will be the correct word). As an example in C# you use Microsoft.Window.Forms, so I can use JSOOP and use method extending and overriding to create the same scenario. But if you gone to far in your project converting your JS code to JSOOP will be time consuming.
use JSLint, this will validate your code and bring down to a readable, script engine friendly code. Though JSLint is very strict so you can use JSHint also.
using seperate file for each component is a good idea I'm doing it also.
If you like you can download the jQuery developers version and you can have a general idea how they created the framework. I learned lot of thing looking at jQuery framework!

Jquery Date Calculations JQUERY4U

I've been trying tom implement the following script which looks like a great date calculation library built on top of Jquery.
http://www.jquery4u.com/jquery-functions/datetime-functions-complete-listing/
My basic knowledge of Jquery and Javascript isn't sufficient to get this working so I'm looking for some help with the usage.
I've loaded the file in the header of the page I want to use it and tried unsuccessfully to call the functions like:
JQUERY4U.DATETIME.futureDateDays(1);
DATETIME.futureDateDays(1);
futureDateDays(1);
And an assortment of other attempts just doesn't seem to work. I know I'm probably missing something easy.
My goal is to set a variable to the result of the datetime function.
Also, it would be great if you could provide examples for the usage of the date format portion of the script.
I know some of you Jquery and Javascript ninjas will be able to figure this out in under 90 seconds.
Thanks in advance!
Here's a jsFiddle that should have what you need:
http://jsfiddle.net/dKGkY/1/
There are three functions that you would need, and hopefully there's enough in the examples to explain what they do. You can obviously change whatever you need for your requirements, but hopefully this is what you need! Let me know if you need helping modifying or using them.

To use or not to use jQuery?

I have an <img id="mypic"> that i need to change with an interval its src.
Should I use jQuery or not?
Should I do:
document.getElementById('mypic').src='src2';
or
jQuery('#mypic').attr('src','src2');
It...doesn't really matter. I'd say use jQuery if you are using it in other places in your code, otherwise..it is up to you. However, if you are doing this in an interval, it would be slightly (but not noticeably) faster to use natural JS.
Use JQuery if the benefit of having convenient selectors and AJAX support is worth the 29 KB it'll add to your page download time. For most of my uses, it is worth is.
Also, for your JQuery code snippet, the $ character is the JQuery selector. So, you can do this:
$('#mypic').attr('src','src2');
In my opinion, JQuery is very concise, and you can get a lot done once you get used to it.
You should not use jQuery if you don't know how to do it in plain Javascript.
Looks like you know, feel free to use it :)

Is there a good way to prevent jQuery from being redefined?

I encountered a problem that took me some time to debug where a plug-in that I was using for jQuery (in this case jFeed) was not working. The problem ended up being because we also used Amazon Associates product previews. The product previews code ends up including a number of other JS files through document.write(), including another copy of jQuery. Because the product previews code appeared below the jFeed script, jQuery was redefined without the getFeed function.
Is there a best practice to ensure that certain objects like jQuery only get defined once on a page? I'm thinking of something like #ifndef with C/C++, but I don't know how it would work in this case where I didn't write the code that dynamically pulled in jQuery again.
I think in your situation, it would probably be best to redefine the jQuery variable as something else. The other jQuery code might use a different version so you might want to define a new variable which would indicate which jQuery you're using.
You could so something like this:
<script>
var $jMain = jQuery;
</script>
You would then just use the $jMain instead of jQuery or $. It'll be up to you to you to ensure you have the correct jQuery object when you do this. Here's the documentation.
Unfortunately the environment inside one JS sandbox (like within a window or frame of a browser) was not really designed to support the modern world of pulling in scripts from various places; there's no way you can say "define this object and make it resistant to redefinition". (You can even redefine most of the Javascript built-ins if you try!)
Your best shot is to make sure that your code is eval'd last, which gives you final say over the state of the environment when it runs. That doesn't mean other code can't come along later and clobber your definitions, but that's generally really bad form. You can do this by having your script tag be the last element in the body of the document, for example.
See also this jQuery method, which won't help you directly, but gets you thinking about some solutions to page sharing: http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.noConflict/

Dynamic proxies in javascript?

I can proxy a single function in javascript by doing something like this (just jotted down from memory so bear with me)
function addAroundAdvice(target){
var targetFunction = target.aFunction;
target.aFunction = new function(){
invokePreCall();
targetFunction.apply(target, arguments);
invokePostCall();
}
}
Being a java programmer I'd think of this as a dynamic proxy. Every time I write code like this I think that someone must have made a really smart library that does the common proxying operations that is at least 10% better than what I can do in a hurry. I'd be expecting some stuff like correctly intercepting all methods for any given object, which may not be entirely trivial. Then there's different types of advice. So while I'm not expecting something the size of scriptaculous, it's certainly more than 6 lines of code.
So where are these libraries ?
Try jQuery AOP plugin
Looking at the source it seems that only uses jQuery as a namespace, so you could try this plugin even if don't want to use jQuery.
The Dojo Toolkit has a lot of support for AOP constructs like this:
Eugene Lazutkin's Blog Post on Aspect Oriented Programming with Dojo
The fact that you have been able to do it I would think means that there is a library to achieve it in the form of pure JavaScript i.e. your above example. Design Patterns can be applied to JavaScript as you know, so I think the advice I would provide to you is the following by a Google and Yahoo GUI developer :
http://jsdesignpatterns.com/
Chapter 14: The Proxy Pattern. Reference there solution to yours. You may still prefer your approach or you may find tips from their approach.
Cheers,
Andrew
I don't think you can intercept all functions.
The best you can do is iterate over all elements of an object and look for any functions:
for elem in someObject {
if typeof(elem) == "function" {
// replace the function
}
}
Trouble is, that if you add a function later it's not routed through the proxy.

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