Monthly JSter #13: News of December 2013

JSter #13, and a new year, is here! A lot happened in the world of JavaScript the past year. Let's just say it was a good year for us developers. Many interesting releases were made and the tooling keeps on improving. There is still plenty to do of course. And if everything goes well, I think jster.net will look quite different the next time I write this post.

This was the first year for us with "Monthly JSter". It's more like biweekly JSter now as that makes more sense for both me and you. Perhaps a weekly schedule would be even nicer? Less content, more often. This is definitely something I need to consider. Also if you have any specific ideas, feel free to contact me directly and I'll see what we can do.

Remember that Monthly JSter is available as a newsletter. Our RSS feed contains some occasional extra content including interviews or book reviews.

Libraries

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• Koa - Next Generation Web Framework for Node.js - Note that Koa depends on generators so you will need to use Node 0.11 (dev version).
• Jasmine 2.0 - The popular testing framework reached 2.0!
• JSIco - a Tilebased HTML5 Canvas Engine
• The Annotator - This library lets you annotate pretty much anything on your site. It uses AnnotateIt as a backend.
• Ring.js - JavaScript Class System with Multiple Inheritance - I don't use multiple inheritance myself but maybe someone still does.
• Cylon.js - JavaScript Robotics, By Your Command - Just don't go and build cylons, please.
• Sortable - Nice little sorting library. Look ma, no jQuery!

Articles

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• Developing Modular JavaScript Components
• The Power and Limitations of Partials
• The Essentials of Writing High Quality JavaScript
• The Future of JavaScript MVC Frameworks
• Monolithic Node.js - Even if you don't use Node.js, you should read this long article. It's a very refreshing take on web architectures and helps you understand why monolithic architectures should become a thing of the past.
• Counting Stars on GitHub - It shouldn't come as a surprise JavaScript dominates.
• The Tech Stack Behind Keen IO's Analytics Backend Service
• What is the DOM?

Guides

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• JavaScript Promises - There and Back Again
• Short Guide to JavaScript Gotchas
• Callback Hell

Angular.js

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• AngularJS for Mobile - Slides.
• Unit and End to End Testing in AngularJS
• How to Unit Test Controllers in AngularJS Without Setting Your Hair on Fire
• Staggering Animations in AngularJS
• Rapid AngularJS Prototyping Without Real Backend

Ember

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• Ember Inspector on a Firefox Near You

Techniques

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• Writing Fast JavaScript for Games and Interactive Applications
• Ways to Remove Those Pesky console.log Statements
• JavaScript Kinetic Scrolling: Part 4

Tools

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• Myth - CSS the way it was imagined.

Demos

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• 109 Three.js Examples
• Christmas Tree
• JavaScript Training Games

Comics

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• Node.js Gets Roommates

Conclusion

What're we doing today, Brain? The same thing we do every day, Pinky. Javascript.