This Week in JavaScript - 07 April 2014

Welcome to your weekly update of JavaScript news and goodies.

From around the web

Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO - Mozilla’s official blog
Eich resignation as Mozilla CEO as messy as his appointment - c|net’s take on the story
3 Free Programming Books to Learn CoffeeScript
Why do so many Javascript libraries get this wrong? - discussion on reddit
Browser Support in jQuery 1.12 and Beyond

Frameworks

RAD.js is a framework that allows to build mobile applications faster - Optimized for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8
Embracing Command Line Tooling with Backbone Applications
Setting up Bower and Polymer - video
Introduction to npm
Ember 1.5.0 and 1.6 beta released

Learning

Simple Parallax Effects with JavaScript - video
Creating an RSS Feed Reader With the MEAN Stack
Using Media Queries in JavaScript
A Fresh Approach to Responsive HTML5 Tables
JavaScript Animation that Works (Part 4 of 4) - with links to parts 1 - 3

Libraries / plugins

20 Best jQuery Lightbox Plugins
WinJS: the Windows Library for JavaScript - Use WinJS to build first class apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
slick - the last carousel you’ll ever need
BttrLazyLoading Responsive Lazy Loading plugin for JQuery
An interesting tool to track and study JavaScript errors

So what are your thoughts on the latest going-ons in the world of JavaScript? Are you using Coffee Script? Have you tried out RAD.js? Are you worried about browser support in jQuery?
We’d be glad to hear your opinions.

Please PM us if you have anything of interest for the next issue, and happy reading! - Paul & [URL=“http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/private.php?do=newpm&u=184222”]Pullo

I can’t believe that no one has posted with a reaction to the Mozilla/Brendan Eich situation!

My 2¢: Absolutely shameful, what has been done to a man with the achievements and abilities such as Brendan Eich has. Sure, you could take the argument to a logical extreme just to prove your point, but IMHO, ousting Brendan Eich based on his contributions to a political cause 6 years ago is tantamount to impeaching Tony Abbott for not maintaining a halal diet. In other words, what does one have to do with the other?

I have replaced Firefox with Opera as my personal browser of choice, although I’ll probably be using Chrome primarily for development. I am curious to know if this incident has impacted Firefox’s share of the browser market. You may now proceed with your flames…

If it were entirely the user pressure that ousted Eich, I’d agree.

However, as I understand it, Mozilla stated in a blog that they are an organization that prides itself on diversity and openness. Eich’s appointment put Mozilla into a paradox - supporting openness and diversity while trying to protect free speech of employees (Eich’s contribution can be viewed as a form of speaking.) Eich recognized the conflict of interest, and (against the board’s wishes) voluntarily stepped down and severed all associations with Mozilla because he understood that his stance on gay marriage didn’t jive with Mozilla’s environment of diversity.

:slight_smile:

I’m not gay and I’m not religious, so I find it hard to get passionate about the underlying ethics of the debate.
I do however feel that when Eich stepped down, it was a very sad day for technology and the internet in general.
In my opinion Eich was hounded out of his position by a vocal miority, both via Twitter and other nefarious, [URL=“http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/31/5568136/okcupid-asks-users-to-boycott-firefox-because-of-ceos-gay-rights”]publicity grabbing stunts.

For me, the crux of the matter is this: People are allowed to have private beliefs. You can’t go after someone for having a private belief

I agree - religion, politics, sexual preference etc have nothing whatever to do with JavaScript. They don’t even have anything to do with computers in general.

A computer will produce the same result regardless of how sad or gay the person is at the time and regardless of what their beliefs are.

+1

It seemed like Eich was very clear about keeping his beliefs out of his work at Mozilla, so I don’t see any problem either. I also think it’s pointless to boycott Firefox when Mozilla weren’t the ones asking Eich to step down.