How can we give this group the kick start it needs?

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Chris Brown

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Aug 6, 2008, 3:12:28 AM8/6/08
to AltDotJS
I am really glad I found this group, as it appears that there are
others out there like myself who feel there is something missing in
the JavaScript community, a gaping hole at its very core that
absolutely must be filled. I personally crave for a community where I
can discuss in a JavaScript context the subjects that truly matter to
me:

- JavaScript patterns and practices
- Testing BDD/TDD
- Agile methodologies
- Large JavaScript projects
- Obtrusive fat client web apps
- DSL's
- .... I could go on with this all day

I'm already subscribed to a lot of good blogs that often cover
JavaScript, but I need something more than just commenting on
articles, I need a dynamic community that actually loves JavaScript
for what it is and is not trying to bend it into being something it's
not. I would love to see the kind of debates that can help shape the
culture of the language.

Everyone who uses JavaScript everyday knows that it's a very different
beast living in a much more hostile habitat then any other language
out there. If I was a developer who mostly worked with Ruby and Ruby
had no community to speak of, I would probably be quite content
kicking around in the Python groups, IRC channels and such and taking
those patterns and practices back to Ruby with me, as to quote a
popular phrase in my adopted home land, they are "same, same but
different".

Although there are many things I have learned in many languages that
no doubt influence my JavaScript style, JavaScript has no other
languages whose role, location and general use are "same, same but
different", this is why JavaScript needs a strong dynamic community
more than any other language out there.

Judging by the name of the group I guess it has been influenced by
AltDotNet. I've never developed in .Net but I work in an office where
there are two teams that do and I have seen how much they love it and
the impact it's having on the .Net community in terms of shifting the
culture. The thought of this happening in the JavaScript community is
extremely appealing to me on many levels and I know I'm not alone, but
the question is:

how can we kick start such a movement?

Sergio Pereira

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Aug 6, 2008, 8:25:22 AM8/6/08
to altd...@googlegroups.com
I would think part of this would be to produce content to support the
ideas and practices considered missing in JS development.
This mailing list only go so far. Blogs are a possible start. I myself
have been drafting (in my head) a few blog posts that might contribute
to that somehow.

- sp

--
______________________________________
Sergio Pereira

Justin Bozonier

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Aug 6, 2008, 10:28:42 AM8/6/08
to AltDotJS
There's a similar push in the local Seattle Alt.NET (working on a
project to illustrate Alt.NET practices). I have some stuff I'd love
to contribute and I'd love to work on more.

One of the most important issues I read about is unit testing. Seems
to be some pretty big gaps at least in developers' knowledge of the
existing frameworks. Might be a good idea just to do a round up of the
top 2 or 3 and illustrate how they can be used and integrated into a
build process.

Any other ideas?

Chris Brown

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Aug 6, 2008, 10:51:52 AM8/6/08
to AltDotJS
At the moment my view is that there definitely some people out there
with some very strong opinions on what it the right way to write
JavaScript such as John Resig or Douglas Crockford, but there is still
no community consensus or even discussion on what is the right way to
do things. I love the Python idea of Pythonic, and think JavaScript
needs something like this, but the problem is that JavaScripthonic
just sounds crap :-)

You should make those blog posts Sergio, or post your ideas in here so
we can all talk about them and take ideas and practices forward as a
group.

Chris Brown

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Aug 6, 2008, 11:50:44 AM8/6/08
to AltDotJS
I agree 100% there are many things that need to be pushed more in
JavaScript and testing is right at the top of that list, I did a bit
of a round up of testing options in a blog post a couple of weeks
back:

http://chrisincambo.wordpress.com/2008/07/14/javascript-behavior-driven-development-test-driven-development-tools-roundup/

And by coincidence around the time I posted that, two more mocking
frameworks and one new bdd framework were released. Well one of them
was no coincidence, as I wrote it after writing that article.
You can check it out here - http://code.google.com/p/amok/ I would
appreciate any feedback any of you might have if you get a chance to
use it.
Then over on GitHub I found some new tools with cool names:
Screw-Unit from Andy Kent which is a new bdd framework which closely
follows the DSL of RSpec - http://github.com/nkallen/screw-unit/tree/master
And
Smoke which is the mocking framework designed for use with Screw-Unit,
which also closely follows the DSL of the RSpec mocking framework -
http://github.com/andykent/smoke/tree/master

Although amok has taken a very different approach in terms of the
internal API the funny thing is that both amok and smoke have a near
identical DSL. Just shows one more reason why we need a group like
this to be active so maybe Andy and I could have figured out we were
doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time and pooled our
resources.
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