http://billyreisinger.com/blog poops on his keyboard Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:16:40 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en We all know that global variables are bad. Sooner or later, someone is going to pick the same name for a variable as you do, and when that happens, *poof!* your code doesn't work anymore. Unfortunately, not every programmer understands why globals are bad. This is a write-up of ... http://billyreisinger.com/blog/2009/01/real-world-example-of-why-global-variables-are-bad/ I love this pie!  It is a family favorite, which we always make on Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'm immortalizing the recipe here for my own sake; I keep losing the one my mom gave me.  I'm quoting this directly from: http://www.nickers.com/kentucky-derby-pie-recipe.htm 1 Pie crust Filling: 1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled 2 eggs 1 cup ... http://billyreisinger.com/blog/2008/12/kentucky-derby-pie/ My buddy Drew Diller (who is a freaking CSS genius) has come up with a clever solution to get CSS backgroun d-image support working in IE - including background positioning and repeating.  If you are tired of using AlphaImageLoader and want something easier, check this out: http://www.dillerdesign.com/experiment/DD_belatedPNG/ It lets you use a ... http://billyreisinger.com/blog/2008/12/png-background-image-support-in-ie6-better-late-than-never/ I'll soon be working on a screencast for the JavaScript build module that Jonathan Doklovic wrote for his enterprise build system (which leverages Jira, Bamboo, Ivy, and Ant).  The JavaScript module takes advantage of JsUnit for unit testing, YUICompressor for compression and lint checking, and JsDoc Toolkit for source documentation. I've ... http://billyreisinger.com/blog/2008/12/enterprise-javascript-build-system-sysbliss/ We're using JSUnit to run tests in our build system, and we're using Bamboo to do continuous integration.  Unfortunately, the XML spit out by JSUnit is not recognizable as JUnit XML for the purposes of integrating into Bamboo. I wrote this XSL stylesheet to transform the JSUnit XML report into ... http://billyreisinger.com/blog/2008/07/jsunit-xml-to-junit-xml/ Debugging JavaScript is hard enough - but it is especially annoying when you have spent a good amount of time tracking down a bug and it turns out to be a type error (i.e., your function expected a Boolean true but got a String "true"). Perhaps your value was ... http://billyreisinger.com/blog/2008/05/type-enforcement-and-argument-validation-in-javascript-saves-time/ I've stumbled across a bug in Opera 9.27 (which I dutifully reported).  Basically, if you disable a form element and use the DOM2 dispatchEvent method on the element to simulate a click, the element fires the event.  Since the element is disabled, it should not fire any click event handlers ... http://billyreisinger.com/blog/2008/05/disabled-form-element-and-dispatchevent-bug-in-opera/ I'm an encapsulation fanatic.  I love to write code where data is protected from view and unavailable for mischief.  I like the ability to react to changes to the internal state of a function. Also, the thought of something accessing and re-writing a method or variable on another class ... http://billyreisinger.com/blog/2008/05/encapsulation-vs-efficiency-in-javascript/ One of the neat things I learned at the last No Fluff Just Stuff conference I went to was from one of Neal Ford's Productive Programmer seminars.   Script everything.  I've been using this as my mantra lately.  Why should I do steps a, b, c, d, e, f, and g again, even ... http://billyreisinger.com/blog/2008/05/script-everything/ I am a person who likes to use JavaScript development frameworks, such as Prototype or JQuery.  There is a time and a place for such things - as when developing your own website or working on some code that relies on lots of UI bells and whistles (fade outs, complex ... http://billyreisinger.com/blog/2008/04/use-only-the-javascript-that-you-need/