Rockford .NET User Group Meeting Recap

This was a fun one. The forum was a more traditional style where the audience listens and the speaker presents. Though Sergio’s laid back presentation style was a good fit and kept the groups attention throughout.

The topic for the evening was JavaScript – Beyond the Curly Braces. JavaScript has been something that has been near and dear to me for years. And it turns out that Sergio and I both have a passion for the Little Language That Could and are also fans of the great Douglas Crockford.

There was good (and free) pizza and soda, and the meeting place was nice and comfortable. It looks like the room is used for CBT, so I’m not sure if they are able to use those terminals during other meetings?

At the end of the meeting there was a very nice raffle and for once I actually won something. I went with the CodeSmith Professional 5.0 license. Honestly was rooting for the JetBrains license but I am NOT COMPLAINING! It was very cool and fun.

I will admit, I made a bone-headed statement calling an object constructor construct a closure. But like the saying, “pain is weakness leaving the body” I think this would be a corollary statement “embarrassment is ignorance leaving the body”. I appreciate Sergio not saying “that’s a stupid thing to say” and just saying “no, you’re incorrect” then moving on was very dignified. Thankfully I had my Google Android at the ready and was able to zip over to http://www.crockford.com and read the description of closure constructs in JavaScript and verify that yes, Sergio was correct and I was not. Yay Internet!

Additionally, Douglas Crockford was a voice in the wilderness for JavaScript back in the bad-old-days before jQuery, Prototype and YUI. He helped to change the view of JavaScript from a silly little toy language into a respectable and powerful language with interesting constructs and a full-fledged OO syntax. Take the time to read his works on OO, Lambdas and Closures in JavaScript. Somethings that are hard to do or have complicated syntax in C# are first-class citizens in JavaScript. Read his work, learn it, love it because it is worth your time.