The Bungee Blog

As promised, here comes the first edition of Neuron Workout Solutions™, a series that answers the questions and challenges at the end of many chapters in the book. I did not start earlier in order not to spoil the challenge for recent readers, but I think now the time comes.

So here we start, with the first chapter featuring Neuron Workouts: chapter 4, “Regular JavaScript on Steroids,” that discusses how Prototype augments native JavaScript objects such as strings, numbers and functions.

Read more

Thanks to channel sales (sales not directly from Pragmatic Programmers, such as through their website), all of a sudden I see the book hit the 5,000 bought-copies (paper and PDF included) mark.

Woah.

And there are, currently, about 50 subscribers to this blog’s feed. Slightly below 1% of the buyers. The top 1%, obviously: you want fresh info in addition to the book’s contents, don’t you? I already outlined what this blog would have (and indeed, it should feature its first Neuron Workout post within 2 days), but what is it you guys expect to find here?

At any rate, uh, “thanks for watching.” As they say.

As announced on the Prototype blog, version 1.6.0.2 just released.  Like all 4-digit releases, it’s about performance improvements and bug fixes. Specifically, it is backwards-compatible with 1.6.0.

It does feature a security update revolving around JS environments with no Same Origin Policy (SOP), such as Dashboard Widgets or Opera Widgets; you can read all about it on the library’s blog. The fix was backported in the 1.5.1 branch to produce 1.5.1.2, for those who cannot yet migrate to the better shores of 1.6-ness.

An item of note though: along the way, we finally added Opera to our officially supported browsers, starting with version 9.25.

Right.

So I get my first review on Amazon.com, and what do I learn in there? That my ghosting example b0rks. Dang! The code is simple, so what gives?

Well, it so happens that my own code in Scripty’s ghosting support for non-absolutely-positioned elements is flawed: it relies (for a reason I can’t fathom in retrospect) on expandoes, and attempts to remove them when it’s done, which IE (both 6 and 7) does not support (it lets us removeAttribute it though).

As a reminder, an expando property is a custom property you slap onto an unsuspecting DOM element. You can think of it like a custom attribute on an HTML tag, but at the DOM level.

This issue was noticed before, too, and a ticket was opened in Trac a month ago, but I sadly confess I have no time these days to monitor anything in the Trac but the changesets.

Since expandoes are unnecessary in this very context, I stripped the superfluous indirection in the source code, created a patch, updated the ticket and my book’s online codebase (both the expanded file and the archive files).

So feel free to grab the new files and go along! I can only hope Thomas will apply the fix soon, so the official release is in sync.

Update Jan 21: Thomas applied the patch. You can grab the edge version from Subversion trunk.

Just FYI, here’s the system I came up with for Neuron Workout solutions:

• Roughly one installment per week, usually probably in mid-week
• A maximum of 5 workouts (single items in the Neuron Workout sections) per installment
• Chapters 4 to 6 will come first, then I’ll just pick workouts through the book in a less sequential way
• When a workout has multiple valid solutions, I’ll try to present at least a few
• I’ll try to highlight “bad” solutions as well, explaining why they’re bad, to stir you away from them.
• As the paper book releases around January 11 at major retailers (e.g. Amazon.com), I’ll give another two weeks without spoiler to potential readers before starting the solutions here. So that means the first installment should appear around January 28.

I look forward to starting this, and seeing what kind of productive debating can result in the comments.

In the meantime, Prototype Core’s hard at work on 1.6.1, so stay tuned.

As 1.5.1 had 1.5.1.1 in its time, 1.6 got a 1.6.0.1 bugfix release, which was tagged in the Subversion repository on December 5, 2007.

Obtaining this version

For some reason, the official website’s download page was not updated, but I think it should be soon. In the meantime, you can grab it here.

What’s new?

As I said, it’s a bugfix release. So it’s entirely about fixing little qwirks, unlike the upcoming Prototype 1.6.1, which will feature a good deal of new features. Still, grabbing 1.6.0.1 means you’re on better ground when it comes to stability and correctness.

For all the details, check out the top of its changelog.

Here it is. At least in my part of the world, so there are still up to 10.5 hours for you, my dear readers, to enter 2008. What are you doing reading this in 2007? You should be gearing up for the celebration!

2008 is poised to be an exceptional year. In the JavaScript world alone, a number of very exciting things are coming, starting with a crystallization of ES4, but also plenty of cool client-side web technologies about storage, SVG, mashups, extensions of XHR, and much, much more!

And of course, 2008 will see Prototype 2.0 and script.aculo.us 2.0. We’re not keen on announcing release dates, but with “2008,” I certainly feel safe enough Work on “Scripty2″ is already very well on its way, and we have a number of sharp ideas for Proto2 as well.

I’ll make sure you know about the new, cool, exciting features that we’re cooking up.

In the meantime, here’s to a fabulous 2008 for you and your loved ones. Make it worth every minute!