Dan Webb describes curried functions as a way of creating reusable callback functions for event handlers or Ajax requests, or anything that takes a function as an argument. By using closures, curried functions have a simple way of persisting data between calls. He also offers an elegant way of running a lots of methods on objects, with a simple map function written as a curried function.
Simon Willison blogs about how JQuery won him over. From its faddish start based around CSS selectors (getElementsBySelector), and method chaining, Simon now sees the library in a new light. Simon shows how jQuery supports modern development best practice such as namespaces, giving a quick nod to the richness of jQuery selectors (DOM, CSS and XPath). JQuery's event handling looks natural and offers an event when the dom is ready. It exposes custom events for non-trivial Ajax requests. Simon's so convinced about jQuery that he's willing to overlook his rule that developers should know how a library works before using it.
Tim Huegdon and Mark Aidan Thomas create an elegant wrapper to the YUI Connection Manager that manages repeating Ajax JSON requests. Tim describes the use of Custom Events, and the use of the Observer design pattern, dissects the code and offers a tidy demonstration of the working code. This simplifies JSON requests into declaring a simple function to process the returned JSON object, and a single line to fire off the request (within a setInterval if required)
Instead of creating a new XmlHttpRequest object for every request, this post provides code to pool these objects together and reuse them. This saves a great deal of processing times, particularly in IE.
Three top features of jQuery: the multitude of selectors, manipulating attributes, and tacking Ajax/JSON requests. Choses jQuery over Prototype
Christian Heilmann offers us Dishy, a JavaScript REST API for talking to del.icio.us. Taking full advantage of del.icio.us' JSON format and the script element, Dishy doesn't need a server-side proxy. Its a useful helper class for easily getting information from del.icio.us.
Gez Lemon reviews Christian Heilmann's recently published book. Its a thumbs up, and recommended for developers working with standards and accessibility, regardless of their JavaScript level.
Covers all the methods available on the jQuery library, along with inline code examples. Interestingly, the same documentation is also available as XML and JSON.
A useful overview / introduction of the jQuery library, covering using selectors and XPath expressions to target specific elements in a document, simple Ajax requests, the basic animations available, restructuring a document, creating jQuery plugins.
A lightweight library designed to elegantly dealing with common, repetitive tasks. Great as a small library to handle getting various nodes in a document, adding events, and rendering simple effects.