Undefined Value

Being the arrogant lummox that I am, I've taken it upon myself to make a list of ten New Year's resolutions for everyone to follow.

1. Be a better parent. Make time to spend with children (even if you have no children of your own).
2. Be a better spouse. Are you the partner you promised you would be?
3. Be a better friend. Your life isn't all about you. Reach out to others.
4. Be a better citizen. Educate yourself about what's going on in your city, in your nation, and in the world. Ask questions. Respect those who disagree with you.
5. Take care of your health. Prepare healthy meals, get some exercise, take your prescribed medications, get a physical exam and vaccinations.
6. Put more into your work, but don't let your work take anything out of you.
7. Correspond with people. This doesn't mean forwarding e-mail jokes, posting your status on a web page, or ranting about what some politician has done. You need to write about meaningful things, and carefully read what others have written.
8. Examine your beliefs. How did you get them? What are they based on? Do they still make sense to you? Can you imagine what it would be like to hold different beliefs? Talk to someone who does have different beliefs.
9. Get rid of what you don't need, literally and metaphorically.
10. Relax more. You really do have the time.

Now you'll have an answer when annoying people ask you what your resolutions are.

The following subsections each present a simple JavaScript example program. They proceed roughly in order from simple to complicated.

For each program, there will be some commentary describing small sections of the code. There will also be suggestions for making changes to the programs.

[This page will describe how to set up a work folder.]

The following subsections provide steps you should take to ensure that you can download and run the programs, and make modifications to them.

This page will describe the DOM.

[This page will describe CSS.]

[This page will describe how web browsers and web servers work.]

When I was a kid, in the early 1980's, I got started with computer programming by typing in the programs from David H. Ahl's BASIC Computer Games. I spent many hours typing in those little programs, playing them, and then modifying the code to customize the games to my liking. I later moved on to more sophisticated programming languages, but that early exposure to simple examples of BASIC programming is what got me started.

Today, we're all surrounded by programmable computers, but in some ways it is more difficult than it has ever been to get into programming. Everything seems so complicated. There are so many programming languages to choose from, so many development tools to choose from, and such a wide variety of books, tutorials, and other information available on the Web that it can be overwhelming to someone who wants to get started.

This is an attempt to provide a modern analogue to BASIC Computer Games. Here, I present a set of simple JavaScript programs that run in a web browser. It is my hope that people interested in programming can study them, modify them, and then move on to more complicated applications.

All you'll need is a modern web browser, a text editor, and some time.

I often wonder how kids today get into programming. When I was a kid, and got my first computer, I spent a lot of time typing in the programs from David Ahl's BASIC Computer Games. After typing in the code for the games and playing them a bit, I'd start changing them. Eventually, I got into 6502 assembly language and higher-level programming languages, but that early exposure to a bunch of simple BASIC programs is what got me started as a coder.

Today, kids are surrounded by programmable computers, but few of them learn how to write code. Most kids are no more interested in programming a computer than they would be in rebuilding a car's engine. I don't see a lot of simple projects like those in Ahl's book that they can play with and start hacking on. How does a kid get started?

There are programming environments that are intended to teach kids programming (Scratch, Alice, etc.). But use of those is not widespread, and I question their usefulness. All the good programmers I know started with something primitive, like BASIC, Fortran, Perl, or command.com. I wonder if somebody can really learn how computers work by working with fancy 3D "authoring environments" like Alice and Squeak.

It's occurred to me that web applications might be one way to get into programming. Web browsers are as ubiquitous as BASIC was in the 80's. It's relatively easy for a kid to set up a web site with Drupal or some other off-the-shelf CMS, and then start customizing it. All they need is Notepad and an Internet connection. They learn a little CSS here, a little JavaScript there, and pretty soon they'd rather be coding than playing games.

Is there a web-app equivalent to BASIC Computer Games? If not, there should be.

The native-vs.-webapp hubbub from a couple of weeks ago got me thinking about why "web developers" are looked down upon by "real programmers."

Finding a good job, or finding good employees, has always sucked. The guys at Stack Overflow are trying to make it suck a little less with their new service: Stack Overflow Careers.

What differentiates Stack Overflow Careers from all the other job-board web sites is that candidates' CV's are linked to their Stack Overflow accounts, so an employer can get a feel for how smart a person is by checking their SO reputation and reading their questions and answers. They are also trying to avoid a lot of the annoyances that plague other job-search sites. It is also hoped that the association with Stack Overflow will attract the best candidates and employers.

I've set up my CV: http://careers.stackoverflow.com/kristopherjohnson. The process was pretty easy.

It costs $29 to enter your CV into the employee-search database, and employers have to pay a pretty steep price to search it. I think that's a good thing; it keeps things serious. (Note: You can create a public CV for free, but it won't show up in employer's searches.)

I'm not actively looking for a job, but if anyone wants to pay me huge gobs of money to play with cool stuf, I'm definitely available.