Crockford on JavaScript - Section 8: Programming Style & Your Brain

In this keynote talk from YUIConf 2011, Yahoo! JavaScript architect Douglas Crockford drops some science to explain why code style is important in programming -- particularly in JavaScript -- and how tools like JSLint can help.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• douglas crockford
• crockford
• javascript
• jslint
• ecmascript
• es5
• programming
• style
• science
• neuroscience
• yui
• yuiconf
• yuiconf 2011
• yahoo

[mikesmith11287]

@IAmDriverDan We are still evolving but in a more horizontal way than vertical. What I mean is that instead of evolving in a way that has made us more competitive as a species, we have been evolving in a way that just makes us more diverse and not much else. Crockford's point still holds. We have not changed in the past 10,000 years in any ways that make us better, we are simply more diverse. This is how dogs started to evolve after we started selecting cuteness over abilities.

[AayushWho]

Get rid of ALL IE's..

*9gaggers will get it.

[mrpathos]

@yopizza I think it's a combo of both things. I smoked for many years and I know exactly what Crockford means: it's an addictive habit, but the hardest thing about quitting is there is no palpable sense of danger from it in my gut. I have to reason logically about why I should quit. In fact, the thing that let me quit for good was exercising more, because it gave me an immediate and visceral disincentive. Without that, in my head I knew it was bad, but in my gut it was like, eh, no big deal.

[idiotpolice50]

@yopizza I think his point is why do people smoke in the first place? And why do they continue?

Since, after all, one doesn't become addicted after 1 or 5 cigarettes

[brog45]

Book title from beginning is "The Science of Fear"

[tattooyu]

@JobLeonard Appealing to authority? Nah. He is the Doc (honorary) of Javascript!

[IAmDriverDan]

Great talk but I have a nitpick. Crockford claimed that "there has been no human evolution since the Paleolithic Era". That's just plain wrong. Humans have never stopped evolving. If anything evolution has greatly accelerated in the past 10,000 years.

Search for current human evolution for more info.

[donatienar]

@yopizza If it's addiction to nicotine only, then why the loyalty towards a given brand of cigarretes?

And how did they manage to get you hooked in the first place if it's nothing about gut, btw?

[yopizza]

Smoking is highly addictive. Nothing about gut. Typical statement of someone who doesn't smoke.

[netster007z]

I'm with him on C++