It’s hard to believe that yet another year has gone by; but 2010 was an incredible year in the web development industry. So, what tutorials, tips, and tools made 2010 so fantastic? In this uber-roundup, you’ll get to review 150 of them.
Disclaimer: A Word About My Selections
How exactly do you go about selecting the 150 best web dev items from 2010? In one way, there’s so much to choose from; but then, you only want to select the cream of the crop.
In selecting items for this list, I chose resources that were interesting to me, as well as many items from Nettuts+ that you might have missed. There are tutorials for all skill levels here. As a final note, I tried to find the best teaching on the technologies that were big this year: things like HTML5 and CSS3.
Without further ado, here are the 150 best web development highlights from 2010.
Nettuts+
We'll begin with many of the highlights on Nettuts+ specifically!
1. Scheduling Tasks with Cron Jobs
Cron Jobs are used for scheduling tasks to run on the server. They’re most commonly used for automating system maintenance or administration. However, they are also relevant to web application development. There are many situations when a web application may need certain tasks to run periodically. Today we are going to explore the fundamentals of Cron Jobs.
Posted: January, on Nettuts+
2. An API for the Web: Learning YQL
The Yahoo Query Language is a great tool that’s guaranteed to speed up your web development time. The more complex your project, the more time YQL will save you. So, is it a framework, an application, a beverage? Today, you’ll find out what it is and how to use it!
Posted: January, on Nettuts+
3. jQuery Animations: A 7-Step Program
A dash of animation can spruce up a dull interface. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to do it the right way with jQuery.
Posted: January, on Nettuts+
4. Sexy Animated Tabs Using MooTools
Posted: January, on Nettuts+
One modern, attractive way of placing a lot of content into a little space is by using a tab system. This tutorial will show you how to create a sexy, animated tab system complete with CSS sprites, cookies, and animated tab swapping.
5. Quick Tip: JavaScript Event Delegation in 4 Minutes
Event delegation can be a confusing topic for those who are unfamiliar with the concept. But, luckily, it’s really simple. In this quick tip video tutorial, I’ll demonstrate the concept in just under four minutes.
Posted: January, on Nettuts+
6. How to Test your JavaScript Code with QUnit
QUnit, developed by the jQuery team, is a great framework for unit testing your JavaScript. In this tutorial, I’ll introduce what QUnit specifically is, and why you should care about rigorously testing your code.
Posted: February, on Nettuts+
7. Coding your First jQuery UI Plugin
jQuery contains the fn.extend() method, which makes authoring jQuery plugins quite easy, allowing us to write code that is used in exactly the same way as other jQuery methods. jQuery UI also contains structures that make authoring custom jQuery UI plugins easy. So that’s what we’ll be looking at over the course of this tutorial. The methods used differ from that of standard jQuery plugins, and there are stricter conventions that should be followed, which is why I feel the topic is deserving of an article.
Posted: February, on Nettuts+
8. Top 10 Things that JavaScript Got Wrong
JavaScript, if only by default, is one of the most popular programming languages available. Over the years, it’s been labeled as a nightmare to work with, and, to some extent, this is true! However, more often than not, what people mean to say is that the DOM API is a nightmare. Nevertheless, there are a handful of flat-out errors in the language.
Posted: February, on Nettuts+
9. Working with RESTful Services in CodeIgniter
CodeIgniter is becoming well known for its power as a PHP based web application framework, but it’s not often that we see examples of it being used for anything else. Today we’ll learn how we can use CodeIgniter to create a RESTful API for your existing web applications, and demonstrate how to interact with your own API or other RESTful web-services, such as Facebook and Twitter.
Posted: February, on Nettuts+
10. Codigniter from Scratch - 3 episodes
- CodeIgniter from Scratch: Day 8 – AJAX
- CodeIgniter from Scratch: Day 9 - File Uploading and Image Manipulation
- CodeIgniger from Scratch: Day 10 - The Calendar Library
A few great new episodes of the CodeIgniter from Scratch!
Posted: February, on Nettuts+ (yes, all three)
11. MVC for Noobs
Model-View-Controller (MVC) is probably one of the most quoted patterns in the web programming world in recent years. Anyone currently working in anything related to web application development will have heard or read the acronym hundreds of times. Today, we’ll clarify what MVC means, and why it has become so popular.
Posted: March, on Nettuts+
12. Image Resizing Made Easy with PHP
Ever wanted an all purpose, easy to use method of resizing your images in PHP? Well that’s what PHP classes are for – reusable pieces of functionality that we call to do the dirty work behind the scenes. We’re going to learn how to create our own class that will be well constructed, as well as expandable. Resizing should be easy. How easy? How about three steps!
Posted: March, on Nettuts+
13. Learning Server-Side JavaScript with Node.js
Node.js is all the buzz at the moment, and makes creating high performance, real-time web applications easy. It allows JavaScript to be used end to end, both on the server and on the client. This tutorial will walk you through the installation of Node and your first “Hello World” program, to building a scalable streaming Twitter server.
Posted: March, on Nettuts+
14. Uncovering jQuery’s Hidden Features
jQuery is not always as it appears. There’s a lot of cool stuff going on under the surface, and there are many methods just waiting to be discovered, and many potential usages of jQuery’s API that you may not have considered before. In this article I’ll be taking you through a few of the not-so-obvious things I’ve discovered about jQuery.
Posted: March, on Nettuts+
15. 12 Steps to MooTools Mastery
This tutorial is about understanding and mastering the MooTools library. It does so by offering a high level introduction to the history and foundations of the Core library: where to start, where to explore, what to master, and more.
Posted: March, on Nettuts+
16. Advanced Regular Expression Tips and Techniques
Regular Expressions are the Swiss Army knife for searching through information for certain patterns. They have a wide arsenal of tools, some of which often go undiscovered or underutilized. Today I will show you some advanced tips for working with regular expressions.
Posted: April, on Nettuts+
17. 9 Useful PHP Functions and Features You Need to Know
Even after using PHP for years, we stumble upon functions and features that we did not know about. Some of these can be very useful, yet underused. Not all of us have read the manual and the function reference from cover to cover!
Posted: April, on Nettuts+
18. A jQuery UI and .Net Image Organizer
Over the course of this tutorial we’ll look at how to create a simple image organizer that lets users reorder a series of images; this functionality could be useful on any kind of image-based site where users have a collection of images that they have uploaded or otherwise added to their profile or account. We’ll use .net to retrieve and store the order of images in a SQL database on the server, and jQuery UI to handle the reordering of the images on the client.
19. Fun with Canvas: Create a Bar Graphing Plugin
In this two-part series, we’ll combine the versatile canvas element with the robust jQuery library to create a bar graphing plugin. In this first part, we are going to code the core logic of the plugin as a standalone version.
Posted: April, on Nettuts+
20. Using Twitter’s @Anywhere Service in 6 Steps
Last week, Twitter released @Anywhere, which, with only a few added lines in your code, can bring all of Twitter’s platform functionalities into your website. @Anywhere can allow for anything, ranging from converting a simple @username into a clickable link, to even creating new tweets directly from your personal site. I’ll show you exactly how to do so in this tutorial!
Posted: April, on Nettuts+
21. Why you Should be Using PHP’s PDO for Database Access
Many PHP programmers learned how to access databases by using either the mysql or mysqli extensions. Since PHP 5.1, there’s been a better way. PHP Data Objects (PDO) provide methods for prepared statements and working with objects that will make you far more productive!
Posted: May, on Nettuts+
22. Simple PHP Class-Based Querying
Though it is usually advisable to use some sort of framework or CMS, sometimes a project is small enough such that those options would weigh down the development. However, even in smaller projects, separating presentational elements from backend querying should not be ignored. This tutorial will walk you through creating a basic class-based querying engine for PHP and MySQL.
23. Build Kick-Ass Practical CSS3 Buttons
What once required background images and icons can now be created with plain-old CSS. Because modern browsers have access to things like box shadow, gradients, rounded corners, text-shadows, and font-face, we can finally take advantage of this and remove any need for images, when creating visual elements, such as buttons! I’ll show you how in today’s video tutorial.
Posted: May, on Nettuts+
24. Introducing WordPress 3 Custom Taxonomies
WordPress 3 fills in a number of important gaps towards being a serious content management system. The easy-to-use custom taxonomies function gives site designers some powerful tools for building a good information architecture. Learn what taxonomies are, why they’re useful, and how to use them in today’s tutorial!
Posted: May, on Nettuts+
25. Building a 5 Star Rating System with jQuery, AJAX and PHP
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to build a rating system with AJAX, PHP, and jQuery. Votes will be recorded and updated in real-time with the magic of AJAX, and we’ll also leverage the power of PHP so that you don’t even need a database!
Posted: May, on Nettuts+
26. Quick Tip: You Need to Check out LESS.js
You might be familiar with such services as LESS and Sass. They allow for far more flexibility when creating your stylesheets, including the use of variables, operators, mix-ins, even nested selectors. However, because LESS was originally built with Ruby, a lot of PHP developers, despite the fact that there are PHP versions available, never used it.
That’s all going to change now that LESS is being rewritten in JavaScript, is about forty times faster than the Ruby version, and can be used by any of us!
Posted: June, on Nettuts+
27. 10 Things I Learned from the jQuery Source
It’s jQuery on the big screen. We’ll open the jQuery source and run through how the jQuery object works, covering self-executing anonymous functions as a global abatement technique, several interesting jQuery methods, internal jQuery paradigms, and hidden enhancements. You’ll learn JavaScript techniques you can apply to your own code, as well as the basic workings of jQuery itself.
Posted: June, on Nettuts+
28. How to Authenticate Users with Facebook Connect
Lately, there’s been quite a fuzz about lazy registration. It turns out that the less the user has to think, the higher the conversion rates are! What a thought! If everybody seems to have a Facebook profile, why not add a one-click user registration? I’ll show you how to do that today.
Posted: June, on Nettuts+
29. How to Create a Drop-down Nav Menu with HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery
In this tutorial, we’ll take a look and see what we can achieve with HTML5 and CSS3 when it comes to the staple of current web sites: the humble drop-down navigation menu. We’ll also use jQuery to handle the effects and add the finishing touches for us.
Posted: June, on Nettuts+
30. The 10 HTML Tags Beginners Aren’t Using
Let’s go back to the basics for this one. Everyone reading this at least knows what HTML is. I believe that, no matter what experience level someone has, reviewing the foundation can help increase knowledge. It also helps to hone skills, especially with the constantly evolving technologies that drives the Internet. There has also been a lot of talk of change with HTML 5. Every tag that I mention below is supported in both HTML 4.01 and HTML 5. While some of these tags are already widely used; I would like to challenge some of the ways that we use and think about them.
Posted: June, on Nettuts+
31. 20 Steps to a Flexible and Secure WordPress Installation
A comprehensive WordPress installation, albeit simple to produce, often requires multiple steps — many of which can easily be omitted accidentally. How many times have you forgotten to customize your permalink structure? How about adding in a sitemap plugin? What about changing your timezone? If you’ve installed WordPress more than once, chances are you’ve missed something. Take the following steps and you’ll never miss anything again.
Posted: July, on Nettuts+
32. 19 Important Features to Look for in a Web Host
If you’re reading this, you probably develop websites. We don’t make websites to let them sit on our own computers: we set them free on the web. While it’s often more fun to create the website than to worry about hosting it, web hosting isn’t a decision you should make quickly. In this roundup, I’ll point out 19 things you should look for when choosing your web host.
Posted: July, on Nettuts+
33. Deciphering Magic Methods in PHP
PHP provides a number of ‘magic’ methods that allow you to do some pretty neat tricks in object oriented programming. These methods, identified by a two underscore prefix (__), function as interceptors that are automatically called when certain conditions are met. Magic methods provide some extremely useful functionality, and this tutorial will demonstrate each method’s use.
Posted: July, on Nettuts+
34. Increase Productivity by Creating PHP Helper Functions
Every workman needs a good toolbox, and web developers are no different. PHP helper functions are designed to speed up and homogenise repetitive tasks, and make your life that much easier. This first tutorial explains how to make link helpers that will improve your methods for adding hyperlinks and mailto links in your web applications.
Posted: July, on Nettuts+
35. A Beginner’s Guide to Design Patterns
Ever wondered what design patterns are? In this article, I’ll explain why design patterns are important, and will provide some examples, in PHP, of when and why they should be used.
Posted: July, on Nettuts+
36. Building a Sleek AJAX Email Signup Form
In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to create a slick email signup form. This form will harness the full power of AJAX, meaning that we will submit data to the server, validate it, and receive a response – all without a single page refresh! Along the way, you should pick up some useful tips related to PHP and JavaScript, as well as general programming best practices.
Posted: August, on Nettuts+
37. Create a Sticky Note Effect in 5 Easy Steps with CSS3 and HTML5
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to transform an HTML list into a wall of “sticky notes” that look and work like the following …
Posted: August, on Nettuts+
38. The Newbie’s Guide to Test-Driven Development
Testing your code is annoying, but the impact of not doing so can be orders of magnitude more annoying! In this article, we’ll use test-driven development to write and test our code more effectively.
Posted: August, on Nettuts+
39. The Problem with PHP’s Prepared Statements
PHP’s prepared statements (for database access) are fantastic. Not only do they help secure your database queries, but they’re also particularly more efficient for larger products. However, there are a couple issues that appear to make these methods less flexible than we’d hope. For one, we must utilize the bind_result method, and pass in a specific number of variables. However, what happens when this code is within a class, and we won’t immediately know how many variables to pass? Luckily, there’s a solution! I’ll show you what it is in today’s video tutorial.
Posted: August, on Nettuts+
40. 28 HTML5 Features, Tips, and Techniques you Must Know
This industry moves fast — really fast! If you’re not careful, you’ll be left in its dust. So, if you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed with the coming changes/updates in HTML5, use this as a primer of the things you must know.
Posted: August, on Nettuts+
41. 9 Ways to Instantly Code Faster
Doesn’t the title say it all? There are a wide variety of tools and techniques which can drastically improve the speed at which we code. Particularly during time-sensitive settings, even a savings of a few seconds per iteration can add up substantially over the course of the month. I’ll show you ten of my favorite methods in this article.
Posted: September, on Nettuts+
42. Progressively Enhance a Form to a Modal Form
With something as important as a contact form, you want it working properly for all visitors—even the JavaScript challenged. How do you handle this if you want to use a modal (pop-up) form? The answer is progressive enhancement; start with baseline, usable functionality; then increase the user experience for those who have browsers to support it.
Posted: September, on Nettuts+
43. 14 Helpful jQuery Tricks, Notes, and Best Practices
If there is one bad thing about jQuery, it’s that the entry level is so amazingly low, that it tends to attract those who haven’t an ounce of JavaScript knowledge. Now, on one hand, this is fantastic. However, on the flip side, it also results in a smattering of, quite frankly, disgustingly bad code (some of which I wrote myself!).
But that’s okay; frighteningly poor code that would even make your grandmother gasp is a rite of passage. The key is to climb over the hill, and that’s what we’ll discuss in today’s tutorial.
Posted: September, on Nettuts+
44. Understanding and Applying Polymorphism in PHP
In object oriented programming, polymorphism is a powerful and fundamental tool. It can be used to create a more organic flow in your application. This tutorial will describe the general concept of polymorphism, and how it can easily be deployed in PHP.
Posted: September, on Nettuts+
45. How to Build Silverlight Video Players with Expression Encoder
The Silverlight category over at Activetuts+ has been steadily gaining momentum over the last couple of months. However, the world of RIA’s covers a broad range of subjects, so we thought it fitting that Nettuts+ readers enjoyed a slice of the pie too. Dig into this screencast and, if you’re interested, pay a visit to ActiveTuts+ for plenty more Silverlight content when you’re done!
Posted: September, on Nettuts+
46. How to Display Justin Bieber Tweets with Asynchronous Recursion
Bottom line: Justin Bieber = traffic. I fully intend to use this to my advantage, and none of you can do anything about it. The purpose of today’s video tutorial is to demonstrate how to use a scary set of words, “asynchronous recursion” to continuously display updated tweets about the great Biebster. And then finally, we’ll hijack these tweets to make them look as if they’re referring to Nettuts+ instead.
Posted: October, on Nettuts+
47. Quick Tip: JavaScript Hoisting Explained
Today’s video quick tip comes in response to a question on Twitter, concerning JavaScript “hoisting.” What is it? How does it work? What do you need to know about it? All of that will be covered in this beginner-focused fundamentals lesson.
Posted: October, on Nettuts+
48. Ruby for Newbies
- Chapter 1: Installing Ruby and Getting Started
- Chapter 2: Variables, Datatypes, and Files
- Chapter 3: Working with Classes (published in November)
- Chapter 4: Conditional Statements and Loops (published in November)
- Chapter 5: Iterators and Blocks (published in December)
Ruby is a one of the most popular languages used on the web. Today, we’re starting a new screencast series here on Nettuts+ that will introduce you to Ruby, as well as the great frameworks and tools that go along with Ruby development.
Posted: October, on Nettuts+
49. The Essentials of Writing High Quality JavaScript
The brilliant Stoyan Stefanov, in promotion of his new book from O’Reilly, “JavaScript Patterns,” was kind enough to contribute an excerpt of the book for our readers, which details the essentials of writing high quality JavaScript, such as avoiding globals, using single var declarations, pre-caching length in loops, following coding conventions, and more.
Posted: October, on Nettuts+
50. Loose Coupling with the pubsub Plugin
I talked about pubsub as part of my presentation at the 2010 jQuery Conference in Boston earlier this month, and it seemed to be a topic that held a lot of interest for people. I didn’t have a lot of time to talk about it in my presentation, so I’ve put together a short screencast that goes into a bit more depth. Hope you like it!
Posted: October, on Nettuts+
51. But it Doesn’t Validate
I have a small pet peeve that I’m going to share with you. On the nights when I finish up a new CSS3 tutorial for Nettuts+ — typically while listening to my favorite Biebster songs — I click publish, and then wait to see how long it’ll take before a reader leaves a comment containing the phrase, “But it doesn’t validate.”
Posted: November, on Nettuts+
52. Test-Driven JavaScript Development in Practice
Christian Johansen, the author of the recently released “Test-Driven JavaScript Development,” has graciously agreed to donate a large excerpt of his book to our readers. I’m personally only about a quarter of the way through the book so far, but I’ve already learned a great deal.
TDD is an iterative development process where each iteration starts by writing a test which forms a part of the specification we are implementing. The short iterations allow for more instant feedback on the code we are writing, and bad design decisions are easier to catch. By writing the tests prior to any production code, good unit test coverage comes with the territory, but that is merely a welcome side-effect.
Posted: November, on Nettuts+
53. A Beginner’s Introduction to HTTP and REST
The HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the life of the Web. It’s used every time you transfer a document, or make an AJAX request. But HTTP is a relative unknown among web developers. This introduction will demonstrate how the set of design principles, known as REST, underpin HTTP, and allow you to embrace its fullest power by building interfaces which can be used from almost any device or operating system.
Posted: November, on Nettuts+
54. How to use Lookaheads and Lookbehinds in your Regular Expressions
Today, we’ll be reviewing the intricacies of regular expressions. More specifically, we’ll discuss both how and why you should use positive/negative lookahead ands lookbehinds in your regular expressions. Originally meant to be a quick tip, this screencast ended up a bit longer than expected, at around eighteen minutes.
Posted: November, on Nettuts+
55. ASP.NET From Scratch
This year, Jeremy McPeak added a bunch of great episodes to his ASP.NET from Scratch series. If that’s your area, check them out!
- Lesson 1: Getting Started
- Lesson 2: Improving an Email Form
- Lesson 3: Class Inheritance
- Lesson 4: SQL Server
- Lesson 5: Master Pages
- Lesson 6: MVC
- Lesson 7: Routing in MVC
- Lesson 8: Controllers and Simple Model Validation
Posted: November, on Nettuts+
56. What’s New in JavaScript 1.8.5
It’s a great time for JavaScript. Not only is it becoming a much more respected language, but it’s also growing in leaps and bounds – both in popularity and features. As more browsers begin to implement the features of the ECMAScript 5th edition standard, JavaScript becomes an even more powerful platform for you to develop on. In this tutorial, we’ll talk about the new methods that are available to you.
Posted: December, on Nettuts+
57. An Introduction to YUI
With jQuery dominating the JavaScript framework landscape, many newcomers aren’t exposed to other JavaScript frameworks. The truth is that there are a plethora of excellent JavaScript frameworks available, like MooTools, Prototype, Ext JS, and…YUI! While not as well known as some of the other libraries, YUI provides a wealth of tools for the web developer. Today, we’re going to take a quick tour of some of its features.
Posted: December, on Nettuts+
58. Rocking Out with CoffeeScript
Even though CoffeeScript is a new language, you’ll learn it very quickly. You should, since it’s only JavaScript flaunting with some flashy clothes, after all. It reads like Ruby or Python, but compiles down to pure, non-fluffy JavaScript. Today, we’re going to take a look at why everyone is talking about CoffeeScript.
Posted: December, on Nettuts+
59. This Damn Industry
Editorials on Nettuts+ are few and far between, but, given that we’re nearing the end of yet another year, I thought it might be nice to have a discussion on one sleep depriving aspect of this web development industry that we’re all privy to: it’s forever twisting and turning. To those of you who have five or more years of experience: knowing what you know about about the steep, never-ending learning curve, would you be willing to start all over?
Posted: December, on Nettuts+
60. Expedite your Workflow with Macros
I’m a productivity tool freak. As I see it, if a short-cut saves me a few moments over the course of the day, then it has the potential to save roughly twenty hours worth of work each year! As such, I religiously use tools like TextExpander, Snippets, Coda, Structurer, LaunchBar, etc. But today, I want to show you how to use a macro program, like Keyboard Maestro or AutoHotKey, to expedite repetitive tasks. You’ll love it!
Posted: December, on Nettuts+
Premium Content
61. Premium Content: This Will Change the Way you Code your CSS
Last Friday, we learned how to utilize a tool called Zen-Coding to rapidly speed up our development time when creating mark-up. In today’s Plus video tutorial, we’re going to take another huge leap forward, specifically with CSS, where I’ll show you how to utilize a different tool, called “Scaffold,” created by Anthony Short. This will allow you to use variables, functions (mix-ins), for statements, and to even create grids on the fly with ease! I promise you that, if you’re mildly familiar with PHP, this will drastically change – and improve – the way you code your CSS
Posted: January, on Nettuts+ (Premium)
62. Premium Content: An In-Depth Overview of File Operations in PHP
In this week’s Plus tutorial, we will learn how to work with file operations using PHP. This is one of the most fundamental subjects of server side programming in general. Files are used in web applications of all sizes. So let’s learn how to read, write, create, move, copy, delete files and more.
Posted: February, on Nettuts+ (Premium)
63. Premium Content: How to Generate PDFs with PHP
PDFs may well be the best format for distributing documents on the web. In today’s tutorial and screencast, I’ll show you how you can generated PDFs with PHP.
Posted: March, on Nettuts+ (Premium)
64. Premium Content: Combining Modern CSS3 and HTML5 Techniques
Just because some techniques don’t work in decade old browsers doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be learning everything you can! Stay on the cutting edge, as we use everything from CSS shadows and animations, to HTML 5 mark-up and local storage, to utilizing jQuery to work with the Picasa API. We’ll also take advantage of the excellent jQuery library, and review some best practices when coding.
Posted: April, on Nettuts+ (Premium)
65. Premium Content: PHP Exceptions
In this article we are going to learn about PHP Exceptions from ground up. These concepts are utilized in many large, scalable and object oriented applications and frameworks. Take advantage of this language feature to improve your skills as a web application developer.
Posted: May, on Nettuts+ (Premium)
66. Premium Content: CSS: Noob to Ninja
This exclusive premium video series will take you from being an absolute CSS “noob,” all the way up to ninja-status, capable of wrangling even the most obnoxious of browsers into place. The series begins with the basics: the syntax, properties, etc. However, each new video expands upon the previous, as you work your way up and improve your skills.
Posted: June, on Nettuts+ (Premium)
67. Premium Content: Profiling MySQL Queries with phpMyAdmin
I’ve used phpMyAdmin for over a decade. In my early years with the tool, I simply needed something that could show me table structure and quickly give me the data inside. As my needs have grown, so have the tools included with phpMyAdmin which keeps me coming back as my primary MySQL tool, even with optimization.
Posted: July, on Nettuts+ (Premium)
68. Premium Content: How to Build the Trendy New jQuery Sliders
jQuery sliders are becoming more popular day by day; with more free and premium sliders pouring in regularly. Knowing how an advanced slider like this works is becoming a must. In this week’s premium tutorial, we are going to create a full-fledged jQuery slider which supports inline comments. Let’s get started!
Posted: August, on Nettuts+ (Premium)
69. Premium Content: Venturing into Vim
Some say it’s a decade-old piece of junk; others widely consider it to be the best code editor available. I’m on a quest to find out for myself. So, for four weeks (and four screencasts to track my progress), I will use nothing but Vim.
Along the way, if you choose to join me, I’ll share what I’ve learned, what frustrated me, and everything that falls in between. If you’ve been hoping to venture into Vim territory, there’s no better time to do so! Let’s do it together.
Posted: September, on Nettuts+ (Premium)
70. Premium Content: How to Create a Layout Manager with CodeIgniter
This Premium video, and companion article will teach you how to create a simple, yet powerful library to handle layouts in the popular CodeIgniter framework. The library you’ll create will allow you to maximize your efficiency, save time and code, modularize your views and even your Javascript and CSS files.
Posted: October, on Nettuts+ (Premium)
71. Premium Content: Roll your Own Templating System in PHP
Push the limits of your PHP knowledge with this extremely in depth and advanced tutorial. You’ll learn how to implement techniques, including object-oriented programming, regular expressions, and function currying to build a templating system from scratch. Become a Premium member to read this tutorial, as well as hundreds of other advanced tutorials and screencasts.
Posted: November, on Nettuts+ (Premium)
72. Premium Tutorial: Build your Own JavaScript Library: New Premium Tutorial and Screencast
Over the course of the past few years, the JavaScript community has exploded exponentially. While technologies like Ajax certainly had something to do with the popularity of JavaScript, it it’s safe to say that libraries are the primary reason we’ve seen such astonishing growth in the community. No longer is the browser the playground of those who venture into JavaScript development and brave the disparate APIs supported by multiple browsers. Thanks to libraries, the differences between the popular browsers are minimized, making cross-browser development much easier than it used to be.
Posted: December, on Nettuts+
Beyond Nettuts+
73. Rational Z-Index Values
A reader named Arjan recently emailed me telling me about a website that The Printliminator didn’t work on. They had traced it back to the fact that the site used a bunch of “overlays” with ridiculously high values for z-index. The Printlimintor injects itself on the page with absolute positioning and a z-index value of 10000, which I already consider to be ridiculously high. So should we start playing this game and come back with even more ridiculously higher z-index values? I’m going with no.
Posted: December, on CSS Tricks
74. What’s Wrong with Extending the DOM
I was recently surprised to find out how little the topic of DOM extensions is covered on the web. What’s disturbing is that downsides of this seemingly useful practice don’t seem to be well known, except in certain secluded circles. The lack of information could well explain why there are scripts and libraries built today that still fall into this trap. I’d like to explain why extending DOM is generally a bad idea, by showing some of the problems associated with it. We’ll also look at possible alternatives to this harmful exercise.
Posted: August, on Perfection Kills
75. Unleashing the Power of Website Analytics
Most people use web analytics—you’d have to be crazy not to—especially with such powerful free solutions out there. However, for many people, analyzing their stats goes no further than rejoicing at having a few more visitors and repeating the figures to potential advertisers.
But analytics, used properly, is so much more – it’s a marketing tool, an error checker, a usability tool, an ROI calculator, an eCommerce tracker, an ad tool and the list goes on.
Posted: January, on Six Revisions
76. Is Simulating User-Input Events with jQuery Ever A Good Idea?
The other day, I was having a discussion with Ryan Jeffords about programmatically simulating user-based input events with jQuery. Ryan was in the middle of building a very rich, very dynamic user interface for an eCommerce system’s price adjuster module when he hit a bit of snag trying to programmatically simulate a user’s click event on a checkbox. As I blogged about a while back, when you simulate a click() event on a checkbox, the checkbox’s “checked” status does not actually change until after your event handler has executed. This is very different from a user-triggered checkbox click event in which the checkbox’s “checked” status changes prior to the event handler execution.
Posted: January, by Ben Nadel
77. Interviewing the Front-End Engineer
Interviewing a front-end engineer is an interesting task primarily because most are self-taught. Startups and large companies alike have equal trouble finding quality front-end engineers simply because they don’t know what to look for and which questions to ask. Having been around the industry for a while, I’ve developed my own methods for interviewing front-end engineers that I find to be very effective.
Posted: January, by Nicolas Zakas
78. 10 Tips for Better Print Style Sheets
Print style sheets have been somewhat forgotten, and yet they remain important all the same. Many people print out articles to read while traveling or when they have no access to the Internet.
Posted: January, on Web Designer Depot
79. Create an Animated Sliding Button Using MooTools
Buttons (or links) are usually the elements on our sites that we want to draw a lot of attention to. Unfortunately many times they end up looking the most boring. You don’t have to let that happen though! I recently found a Tympanus post which provided a great method for making button have an unexpected pop. Here’s a quick tutorial on how to duplicate that look using MooTools.
Posted: February, by David Walsh
80. Highlight PHP and JavaScript Code with PHP
PHP has a cool function that automatically highlights PHP code called highlight_string(); Theoretically this could be used to roll your own code highlighting on a site, rather than rely on JavaScript or some kind of external service to do it. In this article I’ll show you the basics of how it works, then extended it with a few tricks. Since JavaScript is so similar to PHP in syntax, we can trick the function into highlighting JavaScript code as well. Then finally how we can bust out some smarts to auto-tab the code.
Posted: February, on CSS Tricks
81. There’s No Such Thing as a “JSON Object”
I want to clear up a common misconception. It’s my belief that developers mistakenly call JavaScript Object literals “JSON Objects” because their syntax is identical to (well, a superset of) what is described in the JSON specification, but what the specification fails to mention explicitly is that since JSON is a “data-interchange language,” it’s only actually JSON when it’s used in a string context.
Posted March, by Ben Alman
82. Code Org, Take 2: Structuring JavaScript Applications
It’s hard to believe it was not even a year ago that I spoke at the jQuery Conference in Boston about code organization. At the time, I’d been thinking for a few months about how to improve my own code and give it more structure, and how to give advice to others about how to do the same.
My talk was about code organization, but really I was talking about how you might organize a single piece of functionality; I didn’t even begin to answer the larger question of how to structure a bona fide JavaScript application. Really, that question is almost perpendicular to the one I was tackling at the time; it’s a question of strategy, not tactics.
A year later, I’d like to share my thoughts on how I’m answering it these days.
Posted: August, by Rebecca Murphy
83. Growl-Style Notifications Using MooTools Roar
When I think of premier MooTools plugin developers, Harald “digitarald” Kirschner is usually one of the first people that come to mind. Harald has built some of MooTools’ most popular plugins, including AutoCompleter, FancyUpload, and History Manager. My favorite plugin created Harald is Roar – a Growl clone built with MooTools.
Posted: March, by David Walsh
84. Maintainable JavaScript: Don’t Modify Objects You Don’t Own
The first talk I gave after arriving at Yahoo! was entitled Maintainable JavaScript (video). As with most topics I write or speak about, I didn’t think it would be terribly controversial. The basis of the talk is that hacking around on your own and writing code in an enterprise environment are two different things. Web developers are truly unique in that none of us learned what we know in school; we all began as hobbyists one way or another and taught ourselves most (if not all) of what we know.
Posted: March, by Nicolas Zakas
85. John Resig on Advanced Javascript to Improve Your Web App
In February 2010 John Resig, the creator and lead developer of the jQuery JavaScript library, spoke at the annual Future of Web Apps Miami conference. During this 25 minute talk John outlines many of the new features and ideas behind jQuery 1.4. A full transcript is available below.
Posted: April, on Think Vitamin
86. How to Automatically Linkify Text with PHP Regular Expressions
Good software enables us to take a lot of niceties for granted. Intelligent interfaces handle all the simple tasks so that we don’t need to worry about them. For example, when I type “www.desktopped.com” into an email or an instant message, I expect that it will be clickable on the other end without having to manually add in HTML tags. Another example is parsing text from a twitter feed. For example, “@desktopped is a blog about the #computers“, we expect both @desktopped and #computers to be links.
Posted: May, on Build Internet
87. Efficiently Rendering CSS
I admittedly don’t think about this idea very often… how efficient is the CSS that we write, in terms of how quickly the browser can render it?
This is definitely something that browser vendors care about (the faster pages load the happier people are using their products). Mozilla has an article about best practices. Google is also always on a crusade to make the web faster. They also have an article about it.
Let’s cover some of the big ideas they present, and then discuss the practicalities of it all.
Posted: May, on CSS Tricks
88. Choosing The Best CSS Framework: A Complete Guide
There are plenty of reasons to use a CSS Framework to build your websites. They can speed up development, make your sites more aesthetically pleasing, and they can help eliminate all those nasty cross-browser compatibility issues (though not all of them do this, or do it well). But it can also be a steep learning curve to figure out which framework you should use (or if you should use one at all) and then how to use it.
Posted: February, on Dev Snippets
89. The Ultimate Guide To A/B Testing
A/B testing isn’t a buzz term. A lot of savvy marketers and designs are using it right now to gain insight into visitor behavior and to increase conversion rate. And yet A/B testing is still not as common as such Internet marketing subjects as SEO, Web analytics and usability. People just aren’t as aware of it. They don’t completely understand what it is or how it could benefit them or how they should use it. This article is meant to be the best guide you will ever need for A/B testing.
Posted: June, on Smashing Magazine
90. Understanding Delete
A couple of weeks ago, I had a chance to glance through Stoyan Stefanov’s Object-Oriented Javascript. The book had an exceptionally high rating on Amazon (12 reviews with 5 stars), so I was curious to see if it was something worth recommending. I started reading through chapter on functions, and really enjoyed the way things were explained there; the flow of examples was structured in such nice, progressive way, it seemed even beginners would grasp it easily. However, almost immediately I stumbled upon an interesting misconception present throughout the entire chapter — deleting functions. There were some other mistakes (such as the difference between function declarations and function expressions), but we aren’t going to talk about them now.
Posted: January, on Perfection Kills
91. When to Use $_SESSION vs $_COOKIE
A critical feature in web programming is the ability to seamlessly pass data from one page load to the next. It’s used most commonly when dealing with user logins, but also for passing error messages, shopping carts, etc.
Storing data across pages using PHP is done with two variables in the global scope, called $_SESSION and $_COOKIE, and although accomplishing the same end goal, the both go about it in very different ways. The purpose of this article is to give a brief look into the differences between cookies and sessions, when it’s better to use one versus the other, and the pros and cons of the two.
The difference is in how each store data. Cookies store data locally in the user’s browser, while sessions store data on the webserver.
Posted: July, on Build Internet
92. Cross-domain Ajax with Cross-Origin Resource Sharing
A couple of years ago, web developers were banging their head against the first wall in Ajax: the same-origin policy. While we marveled at the giant step forward enabled by cross-browser support for the XMLHttpRequest object, we quickly bemoaned the fact that there was no way to make a request to a different domain from JavaScript. Everyone setup proxies on their web sites, which was the onset of a new host of open redirect problems, as a way to get around the restriction. Although developers were working around this limitation using server-side proxies as well as other techniques, the community outcry was around allowing native cross-domain Ajax requests. A lot of people are unaware that almost all browsers (Internet Explorer 8+, Firefox 3.5+, Safari 4+, and Chrome) presently support cross-domain Ajax via a protocol called Cross-Origin Resource Sharing.
Posted: May, by Nicolas Zakas
93. Google Font API
Google recently debuted a new web service called the Font API. Google’s Font API provides developers a means by which they may quickly and painlessly add custom fonts to their website. Let’s take a quick look at the ways by which the Google Font API can be used.
Posted: July, by David Walsh
94. On jQuery & Large Applications
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about JavaScript applications. As my skills have evolved, I’ve had the privilege of working on more actual applications, and I’ve gotten further and further from clients who want to add a bit of Ajax or bling to an otherwise fairly traditional web site.
(Don’t forget to read the follow up post )
Posted: August, by Rebecca Murphy
95. Getting Started with Drupal: A Comprehensive Hands-On Guide
Drupal is a popular open source content management system. With its powerful and advanced features, you can build complex websites with ease, compared to building them from scratch. With the support of a huge community and a big number of available modules, no wonder Drupal is a system you keep hearing about over and over again.
In this guide, we are going to discover Drupal using a pragmatic approach. We will create a Drupal site with a custom content type and views.
Ready? Let’s dive right into this immensely powerful content management system.
Posted: August, on Six Revisions
96. Creating a Simple Twitter App using oAuth and PHP
Everyone on the web is updating to the latest & the most secure technologies with Twitter being the most hyped one as it upgraded from basic Authentication to the more secure oAuth. Earlier people had to risk their Twitter login credentials if they wanted to use some external Apps that gave them more control over their Twitter profile. Twitter would now be removing the basic Auth to fully support oAuth.
Posted: July, on 1st Web Designer
97. What is a Non-Blocking Script?
It was just a couple of years ago that Steve Souders introduced the concept of blocking vs. non-blocking into the common lexicon of web developers around the world. His big focus was pointing out how <script> tags block the rendering of the page as well as the downloading of other resources. Obviously, this is really bad for your initial page load, where a single high-latency &ls;script> tag causes your page to appear blank for a large amount of time. Even with all of this discussion, it seems that there’s still some confusion over non-blocking scripts and how they relate to parallel downloads. This is my attempt to clear up the confusion.
Posted: August, by Nicolas Zakas
98. Forward Thinking Form Validation
When users complete a form to buy your product or sign up for your service, you want to reduce mistakes and guide them to success. Now, with HTML5 form input types and attributes, you can set validation constraints to check user input. With CSS3’s new UI pseudo-classes, you can style validation states to make form completion quick and effortless.
Posted: September, on A List Apart
99. Making Dirt
Two years ago, my wife and I stopped throwing all of our organic food waste into the trash. Instead, we purchased a composter and started tossing our food scraps into it. The intent behind this change was mostly selfish: we wanted a way to create nutrient rich soil to mix into the planting areas in our backyard. However, a week or two into using it, while pushing our trash can out to the street curb, I noticed another positive side-effect: the trash can was lighter and emptier. We were sending less to the landfill!
Posted: December, on Cognition
100. Partial application in JavaScript?
I’ve been learning more about functional programming lately, and after seeing a few interesting things on the interwebs, I decided to spend a little more time experimenting with partial application in JavaScript.
Posted: September, by Ben Alman
101. Let’s Make a Framework
Let’s Make a Framework is a new series about JavaScript web frameworks that I’m starting right now on DailyJS. It will appear every Thursday in your feed reader until it either drives me crazy or I complete every part.
Posted: February - December, on DailyJS
102. Functional vs. Object-Oriented JavaScript Development
I won’t go too far from the truth if I state that JavaScript is such a flexible language that it can be used to write code that follows two radically different programming paradigms—functional programming and object-oriented programming (OOP).
Posted: December, on Script Junkie
103. Replacing Text in the DOM… It’s Not That Simple!
Finding and replacing strings of text in a DOM document is very tricky, especially if you’re looking to do it properly and entirely unobtrusively.
In this context, “unobtrusive” means affecting the page in a minimally invasive manner — minimal DOM destruction, no un-called-for normalizing of text nodes (i.e. joining separate text-nodes together) etc.
(James’ site seems to be down, but you can read this article in Google’s cache.)
Posted: July, by James Padolsey
104. How to Use Amazon’s S3 Web Service for Scaling Image Hosting
Most startups have been there - you have a simple site, and you want to have users upload photos of themselves or something else to share. We were there as well just a few years ago, when building out the very first versions of TeachStreet. While previously working at Amazon, I worked on a few image hosting solutions and already knew some of the pitfalls and challenges of building out a system to scale.
Posted: July, on Teach Street
105. Strict Mode is Coming To Town
This is the time and season when people all over the world forget their differences and come together in peace and fellowship to celebrate the first anniversary of the ECMA General Assembly’s approval of The ECMAScript Programming Language Standard, Fifth Edition. The most important feature in ES5 is the new Strict Mode. Strict Mode is an opt-in mode that repairs or removes some of the language’s most problematic features.
Posted: December, on YUI Blog
106. Bulletproof Cross-Browser CSS Techniques
As we’re all pretty well aware, the browser landscape is a diverse population of software implementations of various HTML, CSS and JavaScript specifications. While some implement the standards to the letter, others are much lax in their interpretation of the rules, which leads to inconsistencies when rendering pages to the screen.
To understand how this situation came about and help us understand the ways these facts can help us better navigate the current browser landscape and prepare our documents for future browser compatibility.
This article assumes support for Grade A browsers, according to Yahoo’s chart.
Posted: October, on Script Junkie
107. Let’s Make a Web App: Nodepad
Welcome to part 1 of Let’s Make a Web App, a new tutorial series about building a web app with Node. This series will walk you through building a web app with Node, covering all the major areas you’ll need to face when building your own applications.
The app we’re going to build is a web notepad called Nodepad. Not particularly original, but well-defined and easy to understand.
(Don’t forget to check out the rest of the series.)
Posted: November, on DailyJS
108. The Many Hats of the Frontend Engineers
In one of the most creative presentations at YUIConf 2010, YUI developer Allen Rabinovich (@allenr) reflects on the many different roles played by frontend engineers as part of their natural generative process. The talk unfolds with a continuous scrolling illustration which is gradually revealed, adding layers of meaning to Allen’s narration. If you consider yourself to be a frontend engineer who reflects on the nature of the work you do, this is a talk you won’t want to miss. I recommend downloading the HD version.
Posted: December, on YUI Blog
109. The protocol-relative URL
There’s this little trick you can get away with that’ll save you some headaches.
Posted: October, by Paul Irish
110. Building and Maintaining Large JavaScript Applications
To this day, JavaScript is probably most notorious for its amateur or script-kiddie beginnings and often referred to by programmers of other “more established” languages as a hack language, or a toy. These people have no idea what they are talking about. Seriously.
(Also, read Alex Sexton’s (the author) personal post about using jQuery for large apps; it’s a response to Rebecca Murphy’s post “On jQuery and Large Applications,” linked to above.)
Posted: June, on Script Junkie
111. What the JavaScript RegExp API Got Wrong, & How to Fix It
Over the last few years, I’ve occasionally commented on JavaScript’s RegExp API, syntax, and behavior on the ES-Discuss mailing list. Recently, JavaScript inventor Brendan Eich suggested that, in order to get more discussion going, I write up a list of regex changes to consider for future ECMAScript standards (or as he humorously put it, have my “95 regex theses nailed to the ES3 cathedral door”). I figured I’d give it a shot, but I’m going to split my response into a few parts. In this post, I’ll be discussing issues with the current RegExp API and behavior.
Posted: March, by Steven Levithan
112. Rasmus Lerdorf - PHP Performance
Last night the father of PHP Rasmus Lerdorf presented at the Digg office on PHP performance optimization as part of the Engineer-to-Engineer: San Francisco Tech Talks.
After a quick overview of some of the new features in PHP 5.3, he gives us a detailed and practical look into PHP performance pitfalls. He walks us step by step through the tools and techniques to optimize an application, showing us some remarkable improvements in the performance and throughput of WordPress installation.
(Note: It seems that they’ve posted the wrong video to go along with the blog post above; you can find the right presentation here, on Vimeo.)
Posted: July, on Digg About
113. Understanding HTTP Caching
The HTTP protocol is rather powerful in and of itself. This is often forgotten as application developers incorporate caching technologies into their code itself. As useful as SQL Query caching and application-level internal caching is, HTTP provides its own caching functions that we would be remiss not to utilize.
Posted: August, on SymKat
114. An Implausibly Illustrated Introduction to HTML5 Web Workers
This is a great guide to using HTML5 Web Workers, completely illustrated.
Posted: August, by Mark Pilgrim
115. Simple Semantics With Microformats
The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines semantic as “of or relating to meaning in language.” When I first heard the term, I was instantly intrigued. A fancy word for “meaning” was just up my alley as a precocious 10-year-old fascinated by words and language.
Posted: September, on Script Junkie
116. ARIA and Progressive Enhancement
For seven years, we’ve held tightly to the belief that using progressive enhancement is the right way to build websites and applications. Progressive enhancement is how we build sustainable, interoperable, and accessible web solutions.
Posted: November, on A List Apart
117. Immediately-Invoked Function Expression (IIFE)
In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a bit of a stickler for terminology. So, after hearing the popular, yet misleading, JavaScript term “self-executing anonymous function” (or self-invoked anonymous function) one too many times, I’ve finally decided to organize my thoughts into an article.
Posted: November, by Ben Alman
118. Introducing Yeti: The YUI Easy Testing Interface
Testing JavaScript is an important but often overlooked part of web development. One reason is because developing for the web means targeting more than one browser. YUI currently classifies 11 different environments that enjoy our highest support level. In addition, we also test YUI on emerging X-grade environments like mobile devices. When you have so many different environments to support, it’s tempting to just pick a couple important ones to develop with locally and hope for the best.
(Also see the presentation by Reid Burke on using YEIT.)
Posted: August, on YUI Blog
119. Mastering nodeJS
Node is an exciting new platform developed by Ryan Dahl, allowing JavaScript developers to create extremely high performance servers by leveraging Google’s V8 JavaScript engine, and asynchronous I/O. In Mastering Node we will discover how to write high concurrency web servers, utilizing the CommonJS module system, node’s core libraries, third party modules, high level web development and more.
Posted: August (and on going), by TJ Holowaychuk
120. 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web
You might be a web developer, but are you sure you know exactly how the internet works? This incredible work will show you how. Even if you do know it all, you should check it out for two reasons: 1) you might recommend it to your less tech-savvy friends; 2) you will definitely be boggled by the flashiness-with-no-flash … and keep your eye on the URL!
Posted: November, by the Google Chrome Team
121. Search Engine Friendly URLs with .htaccess and mod_rewrite
I was recently developing a PHP website that used mod_rewrite to make its URLs search engine friendly. Websites have been using mod_rewrite and .htaccess strategies to do this for years now and there are a 100 ways to accomplish the task. One issue that was occurring with this site was URLs without the a trailing slash would work, but URLs with a trailing slash would break (trigger a 404 error).
Posted: October, by David Walsh
122. Smartphone Browser Landscape
Users expect websites to work on their mobile phones. In two to three years, mobile support will become standard for any site. Web developers must add mobile web development to their skill set or risk losing clients.
Posted: December, on A List Apart
123. How Many Formats Do I Need For HTML5 Video?
The <video> tag in HTML5 is a great thing. It enables native video playback in all current browsers, rather than relying on a plugin like Flash. It opens the door to web video on devices that don’t support Flash. And it enables codecs that previously weren’t web playable.
But if you’re publishing video content, this can be confusing. To really support web video, how many output versions do you need to create? WebM, Ogg, and MP4? What about iPhone or Android? What about low/medium/high bitrate versions?
There isn’t a single answer to this question, so here is a short guide to picking outputs for HTML5 video.
Posted: October, on Zen Coder
124. Eloquent JavaScript: A Modern Introduction to Programming
Eloquent JavaScript is a book providing an introduction to the JavaScript programming language and programming in general.
The book exists in two forms. It was originally written and published in digital form, the HTML version of which includes interactive examples and a mechanism for playing with all the example code. This version is released under an open license.
(I know, I know: this was originally published in 2007; but it’s been updated recently, and will be published in print soon).
Last Updated: November, by Marijn Haverbeke
125. Invoking Javascript Methods With Both Named And Ordered Arguments
One of the features that I absolutely love about ColdFusion is its ability to invoke methods using both named and ordered arguments. And, after yesterday’s deep exploration of the argumentCollection behavior in named-argument invocation in ColdFusion, I wanted to see if this kind of dual invocation nature could be ported over to Javascript. I like the way that the existing call() and apply() methods work in Javascript; so, I decided to augment the Function prototype with my own invoke() method that would accept an invocation context and a named-argument map.
Posted: October, by Ben Nadel
126. Thoughts on Script Loaders
Last week, Steve Souders released his ControlJS project. The goal of the project is to give developers more control over how and when JavaScript files are loaded and executed on a page. It does so by using Stoyan Stefanov’s approach of preloading JavaScript without executing it and has the pleasant side effect of enabling parallel downloads. For more details on usage, take a look at Steve’s three blog posts.
Posted: December, by Nicolas Zakas
127. Speed Up Your Site with Delayed Content
Paul Hammond injects some pace into page rendering with a nifty idea to allow the most important content to take precedence over your site’s more decorative baubles. What’s Christmas without the anticipation?
Posted: December, on 24 Ways
128. Golden Spirals
Drew Neil spins himself like a Christmas top to bring us HTML and CSS spirals, with a golden proportioned twist. Throw in some RGBA transparency and you’ll soon be throwing shapes at the office party.
Posted: December, on 24 Ways
129. “Probably, Maybe, No”: The State of HTML5 Audio
Scott Schiller sounds out the possibilities of HTML5 audio, listening carefully to arguments about competing formats and the quirks in current implementations. When will we hear the sleigh bells in the snow on your website?
Posted: December, on 24 Ways
130. An Introduction to CSS 3-D Transforms
David DeSandro breaks on through to the third dimension with an in-depth look at CSS 3-D transforms and the new opportunities they offer to web designers. Go dancing on the Z-axis this party season!
Posted: December, on 24 Ways
New Development Tools in 2010
131. Tool: Modernizr
Modernizr adds classes to the <html> element, which allow you to target specific browser functionality in your stylesheet. You don’t actually need to write any Javascript to use it.
132. Tool: HTML5 Boilerplate
HTML5 Boilerplate is the professional badass’s base HTML/CSS/JS template for a fast, robust and future-proof site.
After more than two years in iterative development, you get the best of the best practices baked in: cross-browser normalization, performance optimizations, even optional features like cross-domain Ajax and Flash. A starter apache .htaccess config file hooks you the eff up with caching rules and preps your site to serve HTML5 video, use @font-face, and get your gzip zipple on.
Boilerplate is not a framework, nor does it prescribe any philosophy of development, it’s just got some tricks to get your project off the ground quickly and right-footed.
133. Tool: Git Tower
Easy. Efficient. Powerful. Git has plenty of great features. Using all of them can be difficult if you only have your command line at hand. That’s why we built Tower. Read about it on Nettuts+!
134. Tool: Rails 3
Ruby on Rails is an incredible web framework; in 2010, it hit the third version, which made some pretty significant changes. Check it out!
135. Tool: WordPress 3
WordPress is another great web project that makes the world a better place. Like Rails, WordPress hit version 3 in 2010, bringing so many great changes.
136. Tool: jQuery 1.4 & jQuery Mobile
2010 was a really big year for jQuery. It started off with a bang, introducing v. 1.4. Most recently, jQuery Mobile, for smartphone browsers, was released in Alpha. And it’s not stopping: the latest post on the jQuery blog hints at plans for v. 1.5.
137. Tool: MojoMotor
Created by EllisLabs—the company behind CodeIgniter—this content management system is a great little gem. “MojoMotor is a simple publishing engine that lets you keep your site fresh.” Check it out for your small-site needs!
138. Tool: Internet Explorer 9
If Internet Explorer didn’t exist, every web dev tutorial would be half to three-quarters the length. However, with version 9 (still just in beta), Microsoft is clearly making up for lost time … and outdoing the competition in some categories. In you’ve got a computer running Windows Vista or 7, give it a whirl! You might want to check out Nettuts’ comprehensive review of IE9.
139. Tool: JS Mentors
Just over a month old, this is one of the best JavaScript resources of the year. Rey Bango and Asen Bozhilov started a mailing list (which has since turned into a Google Group) with this goal: “to provide place for discussions of everything which is related with JavaScript and Browser scripting from everyone who is interested in Browser scripting technologies.” If you have questions about JavaScript, this is a great place to ask them. Just look at that list of mentors!
Media
140. Media: The Big Web Show
The Big Web Show features special guests and topics like web publishing, art direction, content strategy, typography, web technology, and more. It’s everything web that matters.
141. Media: The Dev Show
The Dev Show brings you news and discussion about the latest topics in the software development community, focused on Ruby, PHP, Java, JavaScript, and more.
Books
142. Book: Build your Own Wicked WordPress Themes
Top WordPress theme designers earn a passive income of $10–25K per month! Read our new book and you too can grab a slice of that cake!
Plus, you’ll learn to quickly build dynamic, robust sites that are easy to update for your clients—all at a fraction of the cost of an enterprise CMS.
143. Book: HTML5 for Web Designers
The HTML5 spec is 900 pages and hard to read. HTML5 for Web Designers is 85 pages and fun to read. Easy choice.
HTML5 is the longest HTML specification ever written. It is also the most powerful, and in some ways, the most confusing. What do accessible, content-focused standards-based web designers and front-end developers need to know? And how can we harness the power of HTML5 in today’s browsers?
In this brilliant and entertaining user’s guide, Jeremy Keith cuts to the chase, with crisp, clear, practical examples, and his patented twinkle and charm.
144. Book: CSS3 for Web Designers
From advanced selectors to generated content to the triumphant return of web fonts, and from gradients, shadows, and rounded corners to full-blown animations, CSS3 is a universe of creative possibilities. No one can better guide you through these galaxies than world-renowned designer, author, and CSS superstar Dan Cederholm. Learn what works, how it works, and how to work around browsers where it doesn’t work.
145. Book: Introducing HTML5
We’re not one of the HTML 5 spec writers, and we’re not here to persuade you to use it. Our take is that it’s going to happen, so we need to get acquainted. But we’re going to point out (perhaps rant) about the good parts as well as the bad. It’s as far as possible a practical book, showing you how to use the language but some areas of the spec will be discussed theoretically as they’re not yet implemented anywhere.
146. Book: Hard Boiled Web Design
Hardboiled Web Design is for people who want to understand why, when and how to use the latest HTML5 and CSS3 technologies in their everyday work. Not tomorrow or next week, but today.
You’ll need to be willing to leave your preconceptions at the door, and hungry to learn about how using HTML5 and CSS3 will change the way you design and develop for the web.
147. Book: JavaScript Patterns
What’s the best approach for developing an application with JavaScript? This book helps you answer that question with numerous JavaScript coding patterns and best practices. If you’re an experienced developer looking to solve problems related to objects, functions, inheritance, and other language-specific categories, the abstractions and code templates in this guide are ideal – whether you’re writing a client-side, server-side, or desktop application with JavaScript. Author Stoyan Stefanov includes several examples for each pattern as well as practical advice for implementing them.
148. Book: Test Driven JavaScript Development
Tired of console.log-ing your way out of trouble? Weary from constant fear of cross-browser issues? Scared of making even the slightest change to production code? Test-Driven JavaScript Development teaches you how to solve those issues and more using unit tests and TDD. Rich with examples, the book provides a solid foundation on automated testing, a test-driven walk-through of JavaScript’s unique qualities, and five practical examples of building solid, reusable, cross-browser JavaScript using TDD.
149. Book: Getting Good With Git
In this book, Andrew Burgess will take you from knowing nothing about source code management to being able to use Git proficiently. You’ll look at why you should use a version control system, why Git is better than the other options, and how to set up and use Git. This book covers some of the advanced features of Git, and includes an appendix of other resources that will take your Git knowledge to the next level. We’ll even get to know GitHub!
150. Book: Theme Tumblr Like a Pro
In “Theme Tumblr Like a Pro,” Nettuts+ editor, Jeffrey Way, will teach you everything you need to start making powerful Tumblr themes, while maintaining the platform’s core principle: simplicity. As an added bonus, we’ve included a companion screencast for every chapter, for the visual learners out there! By the time you finish this book, you’ll be a Tumblr master!
Here’s to 2011!
Well, that’s my list! Did I leave something out? Was there a specific resource, post, or tool that stood out to you in the last year? Let us know about it in the comments!
To close out the year, add this to your comment: what do you think (or hope!) will happen in the Web Development industry in 2011?
