CSS grids, frameworks and boilerplates

I thought it’s about time to pick a ‘favorite’ css grid (not framework nor boilerplate). I’ve used the grid from foundation (version 3) a couple of times and I liked it, but I figured that it should be worth the while to look what else is there – turns out, quite a lot.

MV* javascript libraries

You probably heard about knockout.js. Well, there are others like it.

jQuery alternative – zepto.js

If for some reason you think that jQuery is ‘too much’ to use in your web app, then here’s an interesting alternative – zepto.js

jQuery deferred

The Deferred object has been in jQuery since version 1.5 but I haven’t had the chance to get to know it until recently – turns out that it’s rather handy to have in your toolset.

Getting MIME type for file

All I can say is THANK YOU.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdev/archive/2013/02/14/getting-a-mime-type-from-a-file-extension-in-asp-net-4-5.aspx

QUnit

Another handy javascript lib for your toolbox, but this time, for a slightly different purpose than usual – unit testing

Web sockets

Web socket is a technology developed to establish a bi-directional communication between client and server, over the web. It works on top of TCP and hopefully will render hacks like long polling obsolete. It’s supported by all modern browsers with 2 exceptions – opera mini and the default android browser (chart can be found here).

sammy.js

Another nice javascript lib that’s handy to have in your utility belt. From the library website - sammy is “a small web framework with class”. I’m sure there’s much more to it than what I will describe here, but there’s one aspect I’d like to focus on: view switching.

CoffeeScript

There’s been a lot of fuss about coffee script in the last few months. It’s a language that compiles into pure javascript. Some people like it, some don’t. So what’s it all about?

knockout.js

Knockout is a MVVM framework for javascript. It has been around for a while, but I never spent too much time with it until recently, when pluralsight released a free training that included knockout. My impressions – this is definitely something I could utilize in quite a few places, but it carries a pretty big startup cost, so I’d think hard before using it in a project.