rodp

My baby boy was born 3 weeks ago and the moment I first saw him was truly the happiest one I've ever experienced. I would waste letters trying to describe it but let me tell you: I could own 3 Googles and 2 Apples and I still wouldn't be as happy as I was in that moment. No amount of comfort can buy such happiness.

Having a kid means experiencing both emotional highs and lows but the former certainly outweigh the latter. If you could -- and you can't -- compare this to business, then not having kids would be like spending the rest of your days in a secure, well-paid, boring, lifeless, 9-to-5 job.

The only suggestion I have is the "undo" button or an eraser (please). Otherwise, it's perfect.

I compile CoffeeScript on the fly while in development mode. In production, I cache JavaScript. Debugging JavaScript and writing CoffeeScript doesn't bother me much although it can get a little awkward at times. I simply consider CoffeeScript a nicer, less painful way to write JavaScript and nothing more.

Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin... :)

A programming language is a tool and its syntax is its UI. PHP community doesn't get this. They never have. Just because you can empirically prove that a language doesn't need a feature, it doesn't mean you shouldn't add it if it's obvious that most developers would _enjoy_ using it.

I wonder how many people start tech companies in the financial sector these days. The market there is saturated, the competition is strong and the clients are much more conservative. OTOH, web startups can be launched with very little cash and new markets emerge every other day (social, mobile, location, etc.). Most of them fail but the ones that succeed can have potential to earn billions. Web startups are indeed a tiny part of the ecosystem but I think that's exactly the problem. We need more of them, at least in Europe.

The first thing you need to do is stop presuming your child will be interested in whatever you are interested. My old man loved cars and certainly shared that love with me but when he realized how much I love computers, he used up his savings to buy me one and supported me in becoming a programmer, despite the fact he knew nothing about computers himself. Parents have a lot of power over their kids. Instead of abusing it and trying to "replicate" themselves, they should use it to support their kids' own interests -- whatever those may be.

That said, if your kid ever clearly expresses interest in learning a programming language, I'd go with Ruby :)

While I was reading your excellent comment, I realized I could simply replace "Hungary" with any country of the former eastern block or the Balkans and still get a correct view of how things are over there. Many ex-Yugoslavians are, just like yourself, wondering if a revolution could have sped up the transition. I must tell you I don't think it would have. Just look at Romania, for instance: They had a violent revolution and things aren't actually peachy over there even after 20 years. I think it is hard for us to admit to ourselves that the process is going to take much longer. IMO, generations that were born and raised during communism have to leave this earth before anything can truly change.

That said, the problem of government-sponsored innovation, which you mention, isn't exclusive to post-communist countries. It is an (extremely wrong) EU policy.

The people of former Yugoslavia weren't really fighting the communism, they were fighting between themselves. It wasn't a revolution but a mixture of civil war, agression, ethnic violence, etc.

The company I work for is US-based.

Not at all. The conclusion that US corporate culture is more risk-tolerant than European wasn't made by me. It's been talked about in media for years, especially lately. My anecdotes are hardly the only ones that argue in its favor. As a European, I'd honestly like to read anecdotes that prove the opposite.

Point taken. Some parts of Europe have better corporate culture than others and Slovenia is probably not the best representative of the entire continent (although it's not the worst either). But you misunderstood me: I'm not saying that Europeans are not risk takers -- I know quite a few of them that are -- I'm merely saying that the corporate culture in Europe discourages risk taking far more than the corporate culture in the States, which is why there is no shortage of successful European entrepreneurs on the US market.

I work for a US-based startup with management in Boston and a dev team in Slovenia (EU) and I can only confirm the benefits (and the problems) that were pointed out in this article. Developers in Europe have a culture and work ethic similar to that in the US and working together with colleagues from across the ocean has never been a problem. A thing that helps a lot is having someone from Europe on the management team in the US and also sharing equity with some European members of the team. This creates a great atmosphere in the company because the EU team is not just "hired" by the US company, but we're actually all in it together, as a mixed team of Americans and Europeans pushing our business from both sides of the ocean.

You raise a legitimate question here and I was so inspired by it that I wrote a blog post, comparing behaviors to custom events.

It's here: http://things.rodpetrovic.com/post/283585362/why-jquery-beha...

In short: I'm well aware of custom events but I don't think they provide me with object-oriented encapsulation of functionality.

You're missing the point by miles, buddy. When you find some time, go beyond the simplest example.

Actually you can remove it. For example:

$('.some-behavior').each(function () { this.behavior = null; });

I'll make sure to add a prettier way of doing this in the next release.

As for the multiple behaviors issue - it's a philosophical question: Should it be possible for one element to be an instance of more than one behavior or should we let the developer "mix" several behaviors into one, which is simple and not really that hard to do? I chose the latter.

Thanks for the post.

I know the introduction is a bit long, sorry. I wrote it while I was hacking and I think I was even drinking some wine during that process, so... I'll write a shorter, clearer introduction soon, I promise.

The problems that occur when your JavaScript (jQuery) code starts piling up are nothing new. I've been finding ways to organize my code for ages.

The idea behind behaviors is simple really:

1. Encapsulate some type of functionality within a good old function. 2. "Attach" this function to some elements as their "behavior". 3. Methods and properties of all behaviors can be accessed from anywhere, which allows interaction.

It's a simple object-oriented philosophy and it's nothing new. I just think it would be nice to have a standard way of organizing huge piles of JavaScript without having to use some huge JS framework or moving too far away from the jQuery coding style.