Blog Posts

Yesterday our group participated in a rather special hack day at the local.ch offices. The topic was JavaScript, and all engineers that were already fairly knowledgeable in it picked a topic and presented it in 15 minutes. Additionally, they created a "mission", which was a short exercise that should be solved in pair programming and that required using the techniques that were presented.

We developers that are working with the local.ch team each did a short presentation:

• JavaScript Tools - Tricks and Tipps by Patrick Jezek
• JavaScript the right way by Joël Bez
• Functional programming in JavaScript by Michael Käser
• Modular JavaScript by Marco Bohler

At the end of the day I finished with a much shorter version of my talk about node.js from the last webtuesday. For the mission, I tried to create something that is easy, fun, and highlights the ideas behind node well.

The task was creating a small asynchronous web application where engineers can register themselves for Foosball, and then get immediately alerted when there are enough players. I provided a skeleton that already does nearly everything and only needs about 10 lines of code to be finished - but these lines require you to think a bit about asynchronous programming, events, closures and the concepts behind node.js.

If you are interested, you can download the mission for yourself here and give it a try. It includes the skeleton and a manual explaining everything. More information about it can be found on my personal blog, where I can also be contacted in case of open questions.