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.

[MetronSM]

Is this just me or is he sometimes (well... often...) surprised that his jokes actually work?!?

Great speech :)

[Kissaki]

Great presentation,
got some new insights there!

[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.

[mikesmith]

@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.

[nagaozen]

Yeeey, nice presentation! It would be even greater if you leave us some links to the social science papers (or at least give us its titles) that you talk about in the beginning.

[wowcolors]

What is his beef with C++? I would love to hear his arguments against it.

[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?

[fmzakari]

The original Greek New Testament was written in all capital letters, without spaces, punctuation, accents or diacritical mark. Greeks instead of Romans?

[WickedLogic]

I like the lab coat! Dr. Fred Edison from Maniac mansion?

[JobvanderZwan]

Speaking of the gut, is he wearing a lab coat to look more like a trustworthy expert?

[yopizza]

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