Comments for Jonathan Fine's weblog

Comment on Explicit use of JavaScript’s global object by Nico

Nico — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:57:31 +0000

@Kean Tan:
The “.call()” in this line
(function(){return this;}).call();
makes sure that “this” inside the function is executed on top level and thus refers to the global scope.

Very nice trick Jonathan.
Thx, Nico

Comment on Explicit use of JavaScript’s global object by Kean Tan

Kean Tan — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:33:07 +0000

I think the simpler solution is

(function(){
this.Formula = function(){};
})();

Since at the top level this === window, although I agree that its sometimes dangerous to assume this === window in some scope changing closures.

Comment on Implementing super in JavaScript by mitchell

mitchell — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:42:40 +0000

Thanks for the reply and for the one over on my post. I was going to make sure you know I replied to the side effect concern and your other question there. I’m ignorant of what problems can be caused by side effects so I just asked for more info if you have it.

Comment on Implementing super in JavaScript by jonathanfine

jonathanfine — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 05:53:59 +0000

@mitchell:
Here’s a problem. The following code usually has a side effect.

backup = this[prop]; delete this[prop]; this[prop] = backup;

Comment on Implementing super in JavaScript by mitchell

mitchell — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 22:32:14 +0000

I enjoyed reading over this. Allow me to suggest a simpler way that you yourself hinted at in this paragraph:

We wish to call the method A.getA, but with the special this object being the object c. If it were not for C have the spoiler method C.getA, we could write c.getA() to call A.getA with this being c. But the spoiler is there, so we have to do something else.

If the 'spoiler' method is in the way, why not just move it out of the way for moment? Like so:

var backup = c.getA;
delete c.getA;
c.getA(); //the 'super' call
c.getA = backup;

What do you think? Just yesterday I posted about this topic on my fledgling blog. I more or less summed it up here but check it out the full version if you feel inclined.

Comment on Learning jQuery by Rory Winston

Rory Winston — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:02:42 +0000

How do you actually generate the document on the server side with MathTran? Do you have some sort of template document with $$ or \[ \] delimiters and insert the query text in there? I guess this is really the only obvious way of doing it….in this case I guess you could have an “inline” or “paragrah” parameter which would delegate to a document with either $ (inline) or $$ (paragraph) delimiters?

Comment on Using MathTran in blogs and wikis by Rory Winston

Rory Winston — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:39:58 +0000

Hi Jonathan

Thanks for the mathtran posts – very interesting. I made a slight mod to the script to allow it to take a size parameter. The results are here:

http://www.theresearchkitchen.com/blog/archives/109

Cheers,
Rory

Comment on Learning jQuery by jonathanfine

jonathanfine — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:50:54 +0000

Thanks for this. I’ve fixed it now.

Comment on Learning jQuery by drj11

drj11 — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:06:10 +0000

Your first two mistakes appear twice.

Comment on Happy birthday, Don Knuth! by Simon Dales

Simon Dales — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 18:50:58 +0000

TeX (+LaTeX) is an excellent computer typesetting system. “Easy” to use and easy to extend. Did DEK think that it would be used by non-mathematicians for typesetting car parts catalogs?

Happy (belated) birthday Donald.