Java Reference
In-Depth Information
Tools Needed to Create JavaScript Web Applications
The great news is that getting started learning JavaScript requires no expensive software purchases; you
can learn JavaScript for free on any PC or Mac. You'll learn in this section what tools are available and
how to obtain them.
Development Tools
All that you need to get started creating JavaScript code for web applications is a simple text editor, such
as Windows Notepad, or one of the many slightly more advanced text editors that provide line numbering,
search and replace, and so on. An alternative is a proper HTML editor; you'll need one that enables you
to edit the HTML source code, because that's where you need to add your JavaScript. A number of very
good tools specifi cally aimed at developing web-based applications, such as the excellent Dreamweaver
from Adobe, are also available. However, this topic concentrates on JavaScript rather than any specifi c
development tool. When it comes to learning the basics, it's often best to write the code by hand rather
than rely on a tool to do it for you. This helps you understand the fundamentals of the language before
you attempt the more advanced logic that is beyond a tool's capability. When you have a good under-
standing of the basics, you can use tools as timesavers so that you can spend more time on the more
advanced and more interesting coding.
Once you become more profi cient, you may fi nd that a web page editor makes life easier by inclusion
of features such as checking the validity of your code, color-coding important JavaScript words, and
making it easier to view your pages before loading them into a web browser. One example of free web
development software is Microsoft's Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, which you can down-
load at http://www.microsoft.com/express/vwd/.
There are many other, equally good, free web page editors. A Google search on web editing software
will bring back a long list of software you can use. Perhaps the most famous paid-for software is
Adobe Dreamweaver.
As you write web applications of increasing complexity, you'll fi nd useful tools that help you spot and
solve errors. Errors in code are what programmers call bugs, though when our programs go wrong, we
prefer to call them “unexpected additional features.” Very useful in solving bugs are development tools
called debuggers. Debuggers let you monitor what is happening in your code as it's running. In Chapter 4,
you take an in-depth look at bugs and debugger development tools.
Web Browsers
In addition to software that lets you edit web pages, you'll also need a browser to view your web pages.
It's best to develop your JavaScript code on the sort of browsers you expect visitors to use to access your
web site. You'll see later in the chapter that although browsers are much more standards based, there
are differences in how they view web pages and treat JavaScript code. All the examples provided in this
topic have been tested on Firefox version 3+ and IE versions 7 and 8. Wherever a piece of code does not
work on any of these browsers, a note to this effect has been made in the text.
If you're running Windows, you'll almost certainly have IE installed. If not, a trip to
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/default.aspx will get you the
latest version.
Firefox can be found at www.mozilla.com/firefox/all.html.
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