For many reasons, I still love developing Windows 8 apps using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I have extensive C# experience and always want to be able to say "I'm a C# developer", but I'd like to add that "I'm a JavaScript developer" as well. Some months ago I was a little pained to make even a short term commitment to write more JavaScript than C#. It felt a little like when I was learning French and found myself hesitant to start trying to think in French as if I would lose my English. Of course, that won't happen, and we shouldn't be afraid even of immersing ourselves in other languages. In fact, I'm a big advocate of the polyglot theory of intentionally moving into other languages spaces to expand our own scope, our value, and our perspective.

Becomes a way of thinking

I'm sure most development languages become a "way of thinking," but I think JavaScript does even more so because it's so dynamic and so light.

It's the language of the web

Mashups are a breeze when you're ingesting HTML and JSON data into and app that's made with HTML and JavaScript. The WinJS.xhr() method can make web requests with a request type of "document" and then immediately act on the results just like it would any other in-app content. Blob images can be consumed and repurposed. JavaScript objects can be created instantly out of JSON data. Yada yada yada. It's very convenient.

CSS selection of elements is great

Selectors are one huge strengths of the HTML/CSS that take advantage of the fact that HTML markup goes all the way to the client as XML-like syntax. Even on the client (at run-time) CSS can select very specific portions of the UI in order to affect it with styles or layout. JavaScript can take advantage of selectors too (using document.querySelector and .querySelectorAll) and that allows our logic to act on very specific portions of the UI.

One with the masses

There are a LOT of people writing JavaScript. A StackOverflow search on the [javascript] tag returns 300k+ questions on the matter (actually [c#] returns almost 400k!). It's good to have camaraderie in writing code. It's good to have employers looking for your skillset. It's good to have others asking questions on StackOverflow that you can benefit from. It's good to be one with the masses.

Standards driven

JavaScript is broadly adopted and is broadly and inherently appealing because it's based on web standards. The ECMAScript standard that is JavaScript, along with CSS and HTML, are governed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and that makes developers feel good. It's very democratic and very social and has very high likelihood of moving forward and moving in good directions.

Don't reinvent the wheel

There are a lot of JavaScript libraries out there. A lot. If you want to track faces or get fancy with date calculation or recognize touch gestures or implement IoC or pub/sub or manage Entity Framework data or edit images or any of a plethora of other things, there's a JavaScript library waiting for you.

A full stack of script

When you write C#, you don't usually just write C#. We find the client/server model everywhere and you don't send server code to the client, but you can send script. Whether you're writing an ASP.NET app or a client app, these days it seems you're inevitably going to be interacting with some HTML or even some JSON somewhere… whether you're using REST web services or scraping HTML screens. Having JavaScript on both the server end and the client end just tends to make you smile.

I like exploring languages. I am a veteran of VB. Like I have said, I'm a huge fan of C#. I have huge respect for C++ (though I haven't knocked on that door since college). I am exploring Erlang. Nevertheless, today I am having a blast writing JavaScript, and if you're writing JavaScript, I don't think you'll be hurting for work anytime soon!

Happy coding!

My colleague and friend Jerry Nixon recently wrote an article on the top 10 reasons why he chooses XAML over HTML5 and it begged me for a reply. Alas, here it is...

Following are the top 10 reasons why I’m in the HTML/CSS/JS space right now.

I should qualify. I completely adore C# and XAML. I geek out on the nuances of the C# language, lambda expressions give me joy, and LINQ is like dreams and starlight. But that’s not where I am right now. I’m moving on but not moving away. I want both bullets in my belt... the sheer power of C# and the wit and fancy of JavaScript.

More qualification. I love JavaScript and at the same time I hate JavaScript. Sometimes it makes me feel like a coding cowboy and other times like I’m in its gallows.

So here we go...

1. Skill Ready

I and about a kazillion other people in the world have gathered a ton of experience on the HCJ stack. Websites became applications as some point, and they became essential in the enterprise. I would guess that the web stack has drastically more developers than any other stack... but that’s a guess.

2. Triptych

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript form what I like to call the happy triptych. Instead of separating code into two roles, HCJ has three. HTML defines the structure, CSS defines the layout and style, and JavaScript defines the logic. This makes things like modifying the layout and style for different view states or devices as simple as swapping out the style sheet.

3. Dynamic

I know that C# has the DLR and I’ve used it in numerous real scenarios, and it’s some awesome functionality added to the language. JavaScript, however, is truly dynamic. If I want to add a property to my app like lastLaunched, I just type app.lastLaunched = “5/1/2012” and voila I have a new property. If I want to add a function called detectLastLaunched, I just type app.detectLastLaunched = function() { ... }. That’s way cool.

4. JSON

JavaScript has JSON. I know that C# can speak JSON too, but not like JavaScript. JavaScript and JSON go together like peas and carrots.

5. Light

JavaScript is light. Super light. The absence of some of C#’s heavy artillery (I’m thinking polymorphism, inheritance, type safety, etc.) leaves it light and agile. The fancier things like inheritance and even asynchronicity are implemented as patterns instead of as language features. This means they’re not baked in so they can be adapted to suit.

I was newing up some sample data in both languages the other day. I had to declare all of my types in C# and then even with object and collection initializers, the code to create the sample data was quite large and repetitive. In JavaScript on the other hand, it’s a matter of declaring a variable and setting it with very terse object initializer syntax... thing of beauty.

Just compare the default Metro style Grid Application in XAML/C# and then in HTML/JS and you’ll see how light JavaScript is.

6. Libraries

Again, there are a ton of web stack developers out there and consequently there are a ton of web stack libraries and helpers. Bing something like “javascript face detection” and you’ll find an open source library that’s ready to go. Glance at microjs.com to see what I mean about JavaScript library support.

7. Query Selection

In XAML, it’s easy enough to give a control an ID and then select it in the code. But how do you select all of every third paragraph, the third element in the grid, or something like that. The answer is imperative code. There’s no part of the object model that you can’t access, but with query selectors in CSS and JS, you can use simple strings like “div#myDiv p:nth-child(3n)” to select every third paragraph in the div with the ID of myDiv.

8. CSS

CSS is amazing. With a collection of style rules, I can style, animate, layout, add images, position things, and a ton more. With declarative CSS code I can make the same HTML view look entirely different. Style rules cascade down to the eventual screen element and allow a developer to set a style globally and then override that style locally given the need.

There’s a JS library called LESS that extends CSS’s capabilities and allows me to set style variable and even do variable math. So I can set the base color of my app to red and then create a number of derived colors (darker or lighter for instance). That way, the change of a single color variable will result in a complete change to my app’s color palette.

9. Blend

The nature of HTML/JS apps means that Blend for Visual Studio can dynamically execute the application while you’re designing it. Expression Blend (the XAML designer for classic Windows apps, Silverlight, Windows Phone, etc.) has some robust support for sample data and designer data because it’s not able to drag in the application data at runtime. With Blend, however, when working on a Metro style app using JavaScript, the entire need for sample data goes away. Instead, you look at your real app data... even if you’re pulling it down from the sky (I’m a little tired of the word cloud, so I choose to use the word sky).

10. Name

I live in Seattle. I drink coffee. Fancy coffee. The people that make coffee in this town are insane about their technique, the quality of their bean, and the nanosecond precision of their brew pull. So I’m enjoying JavaScript because it goes so well with the french press of Ecuadorean joe I hold before me.

Sorry, C#. Your name is sharp, but it’s so technical and boring compared to JavaScript.

Nail. Coffin. JavaScript wins hands down! Oh, whatever. It’s all in fun.