See more in ShowSlow blog:
http://www.showslow.com/blog/measuring-web-performance-using-google-spreadsheets/

I think linting (and hinting) is not the only way to improve the code and maybe a tool that can convert user’s code to code that JS engine will be actually executing might be eye opening for many developers.

Tool like that would allow developers to see the reality behind the JS standard quirks, would demystify some of the syntax techniques and would help with understanding the semicolon insertions, various scope problems, == vs === difference and so on.

That being said, such tool probably needs some form of minification happening when code is deployed to production, because syntax might be quite verbose and some expansions can be compressed back (see jshint’s eqnull).

I’d love to see an “easy way” of making it happen just using existing engines and all, but not sure if it is possible - parsers don’t necessarily do that so it requires serialization back into JS after compilation and maybe even optimizations.

If you know a good way to do that, please post a comment here.

Maybe  it can even make Anton and Douglas Crockford talk to each other ;)

My first reaction was to shake it off and get back to the book paying closer attention to what I was just reading for past few minutes. It happened again and again throughout the years of reading and I was always annoyed at loosing time having to re-read the same text over and over again. But the feeling was so curious and so repeatable that I thought that I should start observing this behavior to try make sense of it.

As it turns out, the distractions were not the problems of the brain having hard time concentrating, but on the contrary, the process of generating new ideas. Triggered by the topic of the book or blog post, my brain was connecting prior thoughts with something new or bringing up memories that were long forgotten and never coming back in that particular context.

Basically, it’s like electric short in the brain that happens between two previously “unrelated” areas and this short builds some new bridge that allows for thoughts to travel faster between the two concepts in the future (disclosure, I’m not a neural surgeon nor I have any idea how brain actually works).

In “The Myths of Innovation”, Scott Berkun’s attributes a lot of inventions to the associative thinking that people employ connecting different things together, observations of nature, memories and so on. The shorts in my brain are much like those associations in the making.

So, getting back to the annoying distraction and the need to re-read what was just read with a blank expression on your face…

After observing it for a while I realized that getting back to reading was the worst mistake I could make – basically I was forcing myself to block the thoughts that were working hard on building that neural bridge effectively killing the associations that were being created. My desire to finish the book and to optimize reading time was prevailing over desire to get some meaning out of it completely defeating the whole purpose of reading itself.

… so I started to think of what to do instead …

There are a couple goals here – first of all is to try preserving the thought that I was previously trying to subdue. After all, I really hope those ideas are useful and not just day dreams.

Pen and paper never worked for me for some reason and I waited all this time for technology to catch up which it did bringing us mobile devices. Emails to self work very well for me and Blackberry started (literally) saving the ideas also helping with putting them into personal search engine (thanks Gmail) and effectively adding them to task list (inbox). Some people just use notes app on their smartphones and others tweet with #notetoself hash tags – whatever works best.

The second goal is to not stifle the brain activity and let it go for as long as it can naturally do so to helping those bridge-building ants in my brain create something stable and reliable and capable of transferring the thoughts between the newly connected concepts in the future.

Now, with better mobile devices with web browsers and apps, there is no need to just record your thoughts, I’m adding tasks to my issue trackers for software projects, writing blog posts, tweeting, updating my presentations and so on the go, right when I had the “blank reading” moment.

Switching from the book to working on the idea is as easy as pulling out the phone or taking iPad from my backpack (or switching the app if it’s an ebook). Luckily bookmarks were invented long time ago and there is not much to learn to be able to re-start the reading.

I urge everyone to not read a book while train ride lasts or until you go to sleep or until you reach the cover. Read it until it sparks the thought, until your brain wanders away coming up with an idea. Use reading material as a trigger for creating associations, try to catch the creative moment – don’t loose it, build on it!

This post came out pretty long, the thought is thinning and it’s time to get back to that book…

RB from ShowSlow blog

RB from ShowSlow blog.

Right now only module for Meetup is ready, but most of the logic is in generic OAuth class so I hope other modules will come soon. I already did hit problems with other providers like Twitter and LinkedIn which have some troubles with generic OAuth so it’s not going to be an easy flight.

Standards are good anyway, even if they are not supported uniformly across the board (they never are).

Read it here: Using Human Computation to answer web performance questions

RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/Social-Media-NY/calendar/15475788/

Demo is still TBD, please let me know if you’d like to present.

KEYNOTE

Regulatory compliance in social media is an emerging issue that is evolving daily. For most of the past decade there was virtually no governmental oversight of the space, but with the explosion of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Foursquare and others, regulators have begun to take notice. In the last 12-18 months state and federal agencies have been updating their policies and ramping up their enforcement efforts. As we enter 2011, topics like privacy, fair balance and disclosure are squarely in the sights of the FTC, FDA and the SEC.

Tom Chernaik, Founder and CEO of CMP.LY, will be joining the New York Social Media Meetup to present an overview on this changing landscape, what it means for businesses in general, and the implications on social media marketers in particular.

About Tom Chernaik

Tom Chernaik is the Founder of CMP.LY. Working with leading brands, agencies and PR firms, Tom has been on the forefront of digital marketing in Web 2.0. With a focus on brands leveraging Word of Mouth and social media, he has developed innovative enterprise solutions for Fortune 500 brands and an emerging standard for compliance with new FTC regulatory requirements. He studied at Cardozo School of Law and was a founding member of the ad sales team at XM Radio, where he spent 5+ years integrating national brand sponsors and advertisers with programming. Prior to XM, Tom spent a decade in the entertainment business with roles at Arista Records and Sonicnet as well as leadership executive roles at independent record label Gotham Records, Track Entertainment and innovative music startup AllIndie.com.

CMP.LY was started as a simple solution for regulatory compliance with the recent FTC requirements for marketers engaging in social media programs. CMP.LY is built around a short coded framework that enables trackable and identifiable disclosures to be included in Tweets, Facebook status updates and short form applications like Foursquare as well as in blogs and web pages. We have expanded to include measurement (for ROI) and reporting capabilities and we are developing additional solutions for more regulated industries including pharma and financial.

Location:
New Work City (@nwc)
412 Broadway
Floor 2
New York, NY 10013
(888) 823-3494

Directions: http://bit.ly/gktygq
Entrance on street view: http://bit.ly/hl6btW

About the Host

This event is part of NWCU, community powered learning driven entirely by member participation, NWCU is a curated collection of classes, workshops, Meetup groups, and hackathons, all sharing one core common goal: help existing and aspiring independents build, learn, and share with one another, so more people can lead better, happier lives working for themselves.
http://nwc.co/u/

Sponsors

Offerpop is an innovative New York-based software company launched in June 2010 that enables smart social marketing on Facebook and Twitter. More than 50 brands, retailers and agencies use Offerpop to recruit fans and followers, build brand engagement and grow sales.
Learn more at www.offerpop.com and follow them on Twitter at @offerpop.

We’ll also have some books for raffle provided by O’Reilly!

http://calendar.perfplanet.com/2010/easy-cache-headers/

 RSVP http://www.meetup.com/Web-Performance-NY/calendar/14978519/

It’s a holiday session so come and win Amazon Kindle, courtesy of Catchpoint!

Read more in ShowSlow blog