In this discovery I look at sorting lists in different programming languages for non-trivial objects. The languages I use are my core languages: Java, JavaScript, Swift, Python, PHP, and C. I've used all these languages in larger projects and wish to stay proficient in them. Throughout this article I show snippets of code in each language, but you can also check out the full code on GitHub. Let's get started!

Java

When you run code in JavaScript there is a global object created in the global scope. What this object is depends on the environment JavaScript is running in. If you run JavaScript code in your web browser the global object is window, which represents the browser window. Window exposes an API for interaction with the Document Object Model (DOM), click listeners, and other information about the browser window¹.

In the past I have used the window object to check the current URL and previous page visited by the user (to create a 'back' button). However, the most common use of window is to manipulate the DOM and set click listeners (I used frameworks such as JQuery to perform these tasks in the past).

In my last discovery post on graph databases and Neo4j, I created a graph representing a map of Fairfield County, Connecticut. I created nodes for all the towns/cities and edges between the settlements that shared borders. This discovery adds to the graph and shows some of the challenges I faced along the way. Let's dive in!

First I populated the graph with some people (after all, a settlement needs citizens!).

this in JavaScript is part of the language that always confused me. The keyword doesn't work like its Java counterpart where it refers to the object instance of a method or constructor. Often in the past when using this I took shortcuts such as the popular var self = this statement so I wouldn't worry about the value of this in nested functions.

What makes this so confusing is that it's set at runtime instead of author time (compile time)¹. In other words it doesn't follow the rules of lexical scope that I am comfortable with. this is incredibly daunting for new programmers since its value can be different when calling the same function on separate occasions.

In my last discovery post, I went over the revealing module pattern in JavaScript. Now I am recreating the same API with ES6 modules. The API code will look familiar:

The only change to the API is the export keyword. export is a new keyword in ES6 that reveals the function lyrics to other JavaScript code. Any JavaScript file can be a module if it exports functions/variables. Only one module can exist per file, and each module can export multiple items. Since one file is one and only one module, the name of a module is the filename. Code to import a module uses the import keyword:

In JavaScript there are multiple module patterns for creating APIs and separating concerns in code (as of ES6 there is also official module syntax in the spec). In the following code I created an API using the revealing module pattern. The name 'revealing module pattern' comes from the return statement at the end of the module - it 'reveals' functions to outside code.

This module provides lyrics for Taylor Swift songs (because who doesn't enjoy some T-Swift!) The return statement is the public API for the module. All interior details, such as the lyric variable, are hidden. This pattern harnesses the power of closure in JavaScript!

JavaScript has quickly become one of the languages I use the most (probably second behind Java). Many people use JavaScript along with one of its many frontend frameworks (JQuery, AngularJS, etc.) without really knowing how the core language operates. I don't want to be one of those people!

This is my first of many discovery posts on JavaScript. Let's look at one of the basic concepts of the language: how variables interact with scope. Scope describes the area of a program where a variable is accessible (e.g. a variable declared in a function is only accessible within that function). Scope is also the execution environment for each line of a program. It consists of the variables and functions a program line is aware of. In JavaScript, scope can get a bit tricky.

Lately I've read about graph databases and their place in the NoSQL data storage universe. The graph database I've worked with is Neo4j, which is fun and easy to get started with. I found the user interface very enjoyable for viewing graphs and executing queries. I highly recommend it if you need a graph database solution.

Graph databases largest draw is related data storage and the speed at which you can query related data points (or in graph terms, nodes/vertices). Relationships are first class citizens, which allows related data queries to be executed by traversing relationships themselves. This is contrasted with a typical relational database where you have to find relationships through foreign keys or combine two tables with a very slow SQL JOIN operation¹. The same slow query in a RDBMS (Relational DataBase Management System) is extremely quick in a graph database.