Hallway Conversations

A Podcast by Developers for Developers

Hallway Conversations - A Podcast by Developers for Developers

Episode 044 – Navigating the Minefield of JavaScript Development with Rachel Appel

Love it or hate it, its hard to be an effective developer today if you’re not working with JavaScript.  But once you do, you begin to discover that the language is fraught with pitfalls and pratfalls.  Whether its understanding what ‘this’ is or just trying to remember the difference between =, ==, and ===, its safe to say that effectively coding in JavaScript requires some serious situational awareness of its quirks and dangers!

In this episode, Rachel Appel helps us safely navigate the minefields of modern JavaScript programming.  We also explore what the coming of ECMAScript6 might mean for OO paradigms in JavaScript as well as discuss whether the constant churn in JavaScript is a sign of a healthy ecosystem or an impediment to further progress.


rachel_appel_headshotRachel is a 20+ year software engineer, author, mentor, and international speaker. During her career, she has worked on projects of all sizes from the smallest of apps, to the largest enterprise systems at some of the world’s leading companies. Rachel currently works as an independent consultant following a tenure at Microsoft; however she still works closely with Microsoft as an ASPInsider and IE userAgent.

You can read Rachel’s monthly “Modern Apps” column for MSDN Magazine, or her blog about software development at http://rachelappel.com. Catch her speaking at top conferences such as VSLive, DevConnections, MIX, and Netconf UY. Her expertise is in web development on the Microsoft stack, including ASP.NET MVC, Web Forms, SignalR, C#, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and TypeScript. Rachel also deals with data as a DBA and data scientist, and is an all-around language nerd (both computer and human).

Conferences where Rachel is speaking: http://rachelappel.com/speaking

Rachel’s Modern Apps column: http://bit.ly/Rachel-MSDN

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