At Play In Fields Of Hex
December 16, 2011 11:28 PM   Subscribe

Released yesterday, dabblet joins an array of live sandbox tools designed to prototype, test and share webcode that includes JSFiddle and CSSDesk, while bringing some advantages of its own.
Other useful resources: w3clove validates an entire site, rather than page-by-page; JQuery Air teaches you how to use the framework directly in the browser; domain.nr finds clever TLDs for your site, and Sequel Pro is a nice, free, native, open source MySQL editor for OS X. If you’re more the old-school dead-tree type, there’s always The Manual.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul (9 comments total) 102 users marked this as a favorite
 
These are all excellent resources, thanks for collecting them in one place!
posted by jeremias at 4:36 AM on December 17, 2011


That Sequel Pro is going to be very useful; thanks for this!
posted by woodblock100 at 4:39 AM on December 17, 2011


Just in time - I'm planning to re-do our web site with the start of the new year, and these will go into the toolbox bookmark list!
posted by Old'n'Busted at 6:45 AM on December 17, 2011


Sequel Pro is excellent; I've been using it for a couple weeks now and I'm spoiled - nothing for Windows even comes close.
posted by ella wren at 7:50 AM on December 17, 2011


The domain finder isn't very helpful. All the ones I tried were already taken. I can do that on my own.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:26 AM on December 17, 2011


Cool post, thanks :)

I like the idea of Code School and I think they did well with TryRuby.org, but the actual tests include things that they don't go over in the lessons, so if you're new to JavaScript or jQuery, I would not recommend jQuery Air despite how fun the videos are. I spent an hour and a half double-checking the 3rd video in the series to try to figure out why I was couldn't get past a test when I decided to check their support boards. Someone had the same complaint I did and their response was "Oh, we didn't think we'd need to include everything on the test in the video!"

.. What? Yeah, I'll just pay for this course and expect you not to teach me something I need in order to pass it.

I consider myself pretty competent in HTML5/CSS3, but their 3 to 5 course was not friendly or even fun to breeze through. If you're confused, you have to use Hints that detract from your overall score. These Hints are in a specific order and you don't get to choose which part of the problem you are having an issue with, so if you are messing up some part at the end, you end up having to use all three of your Hints, taking a chunk from your score.

The tests also don't account for other methods of accomplishing the same thing (there was no shorthand CSS, everything had to be written out in full for each browser prefix) -- i.e. you couldn't answer "Make the border-radius on this box 5" with "border-radius:5" (all browsers support border-radius by itself now). You would have to answer:

-moz-border-top-left-radius:
-webkit-border-top-left-radius:
border-top-left-radius:

.. and do that for every corner. I understand teaching this method, but this one in particular is already outdated, and web is something that is so ever-changing that oversights like this will cost them and the people that are paying for these courses ($25/mo).

In combination with the fact that every time I use the site I have to open two tabs -- one for the video tutorial and one for the test associated with it.. it's just not as fluid an experience as it should be.

I find Code Academy's approach a little better and the site is free. The tests are more responsive and user-friendly, but I've yet to spend as much time on that site as I have Code School.
posted by june made him a gemini at 10:45 AM on December 17, 2011 [2 favorites]


Speaking of Code School and Code Academy, this JavaScript closure tutorial works the same way, and is offers a pretty fantastic way of teaching a tricky concept. Not for beginners, but easy to follow.

Also: The other day I discovered JSPerf which provides a ridiculously easy and fast way to compare the performance of two snippets of JavaScript code in the browser.
posted by schmod at 11:47 AM on December 17, 2011 [1 favorite]


nothing for Windows even comes close

Disagree. HeidiSQL is a tremendous tool as well.
posted by yerfatma at 11:57 AM on December 17, 2011 [1 favorite]


I like TOAD for MySQL from Quest Software. It's free and as functional as the TOAD for Oracle I use in my day job.
posted by lon_star at 4:54 PM on December 17, 2011


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