A Few Useful References

18th Jan 2011

A Few Useful References

I have had a few conversations recently with people asking about tools and resources so I thought I would put a post together pooling a few things together.

HTML5

I have come across a really useful video on the state of HTML 5 and what can be used now. This includes some great thoughts on how we can be using the new tags without depending on JavaScript for IE.

Also for those who haven't already come across HTML5 boilerplate, take some time to browse through the source.

JavaScript

Here's our solution for splitting out JavaScript in to separate files for development work. Rivet includes a console app which will combine them for use in a live environment.

https://davetayls.me/blog/2010/12/15/rivet-advanced-js-combiner-v2-released/

We run all our JavaScript through a validation process using jsLint. Go to http://www.jslint.com for more details on the validator itself. Here are a couple of useful articles on getting it integrated with Visual Studio and build scripts.

We use Google Closure compiler in our build scripts to minify the JavaScript:

A great video series on the JavaScript Language

JS for people who have done C#

CSS

We use YUI Compressor in our build scripts to minify the CSS:

IE hasLayout:

Build Tools

NAnt is a free .NET build tool. In theory it is kind of like make without make's wrinkles. In practice it's a lot like Ant.