JavaScript Coding Examples

Question

I'm looking for an open-source JavaScript project from which I can learn about good coding practices, patterns, etc.

For example, the equivalent 'awesome code' example from Java would probably be the Spring project internals.

I've thought about taking a look at prototype / jquery, but are there any better ones (by better I mean greater return on time invested)?

I'm talking proper substance as you would find in a java / ruby project, as opposed to a 50 line snippet of code to animate my buttons - (Sorry that's probably a bit JavaScript-ist).

Answer 1

It seems like everyone has a different approach when it comes to javascript. In general I find the node.js source code to be pretty clean and straightforward... It's not browser scripting, which I think gives a good picture of 'pure' javascript code that doesn't mess with host objects or the DOM.

http://github.com/ry/node/tree/master/lib/

Answer 2

updated answer post comment discussion

Reading one of the popular general purpose libraries would be instructive in it's own way, but if you just want to learn solid JavaScript, I would go with something else. There are lots of projects to choose from.

Three interesting ones (to me, subjective remember :D)

• processing.js
• raphael.js
• node.js

I think picking two projects that do similar things and comparing how they accomplish things would be a good way to learn what makes good js code.