How to clone an object in JavaScript?

Recently, a friend was asked this question in an interview:

How would you clone an object in pure JavaScript?

Most people’s knee-jerk reply to this would be something along the lines of using jQuery.__extend(), but since this question asks specifically to use pure JavaScript, we’re going to have to get creative.

Let’s start by looking at some solutions that seem correct, but aren’t. For the purpose of this post, we’ll use the following example:

My first HTML5 game!

I’ve finally done it – I’ve created my first HTML5 game! =D

I’m doing a Web Development course this semester, and our first assignment is to build a space invaders HTML5 game. I had never built a game in HTML5 before, so I thought I’d dig up some tutorials to get my feet wet… and here’s what’s come out of it!

(tutorial) How to center a div on a page

One of the things that I find myself going back to lately is centring a div or any DOM object on a page, and having it appear centred no matter what size of screen the user views it on. In short, how to make it responsive.

And it might come as a surprise to many people, but the solution for this is actually quite simple. Use this simple CSS trick and your div will be centred on the page, whether you’re viewing it on a laptop or mobile device.

Introducing “Reddit Cats”

Anyone who knows me knows that I love cats. So, when I was thinking about what to do over the winter break to learn how to use an API, Reddit + cats seemed to be a winning combination. So, here’s….. Reddit Cats!

Reddit Cats is an aggregator that collates photos posted to the front page of /r/cats subreddit and presents them on a single page, for your viewing convenience (and creating a massive overload of cuteness).

So you want to be a developer?

I came across this series on YouTube today. It takes an animated (pun intended) approach to helping students figure out if a career in development is for them.

This is my no means an exhaustive explanation of what being a developer really is like, but it’s a good place to start.

You can check out the rest of their videos here.

jQuery Drag & Drop

I’ve been trying to learn jqGrid lately, which is a plugin for jQuery. I came across a “drag and drop” table function in jqGrid, which I thought was really cool. While trying to play around with the “DnD” tables, I found out that it’s based on jQuery’s “draggable” and “droppable” properties. A Google search lead me to this tutorial: (link)

I think it’s a great tutorial to help you get started with DnD in jQuery, and it’s easy enough for a novice like me to follow!

I’ve noticed a severe lack of jqGrid tutorials (especially using json local data and DnD tables), so I’ll be putting up a tutorial of my own shortly.

Enjoy!

-A