Coffee and Code in Guelph

If you’re a developer looking for something to do on Tuesday nights, look no further: Coffee and Code has come to Guelph. We meet between 7:30pm and 9:30pm to network, discuss relevant programming topics, and get some work done. It’s a great opportunity to meet some like-minded individuals and work in a setting other than your usual lair. Bring your laptop and whatever else you’ll need to do your thing.

Cory Fowler began the Coffee and Code event in Guelph a few weeks ago and has been diligently building up some momentum with it. I think it’s been going for 5 weeks now. I started going on the third week.

Next meeting place: The Albion on Gordon St. Hopefully we’ll see you there!

DemoCampGuelph6 was a lot of fun!

I got back from the 6th Guelph DemoCamp around 9:00pm last night. Free beer, free food, a group of 50 or more programmers, and one block away from my apartment. Guelph rules :)

If you live in the Guelph area and you’re interested in going to the next one, there will be another DemoCamp on the 17th of September 2008. You should be there. Presenting stuff is easy: You get 5 minutes to set up, 5 minutes to talk, and 5 minutes to answer questions from the crowd. If you just want to come listen and mingle that’s cool, too.

I presented Jack of All Links to the crowd and it went really well. There were a couple of guys from WeGoWeGo, which is a startup that’s gearing up in Toronto as well as a few other people presenting technology or software they wrote. I really enjoyed it.

I was really surprised at the size of the crowd! I figured there might be at maximum 10 people (I mean, how many programmers *are* there around here anyway) but there were over 50. Exciting!

Adding and Removing HTML elements with plain-old JavaScript

Sometimes while developing a web application, you need to hide or display certain elements dynamically based on circumstance. For instance, if you’re filling in your personal information and you in the dropdown box you select “other” as your country, the website may be required to display a previously hidden textbox allowing you to type in your country name.

This post, by Dustin Diaz, contains two links, written by the same person at two different times. Which one you choose to use is completely up to your skill and the scope of the project you’re working on. The first, is a simple, easy-to-understand JavaScript code snippet: http://www.dustindiaz.com/add-and-remove-html-elements-dynamically-with-javascript/

The second link is a reprise by the same author almost three years later with a much cleaner implementation of the same functionality in JavaScript. Unfortunately, it requires more knowledge about JavaScript and events, and for a beginner in programming, the first link may be easier to swallow. For the site, click this link: http://www.dustindiaz.com/add-remove-elements-reprise/

Pick your poison :)