While Drupal is a content management system with great flexibility, upgrading your website’s Drupal version can be a complex process.

While upgrading a website from Drupal 8 to 9 does not usually entail a massive rebuild as a D7-D9 migration does, it is nonetheless a significant change that requires planning and forethought. It is also the most urgently needed version change now, as while Drupal 7 does not lose support until November 2022, Drupal 8 will by November this year.

This particular upgrade has been billed as a significantly large security update, and to an extent that is true. But…

The idea of closure was one of the tougher concepts for me when I first started learning JavaScript in depth. While I read a lot about it, I did not really understand it until I started using it in my work.

If you are new to closures, let’s start with this: a closure is essentially an object with one or more functions bundled together with the object’s surrounding environment. The environment typically includes variables that the closure needs and that cannot be accessed directly in the main scope of the program.

In this article, we’ll look at a simple closure…

Oftentimes our code needs to create timestamps in a specific format — either for display or to send data up to an API. Fortunately, a well-built JavaScript function can do just that.

JavaScript allows you to create Date objects that store the time at which they were created and have their own unique set of methods. You can instantiate one the way you would another type of object with the new keyword.

let currentDate = new Date();

Suppose we want to take this Date object and extract a timestamp in the format below, with the T separating the date and…

The DOM, or document object model, is an integral part of a web developer’s work. Because it represents the element tree found in a webpage, it determines the underlying structure of what the browser delivers to users.

While you can add and manipulate DOM elements with JavaScript, coding the logic for it can be cumbersome and repetitious if the element has many properties and attributes. In this tutorial, we will create a method that lets you add complex elements more compactly.

An Example HTML DOM Structure

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the DOM concept, it is the hierarchical structure of HTML elements…

In this article, we will go over how to convert a string in camelCase to its dash syntax equivalent with a few lines of code. This conversion can come in handy when you want to use an object property like dataCost in JavaScript and map it to an analogous attribute — in this case, data-cost — in a DOM element.

In this article, we will take a look at camelToDash, a function that carries out the conversion and then investigate how it works under the hood.

The Function

A lot is going on in these five lines of code. …

Contributor: Jeremy Katz

Suppose you are considering a game of chess with a friend or family member and one of you is significantly more skilled at the game. This can unfortunately lead to an uneven experience. I should know, as I have lost to my 16-year-old son countless times over the past half-year. But before you switch to another game due to an uneven match-up, consider blindfolded chess.

If you have a mismatch in player ability, playing blindfolded chess is a great alternative to odds matches, in which the more skilled player may go without one or more pieces. If…

In this day and age, learning web development requires getting up to speed on a great many topics and skills. For front-end work, you have to learn JavaScript, CSS, and HTML and become familiar with APIs, libraries, and frameworks. And for back-end work, you must learn about database and server architecture as well as programming languages such as Python, PHP, and Ruby. Acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills in these areas on your own means setting up a solid learning structure for yourself that usually comprises the following:

• Seeking out learning experiences
• Creating your digital workspace
• Completing independent projects
• Building…

When opportunity knocks, sometimes leaving that door closed can open others. Here is my story.

Then

My journey into web development began 13 years ago with an open house for a degree program at Boston University back in August of 2008. This was when they had the Center for Digital Imaging Arts, which had a web development program that looked like a possible entry point. (It later closed in 2014.)

At the time, I was teaching high school science and was writing a set of comics-based resource books known as the Dr. Birdley Teaches Science series. I had also just launched…