JavaScript Software Engineering

“ pipin' hot ”

At Salsita we live and breathe JavaScript. And we’re not talking about slapping a few lines of script on a webpage. We’re talking about heavy-duty software engineering that just happens to be in JavaScript rather than Java, Python or C++.

Why Salsita?

Our background is in cross-browser add-on development, one of the most challenging types of JavaScript development.

It was a natural decision to apply our expertise and world-class development team to other JavaScript software engineering projects.

We’re dedicated to agile processes, code reviews and automated testing. We’ve designed our processes to achieve our most important goal: helping you ship high-quality software.

Why JavaScript?

We love JavaScript because it runs everywhere. The web browser has arguably become the most important software platform. And the browser’s native language is JavaScript. Python will run on the server. C++ will run on the desktop. But only JavaScript runs in the browser, and with the newer technologies like Node.js it runs great in those other environments as well.

Not so long ago, it was a challenge for us to explain what we do. The notion of JavaScript software engineering, as opposed to JavaScript web application development, simply didn’t exist. So we’re pleased as punch to see the market catch up with us.

Node.js is a perfect example of why we love JavaScript. It’s a lightning fast, elegant environment for running enterprise-class JavaScript applications. With a large and growing library of open-source modules and frameworks, JavaScript is fast catching up with other server-side languages. And the ability to can run the same code in the browser and on the server is something no other language can rival.

Frameworks and Technologies

We’re experienced in a number of the leading JavaScript libraries and frameworks. Naturally stalwarts like jQuery make up an integral part of our daily development work. We love the elegance and simplicity of Backbone.js and Underscore.js. We use Jasmine and Mocha for unit testing. Lately we’ve been using the incredible Angular.js for client-side development.

We also work with a host of JavaScript related technologies like websockets, HTML5 storage and canvas.

JavaScript is inherently a pretty cool language. Leading JavaScript authority Douglas Crockford describes it as “Lisp in C's Clothing”. In other words, it has all the self-referential power that makes computer scientists love LISP, but a syntax that is more familiar to the uninitiated.

Nonetheless, JavaScript syntax hasn’t undergone any major improvements in many years, and is unlikely to do so with all the stakeholders and their competing interests. That’s why CoffeeScript is so great. It gives you all that JavaScript goodness, but with a more modern, concise syntax.

We’re totally into CoffeeScript, and we’re using it increasingly for a variety of projects.