Maybe you’ve seen the syntax before, but why in the heck does an Immediately-Invoked Function Expression (IIFE — pronounced ‘iffy’) look like it does? Why is it useful?
Why a re-introduction? Because JavaScript is notorious for being the world's most misunderstood programming language. It is often derided as being a toy, but beneath its layer of deceptive simplicity, powerful language features await. JavaScript is now used by an incredible number of high-profile applications, showing that deeper knowledge of this technology is an important skill for any web or mobile developer.
Despite its popularity, few know that JavaScript is a very nice dynamic object-oriented general-purpose programming language. How can this be a secret? Why is this language so misunderstood?
Screencast of a talk given by Simon Meier at the HaskellerZ Meetup in Zürich on 28 Aug 2014. The blaze-react library uses Facebook's ReactJS library to do ...