This library was developed 18 years ago by a young, overly-eager software developer having fun with "Web 2.0" concepts. It's intentionally cringey, but there were some cool ideas in here that I wish I'd properly explored. One of the things that was the main direction I was trying to take this library was in dynamically lazy-loading packages (called "Ships") inserting libraries into the DOM dynamically via CDN only when the code was executed.
I had this big vision of having something like npm filled with all sorts of beautiful little packages that would be available to any JS project, not by installation or configuration, but brought in as needed, when needed.
It was going to be something like this:
var soap = Pirate.Captain('SOAP');By defining the "SOAP" package via Pirate.Captain and storing it in the
soap variable, behind the scenes pirate! would dynamically insert a script
tag for //somepiratecdn.com/Net/SOAP/SOAP.js. This script tag would fire
a pirate!-specific "loaded" event when the script tag had been added to the
DOM and the soap variable would be replaced with an actual class constructor
for the actual SOAP package.
I had a plan for getting around the asynchronous nature of JS by having the
Pirate.Captain function provide a wrapper around the empty Ship object
and capture any function calls and arguments made in the milliseconds (and sometimes
seconds) needed to fetch that JS file and bring it in to the JS engine. Once
loaded and the "loaded" event had fired, all of those functions and arguments would
be re-executed in sequence, making the entire process feel transparent.
2005 - 2007 was a wild time to be a web developer. Microsoft had released
the ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLHTTP') class a few years earlier and Firefox
had just recently implemented it in their XmlHttpRequest() class. But as a
community, everything going on was a wild rollercoaster of browser-compatability,
new libraries, applications that didn't need page reloads, and all sorts of
crazy things. We had no idea what we were doing and everyone was trying to invent
the future of Web Development.
I was still supporting IE5!!! It was a crazy time, and I miss those early years.
What follows below is the original (final) README file of the pirate! JS library, last updated in late 2006. When I found this project on sourceforce, I was surprised at how well the code I'd written stood up against modern JS libraries.
Had I not tried to be funny and named everything "pirate-themed", there were some interesting ideas and concepts in this library that would have been a lot of fun to explore, and some parts that seem prescient with how the ecosytem has evolved. There are lines of code in here that if you squint, almost exactly match up how we have to build modules for npm.
I didn't want to lose this code again, so... to GitHub it goes!
Avast, ye dogs!
- a JavaScript Library by Eric Ryan Harrison
- https://github.com/blister/pirate
- What is pirate!?
- What's with the crazed versioning?
- Who the hell is Eric Ryan Harrison?
- I'll kill you!
pirate! is the product of my frustration at the JavaScript development community. For years, I avoided JavaScript like the plague because of the painful experience I had with it quite a few years ago ( think IE 5 timeframe ). Over the last year, I watched as JavaScript went from a language I would dread to see put to use in production websites to a language I wished other languages could emulate more. Object orientation in JavaScript was a fun (if not slightly confusing) spin on the boring old Classy OOP that every other language on the planet seemed to be using.
The prototype method allowed developers to extend the JavaScript language in ways that I never even could have imagined to be possible, and I clamored to join the cool kids on the block when I saw what people like Sam Stephenson were doing with prototype.js.
Needless to say, all of these new and improved libraries have one major problem: they don't play well together. I've spent hours upon hours debugging prototype.js for things like crazy errors that only occur if you import the js file in a script tag twice on the same page. Basically, I'm sick of it. If I want a feature from prototype.js and a few clever little effects from Scriptaculous, I shouldn't have to load over 2500 lines of JavaScript code just to make it work.
As a perl developer by day, a CPAN like solution seemed to be needed. As a clever JavaScript fanboi that I am, I am aware of the OpenJSAN Project and I fully support their work. It just left me feeling lacking. I'm sick of the same old routine in my development. I've typed so many functions named things like 'import()' and 'use()' and 'require()' and 'define()' and on and on and on that I just snapped.
And here, when the dust settles around my pissed off corpse, you find lying in the mud next to my body, a JavaScript library that attempts to kick more ass than anything else with no apology for hurt feelings. pirate! may be a waste of time, but dangit, it's going to be a fun waste of time.
So, without further ado, I give you pirate! The JavaScript library for people who are ticked off about how boring programming is becoming.
I'm just a guy who writes code for a living. Nobody special. Heck, to be honest with you I'm not even that good at it. I just like it. I also like peanut butter sandwiches and Samuel Adams beer. The new Web2.0 crowd contains a handful of people who everyone recognizes and I'm certainly not one of them. I may or may not be qualified to write a JavaScript library, but I don't really care what you think. It's already written now, so there is not much you can say or do that will change my mind. If you disagree with me, I have a rapier that might change your mind. Or a cat. My cat has very sharp claws and is very fierce. You don't want to mess with him.
Seriously though, his claws cut me a lot. It bleeds and makes me sad a little bit. I never cry though, because pirates aren't supposed to cry. Unless you have a baby, then it's OK to cry but ONLY when it does something that fills your heart with joy. And even then, it can't be a sobbing type of cry. Silent tears only.
Anyway, I'm Eric and I coded this monster. In my vision of the future of pirate!, an online Harbor will allow everyone on the planet to come and build Ships for others to use. If and when that day comes, Ships people code for everyone's enjoyment may be licensed under whatever license they want. For now, most of this code here is written entirely by me. So for this release, assume everything to be under the BSD license. A few snippets of code are from Prototype.js (http://prototype.conio.net) by Sam Stephenson and he retains copyright on that ( and I haven't even really gotten his permission to use his code, ( please don't hate me Sam, I LOVE YOU!!! ) ) so don't gank his code. My code, do whatever you want with it...
Just be careful...
Remember: The cat has very sharp claws and does NOT play nicely.
Now THAT is what I like to hear! That's the pirate! spirit! Take no prisoners! Leave no DOM pointer referenced! Argg!!! Yeah, OK. You don't have to like me or what I do. I'm just a goofy guy trying to waste time until I get out of the Army.
This is the secret section of the README file in which I ramble on about whatever I want.
First: thanks are in order to the people and things that matter most to me.
[REDACTED] The rest of this section was filled with ultra-cringey ramblings from 2006. These days, I at least have the good sense to keep the cringe inside my head where it belongs. :D -erh 2023