Sponsors

Principal Sponsor

Platinum Sponsor

Platinum Sponsor

Gold Sponsor

Gold Sponsor

Gold Sponsor

Technology Sponsor

Silver Sponsor

Silver Sponsor

Silver Sponsor

Silver Sponsor

Silver Sponsor

Silver Sponsor

Media Partner

Media Partner

Supporting
Sponsor

Supporting
Sponsor

Supporting
Sponsor

Supporting
Sponsor

Speaker Name	Anant Narayanan
Organization	Malaviya National Institute of Technology
Type	Talk
Scope	Technical
Slides	Click to download
An introduction to XPConnect: Writing Extensions in Pure JavaScript
Abstract	All Mozilla applications are designed to be extensible. The thriving extension developer community is living proof of this, you can find all kinds of extensions for every imaginable task. And if you don't, it's easy to write your own extension - all you need to know is JavaScript! Yes, JavaScript is frequently perceived as a language for client-side scripting in web applications; but it is also an extremely powerful programming language and can be used for a more wider spectrum of applications. Mozilla packs punch into JavaScript via XPConnect, JavaScript bindings to the Mozilla XPCOM libraries. Mozilla's XPCOM exposes all of the core functionality available on the platform; and with XPConnect, you can utilize all of it right in JavaScript. This talk will give the audience an overview of the kind of functionality exposed via XPConnect and explain to them how powerful extensions to Mozilla applications can be written in pure JavaScript. JavaScript is a considerably easier language to learn as compared to C++, and nearly every web developer already knows it. More specifically, the talk will begin with an overview of JavaScript as a language, and then proceed with an explanation of XPCOM and its components. We will then discuss in detail, how these components can be accessed and used in JavaScript. We'll wind up with a brief section on the steps you need to follow to build a skeletal "Hello, World" Firefox extension in pure JavaScript.
Pre-requisites	Beginner-level JavaScript
Speaker Profile	Anant is a student at the Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur. He is actively involved as a developer in several open source projects such as Gentoo Linux, PHP-GTK, PEAR and GNU Parted; besides a few of his own. He has successfully participated twice in the Google Summer of Code, the latest edition of which got him involved with the Plan 9 from Bell Labs community. Anant is also a technical writer, and has written several articles on FOSS related topics in a variety of international magazines; besides conducting tutorials at local user groups and contributing documentation to free software projects.