User:The Transhumanist/Workshop boilerplate/Explanatory notes

Explanatory notes (source code walk-through)
This section explains the source code, in detail. It is for JavaScript programmers, and for those who want to learn how to program in JavaScript. Hopefully, this will enable you to adapt existing source code into new user scripts with greater ease, and perhaps even compose user scripts from scratch.

You can only use so many comments in the source code before you start to choke or bury the programming itself. So, I've put short summaries in the source code, and have provided in-depth explanations here.

My intention is Threefold:
 * 1) to thoroughly document the script so that even relatively new JavaScript programmers can understand what it does and how it works, including the underlying programming conventions. This is so that the components and approaches can be modified, or used again and again elsewhere, with confidence. (I often build scripts by copying and pasting code that I don't fully understand, which often leads to getting stuck). To prevent getting stuck, the notes below include extensive interpretations, explanations, instructions, examples, and links to relevant documentation and tutorials, etc. Hopefully, this will help both you and I grok the source code and the language it is written in (JavaScript).
 * 2) to refresh my memory of exactly how the script works, in case I don't look at the source code for weeks or months.
 * 3) to document my understanding, so that it can be corrected. If you see that I have a misconception about something, please let me know!

In addition to plain vanilla JavaScript code, this script relies heavily on the jQuery library.

If you have any comments or questions, feel free to post them at the bottom of this page under Discussions. Be sure to ping me when you do.