I found and put into use two new tools this week that will change your life if you write Javascript and or Git in any capacity.

git-emacs

First up is git-emacs. I'd heard about the power of emacs' vc modes for a while, and wanted to play, but hadn't gotten around to seeing what was available for git. It seems like the jury is still out, but after playing with a number of the modules listed here I've so far been most happy with git-emacs. I no longer need to drop to a shell to switch branches, commit, see diffs, and get the status of my current tree, and the dired-like staging area management is pretty slick.

js2-mode

Second is a long overdue new entrant into the Javascript mode game. Until now it seems like the consensus has been to use javascript.el, an altogether sufficient mode that does almost everything you want. Conspicuously absent, however, are some of the error finding niceties that are found in modes for other languages, but which can be difficult to include without parsing Javascript in elisp. Also, while javascript.el is fine for writing modern Javascript, as the language continues to evolve to 2.0 it will increasingly show signs of being outdated unless it sees some love.

Fortunately, Steve Yegge recently flexed his rather ample geek muscles and put together one of the sexier piece of elisp since nXML's XML parser. Boasting "a recursive-descent parser... ported from Mozilla Rhino", js2-mode is never wrong (%bugs) and is capable of feats heretofore nearly impossible. Gone are the days of trailing-comment-itis and missing semicolon separators. Code-folding, bouncey indenting and on-the-fly syntax error checks are here to stay, and the world is a brighter and more friendly place.

Seriously though, js2-mode fucking rocks, so go get it now.