Posts Tagged ‘Web development’
In quotable on
17 February 2010 tagged HTML, standards, Web development with no comments
The theory is that if all the User-Agent providers implement all these algorithms exactly as specified, complete interoperability will be achieved and people who build Web applications need no longer concern themselves with the differences between User Agents. Which would of course be wonderful.
Will it work? Nobody knows; it’s a science experiment. Just because nobody has ever succeeded in specifying a workable networked object model doesn’t mean this project will likewise fail. But it does mean that when considering the future of HTML5, we should recognize that this is a very hard problem, and there’s no guarantee that that part of it will come off.
From a blog post on HTML5 by Tim Bray.
In Commentary on
16 December 2009 tagged design, Web development with no comments
Form expert Luke Wroblewski compares Apple’s revamped checkout process to their old checkout process. If you do any work designing HTML forms at all, you’ll want to check this case study out. I’m particularly interested in the pros and cons of requiring users to enter their city, state, and zip versus entering just the zip and looking up the city and state. Luke has looked at this issue before.
In Commentary on
26 August 2009 tagged Google Maps, JavaScript, PHP, Web development with 7 comments
I hinted at this in my link post, but I thought I’d write up the whole thing in hopes of discussing it. I have a page that will include a Google Map with markers for a number of locations (potentially a large number of markers). For an explanation of how to add markers to a Google Map, check out this page.
So the question is: how do you get the address data from my database to Google Maps?
The process is to geocode the address and then apply the marker to the map. There’s a simple example at that link.
Here are some possible approaches:
- Write some code (PHP in this case) that emits the JavaScript used to geocode the addresses and put the markers on the map. Unfortunately then you have a mixture of JavaScript and PHP code that looks a lot like JavaScript on your page.
- Print out a JavaScript data structure that contains all the information for the markers and then iterate over that data structure in JavaScript.
- Put the map data in hidden elements on the page where it can be extracted using JavaScript. The downside is you have hidden elements on your page. The upside is that your PHP is completely separated from your JavaScript.
- Create a service that returns a JSON data structure of the marker information that can be called using XmlHttpRequest and call that from the page. That offers a clean separation of the JavaScript from the PHP but unfortunately could add latency to the page.
I’ve done some searching to find out how people handle this problem, but haven’t seen any good answers yet. Any ideas?
In Commentary on
12 July 2009 tagged browsers, HTML, HTML 5, Web development with no comments
This is a special link roundup related to the W3C killing off XHTML 2 and putting all its eggs in the HTML 5 basket. I’ve posted about this myself here.
In Commentary on
20 June 2009 tagged JavaScript, Web development with 1 comment
Let’s say you have a report that has some filter controls on top that let you narrow the scope of the report. When the report loads, the filter is collapsed. The user opens the filter, changes some of the settings, and submits the form. What is the preferred method for determining whether the filter should be displayed? A related question is whether you should detect the filter’s visibility status in JavaScript or you should check on the server side and use the style attribute to control visibility.
Here are some options:
- Always leave the filter collapsed initially. I hate this option, though, because it hides important information from the user. If the report is in some non-default state, the user should be able see when it loads what that state is.
- Check to see whether any form parameters were submitted. If there were, add the appropriate
style attribute to the form on the server side.
- Assuming the GET method was used, check for a query string in JavaScript and hide the form using JavaScript if no query string is present. (Indicating that the filter is in its default state.)
- Using JavaScript, check the values of all of the fields on the form to see whether they are in their default state. If not, display the form.
- Use a hidden form field set on the server side to indicate that the filter should be displayed. In JavaScript, check that field to determine whether or not the filter should be displayed.
There are probably other options as well, and all of them will work. Choosing from among them is a matter of ease of maintenance, mostly. Ideas?
In Commentary on
3 June 2009 tagged Apple, business, cars, css, Google, iPhone, links, politics, religion, The Media, Web development, wine with 5 comments
In Commentary on
20 May 2009 tagged quotable, Web development with no comments
This is a great definition of a microframework:
Microframeworks let you build an entire web application in a single file, usually with only one import statement.
In Commentary on
30 March 2009 tagged browsers, cars, database, design, food, links, scalability, security, Web development with no comments
- Jason Santa Maria: Reflections on Layer Tennis. Really, really great post on participating in Layer Tennis. I loved this.
- SF Gate: Food, service uneven at Absinthe. A review of Top Chef participant Jamie “Top Scallop” Lauren’s San Francisco restaurant by Michael Bauer. Brutal.
- John Resig: Determining Browser Market Share. Deep thoughts on measuring browser market share.
- New York Times: Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries. Uncovered by researchers at the University of Toronto. Also read this followup from James Fallows.
- Goodnight, Raleigh: Memorializing a Magnificent Oak and “The Great Pacificator”. A little local knowledge about Raleigh.
- The Economist: Germany’s racy auto banks.
- Tim Bray: On Rack. A nice, short introduction to Rack, the glue that provides an interface from Ruby applications to Web servers.
- MySQL Performance Blog: PROCEDURE ANALYSE. Very useful for optimizing your MySQL schema.
- Vanessa Fox: Transforming the Relationship Between Citizens and Government: Making Content Findable Online. Advice on making data more searchable, pertinent to anyone publishing online.
- Last.fm: Last.fm Radio Announcement. Users not in the US, UK, or Germany have to pay up to listen. Music licensing sucks.
- LastFM Firefox Extension. Scrobbles Pandora tracks to Last.fm, for people like me who feel weird anytime they listen to a song and the data isn’t transmitted to Last.fm.
- intranation: Development virtual machines on OS X using VMWare and Ubuntu. A clever alternative to MacPorts or Fink.
- Trustico: Buy GeoTrust, VeriSign SSL Certificates At Cheaper Prices – Strategic Partner United States. I hate paying for certificates. These guys are cheap.