Posted by Eric Stewart
Sun, 23 Oct 2005 04:12:00 GMT
Thanks to AJAX, Javascript has had quite the revival recently. Web developers are suddenly re-engergized as their monotonous development strategies due to the limitations of browsers and their varied implementations are giving way to a new way of doing things.
I’ve been playing with these new techniques myself, trying to understand how it can and should be used and more importantly when it should be used.
Ajax isn’t really new. Well, the term is fairly new, and the techniques have been possible for a while, though obscure.
Javascript certainly isn’t new. But it’s capabilities across browsers are probably a little more standardized than they once were. We’re now seeing javascript libraries and components that were possible before, but nobody was really going there.
I read a thought provoking post on The Man In Blue that makes a good point regarding the web client as an application platform.
I think we are now at a crossroads. JavaScript is now developed enough to offer cross-browser, cross-platform solutions from the same codebase, and this has made it viable to develop large scale applications using it. Given that there is a difference between webpages and applications, and that they have different goals and requirements, it is meaningless to point out that a JavaScript application fails when you disable JavaScript. I could equally point out that Firefox fails when I remove my operating system.
Certainly there is a difference between what Google Maps or the latest Ajaxian RSS reader or email client are and the traditional informational web page. In the latter Javascript has typically been meant to add a little flash and enhanced usability yet was still relatively easy to degrade when Javascript was turned off in the browser. We’re in new territory now.
The New Web Application Platform
What has really changed? Well, the traditional web application is a server application. That’s where most of the code was executed, even to control what the user sees in their browser. Sure, some Javascript might be used in the same way as those old informational web pages: to enhance usability or give the user a little flash. But the server still knew what it had sent to the browser, and pretty much what the user was looking at.
The shift to the new type of web application is important. Now developers are trying to put as much of the work as possible in the hands of the browser. Rendering of the what the user sees as well as fetching data from whatever sources will be done more on the browser’s terms. For those familiar with good ol’ MVC software architecture we’re talking about just shifting where some of the view/controller logic lies and reducing the workload of the server while giving the user a more interactive experience.
Accessibility and Leaving People Behind
The Man in Blue posed the question:
“So, why can’t we require people to have JavaScript in order to run an application? You’re not targeting everyone, you’re targeting your market.”
We certainly can require Javascript for this application platform. It is being done! Just take your favorite new Javascript or Ajax web application that is impressing the masses and try it with Javascript disabled. It’s not going to work.
I’ll agree with The Man here that you must target your market. Where we might possibly disagree is that even with traditional web applications and even pages, people have restrictured their market unecessarily. That’s a whole other discussion on how to understand building a flashy, interactive site that can still be accessible.
You can certainly push this new Web Application Platform to its limits, using the latest Javascript and Ajax wizardry. But keep in mind that while accessibility APIs, toolkits, and techniques for native applications and traditional web pages have made great strides it providing greater accessibility you’ll be leaping ahead again and leaving them behind.
I’ll put it another way: when considering who your target market is, shouldn’t you have a damn good reason for leaving people out that want to user your application? When asking yourself how much and how soon about adopting these new techniques don’t just consider whether you can, but also whether you should.
Now I’ll try to quit being a hypocrite and try to go fix my own site’s accessiblity problems so more people can use it.
Posted in Software Development, Technology | Tags accessibility, ajax, javascript, web | 3 comments
Posted by Eric Stewart
Sun, 09 Oct 2005 18:44:00 GMT
The 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge is finishing up this morning. Already 5 teams have completed this year and more are coming in. Team ENSCO might still have a chance.
Unfortunately some of the teams I was routing for didn’t make it.
- Team Banzai – A Tourag driven by Max OSX based computer that almost made it. They completed 2 out of 3 runs in a qualifying event
- Austin Robot Technology – A local Austin group that doesn’t seem to have made the finalists list and I haven’t seen yet why
- MonsterMoto – A local Cedar Park based group that was a finalist but apparantly not a finisher this time around
- Team Mojavaton – A Colorado group who wisely chose to use a Nissan XTerra named the Xboxx (Of course these finished!)
- Team Mojavaton – A Colorado group who wisely chose to use a Nissan XTerra named the Xboxx
Looks like there are are many entries still on their way in as I type this, but here are the top finishers so far…
- Gray Team – Bad choice using an Escape but at least it was a hybrid. And who am I kidding, they finished just thirteen minutes behind Standford’s second entry (Red Team Two)
- Red Team – Those Carnegia Mellon people seem to know something about robotics.. they managed to enter two vehicles and had them both finish.
- Stanford Racing Team – The Stanford team won it all with a modded Touraeg, though it looks like they only beat Red Team by about 4 minutes. Ouch!
Now if I can just manage to find out how to get myself on one of these teams in coming years….
Posted in Technology | Tags robotics, tech | no comments
Posted by Eric Stewart
Fri, 07 Oct 2005 23:39:00 GMT
Ok, nobody has an excuse not to subscribe to RSS feeds anymore. Google has a feed reader now.
I kid, I kid. I won’t be giving up NetNewsWire (or that reader I like on Windows which I can’t remember because I haven’t touched it in 6 months.. but I like it).
Life can move along once more. Until Google owns us all, then we’ll spend all day searching each other.
Seriously though. Everyone who pishawed or shrugged at the mentiond of RSS or Atom or subscribing to a news feed now has no reason to not get with the program.
Ok, now I should go review the darn thing.
Posted in Technology | Tags feeds, reader, rss, web | 2 comments
Posted by Eric Stewart
Thu, 29 Sep 2005 14:17:00 GMT
For several months now I’ve been working on a RubyOnRails project for a client with my cohort Brad. Though I had been experimenting with rails prior to this project, this is the first commercial project with the framework that I have done. And we all know how that’s where you learn the true strengths and weaknessess of a framework. I’ll be adding tips and observations from this project and wanted to start with a simple one.
Fixtures suck! And they are fantastic all at the same time. Coming from a background of heavy unit testing (we’re JUnit junkies) the concept of fixtures is a very welcome feature. I can’t ask for an easier way to write tests for a database backed application. However…..
It’s way too easy to spend a lot of time trying to get new tests working only to find you aren’t including the right fixtures in your test. It’s something that should be trivial, yet we have tripped on admittedly way too many times before developing the right habits.
The lesson that newcomers to Rails can try to learn is that it’s easy to forget new fixtures that need to be added, especially when adding new tests to existing unit tests and the functionality you are testing involves that new table you just added. When things don’t seem to run just right (tests) and you can’t figure out why, check your fixtures.
Posted in Ruby On Rails | Tags rails, ruby, tips | no comments
Posted by Eric Stewart
Mon, 18 Jul 2005 05:50:00 GMT
Thanks to Technorati I noticed a post on another blog the other day that put in a kind word about my fledgling little blog. Thank you, Dieter, for linking and saying you found what I have written useful!
I’m not really sure why I was surprised when Dieter referred to this as a blog on Ruby. These days it certainly seems to be. I have been toying with Ruby the past couple of years and actually working with Rails more recently. Why? Pragmatism, curiosity, and.. well… it’s just quite fun!
About four years ago I made the transition from being a Java programmer to being a programmer (or developer, or whatever you call us these days). I no longer worshiped at the pure Java alter. I even got up and walked out on a few Java users group meetings when the zealots preached too blindly about their platform descended from the heavens. I finally got it that the tools will always change and we can’t latch on to them.
So no, this is not a Ruby blog. It is a blog that will continue to have more commentary about Ruby because I like it and it lets me be productive. I will still talk about Java, because I will still use it. There will be commentary on Windows, and Linux, and OS X because I use them all. Sometimes there will be entries having nothing to do with computers at all.
And hopefully, dear reader, you find at least one sentence of the whole pile of posts interesting or useful. Just like Dieter. And if not, that’s fine. It’s my monologue.
Now go write some code or better yet, go outside and enjoy yourself.
Posted in Software Development, Misc. | Tags ruby | no comments
