Brilliant

The party is over my friends :)

After years of observation and reverse engineering I proudly announce I have been able to reproduce the IE6 algorithm to break even the most standards-compliant websites.

Step 1.

Drag the bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar.

Step 2.

Visit any website.

Step 3.

Click the bookmarklet repeatedly.

Beware of the architect astronaut :)

Classic!

I understand the point and it makes sense. At the same time, there are reasons why we version certain things. In our field it serves to distinguish, categorize, manage, discrete blocks of functionality. In programming breaking things into smaller pieces helps us get a grasp of something larger, more abstract. Does referring to HTML w/o a version number just muddle our terminology? How do I know you and I are talking about the same thing? If I look at an old website, how do I know the intent of that web designer at the time it was written? I understand to a browser it does not matter... but should it matter to us humans or are we just overrated?

This was very surprising to me. I definitely would not have thought JavaScript would have went down in position. With server side JS starting to take shape, this might change for next year, but still thought it would have had more of an impact. My guess is that Objective-C w/ iOS is taking more and more share away from JS. I have noticed many frontend engineers seeing this environment as being more and more appealing. Also surprised to see Python's rise. I think that's great, as Python is definitely a language I would like to learn more about and play around with, and would love to see more job opportunities in.

Simple. Clean. Elegant. Perfect diagram and abstraction of how to write good code :)

Learning Web is Hard !

Honestly, I used to be miffed that Web companies wouldn’t give me the time of day when I sent them my resume. I’ve long stopped applying to Web jobs, because I know a priori that my resume will be speedily siphoned off to Bit Bucket Heaven.

Two months ago, I didn’t understand why an Internet company would be bored by my largely C/C++/instrument control/embedded systems resume. Now I get it. Here’s why…

Web-based software development involves a whole new way of thinking. For instance, I’ve done a few GUIs using Microsoft .NET. But upon studying CSS, HTML and Javascript over the last month, I can honestly say I’m humbled. As a non-web software developer, I recall too many instances when embedded software engineers wrote off web programming jobs as “trivial” or “boring”. As I’ve delved into web technologies during the last two months, however, I’ve found the opposite to be true.

Let’s just focus on front ends for a bit :

Learning CSS, HTML, Javascript and Jquery and their interplay proficiently is not an easy thing. In fact, it’s frustratingly difficult for someone who comes from a .NET C# or Qt paradigm. GUI Toolkit stuff seems to be almost brain-dead in comparison to web front end.

The world has gotten away with sucky, poorly designed desktop GUIs forever. But the Internet is much too harsh – a poorly designed UI can make or break a web-based business. It’s often argued that Facebook’s much simpler UI was the key force behind Myspace’s descending zigzag into near obsolescence. As a software engineer employed at a prominent web company once told me :

“Every day, new code gets pushed which gets tested by millions of people using every combination of locale, data configuration, software and hardware imaginable. Feedback often occurs within seconds. If a change has a potential for disaster, we can roll it out to 1% of users and log what happens”. I’m sorry, but most desktop GUI makers just don’t face that kind of pressure.

Desktop GUI can easily be made cross-platform. However, knowing the nuances and quirks of each brand of web browser along with the commensurate development of elegant front end code which works seamlessly across all of them — is much harder.

Now, let’s talk about system configuration:

Embedded Systems typically use a text file (could be XML) stored on flash memory for system configuration. True, an embedded web front end might be the vehicle through which customers change their configuration, but configuration is still managed and stored by a simple text file. Sometimes, this simple text file is augmented with a small sqlite3 database. Enter the web and its demands for huge, optimally designed relational databases such as mySql, not to mention the plethora of other pseudo-db-like creatures such as memcache, CouchDB, MongoDB, NoSql and God-even-knows-what.

The only segment of web coding I can possibly be of value in is back-end server code. But throw in Big Data, and once again, I’m a fish out of water.

Let me repeat : Web programming is hard. And I am humbled by it. I’m trying to learn it.

I thought this was interesting post. You usually don't hear programmers who do not develop for the web saying that web development is hard for them to get a grasp of.

brilliant :)

Prototype of an Open Web App Ecosystem

Posted by jsullivan

October 19th, 2010 · Mozilla Labs

The open Web is a great platform for rich applications. It would be even better if it had additional capabilities to ease discovery, acquisition, installation and use of apps, while also enabling monetization for developers. We designed and built a prototype of a system for open Web apps: Apps built using HTML/CSS/JavaScript that work both on computers and mobile phones, have many of the characteristics that users find compelling about native apps and provide developers with open and flexible distribution options.

Today, we are releasing technical documentation of the proposed system and a developer preview prototype that allows you to install, manage and launch Web apps in any modern desktop or mobile browser (Firefox 3.6 and later, Firefox for mobile, Internet Explorer 8, Chrome 6, Safari 5, Opera 10 and WebKit mobile). This prototype provides a simple mechanism to support paid apps and authentication features to allow apps to log users in upon launch.

The design proposed here provides the following capabilities and enables a new category of what we call “Open Web Apps” — apps that are truly of the Web.

Open Web Apps:

• Are built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
• Can be “installed” to a dashboard within your mobile or desktop Web browser, or to your native OS desktop or mobile home screen.
• Work in all modern Web browsers, while enabling each browser to compete on app presentation, organization and management user interfaces.
• Support paid apps by means of an authorization model that uses existing identity systems like OpenID.
• Support portable purchases: An app purchased for one browser works in other browsers, and across multiple desktop and mobile platforms without repurchase.
• Can request access to one or more advanced and/or privacy-sensitive capabilities that they would like access to (like geolocation) which the system will mediate, giving the user the ability to opt-in to them if desired.
• Can be distributed by developers directly to users without any gatekeeper, and distributed through multiple stores, allowing stores to compete on customer service, price, policies, app discoverability, ratings, reviews and other attributes.
• Can receive notifications from the cloud.
• Support deep search across apps: Apps can implement an interface that enables the app container (generally the Web browser) to provide the user with a cross-app search experience that links deeply into any app that can satisfy the search.

Check out this demo to see more about our Open Web App prototype:

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Please join us in exploring this Open Web App concept. Head over to the Mozilla Labs forum, leave a comment here and follow the Mozilla Labs blog for updates. As with everything Mozilla does, we’re developing this prototype and design for the public benefit in the open and we look forward to making this concept a reality.

Open Web App Ecosystem FAQ

| Comments (32)

This is a fascinating article and must read for all your web developers out there. True that other companies have implemented some of these ideas, but the key here is open. Yes, Apple's app store does this and with great success, but... APPLE OWNS AND CONTROLS IT.

Should be interesting to see where this goes, and hopefully more developers jump on the bandwagon instead of deciding its cooler to just make an iPhone app.

When I started Zoolu Web, I had to make a similar choice of what language would we use to build our platform.  Right before we started, Zoolu Web was actually going to consist of 3 developers and 1 graphic designer. We decided to go with Python for the reason explained in this article. However, when push came to shove, and by the time Zoolu Web got off the ground, the company consisted of little ole me.  Which really meant I had no time to waste learning a new language, so the choice seemed clear: PHP.

Looking back I would still choose PHP again, I mean hey, we finally got namespaces, but honestly the PHP community can be a bit frustrating. There are a lot of amazing people and developers out there, but with them comes an even larger pool of people who have no standards, no understanding of computer science, and quite frankly don't care. I can't tell you how many times I have purchased a few scripts only to find out it was a spaghetti's addict wet dream.  Like this article says, sometimes a choice of what language you choose can determine the type of programmers you attract. So although I would still choose PHP, especially for doing local sites and with simple easy to use cms's like Wordpress and Joomla!, I wonder, what would it have been like if I had gone with Python.

Anyway, check out this article for good write up on the subject.

What terrible business jargon do you need unsucked? Feeling douchey? Checkout this awesome site for some helpful translation that might just what need for that wonderful client meeting you have coming up :) Unsuck-It.com

wget http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-3.noarch.rpm
wget http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-5.rpm
rpm -Uvh remi-release-5*.rpm epel-release-5*.rpm

Been a todo of mine for awhile, so I figured what better to do on an early Saturday morning then install PHP 5.3 on my vm. The two most obvious features I'm excited to start playing around with are Namespaces and Closures.

That being the case, found this article, which made installation a breeze... so what are you waiting for...

UPDATE: Upgrade to 5.3 complete!  w00t!

This is a great presentation on usability and more importantly on getting users engaged and active on your site. The standard full page sign up form is a big turn off for users, not to mention the fact that your first impression with them is wasted on a bureaucratic/draconian form. Is this really how we want to start our relationship with them? Is this even necessary?

I know I have been trying to persuade my clients to ditch or at least minimize this obstacle for their users.

Sign Up Forms Must Die starts at around 24:15. Check it out .. great talk!

For all of you who don't know, there is a difference. I really don't mind being called a nerd... a dork on the other hand.. that I have a problem with.