I just had to cross post this. If for no other reason than to show off, gloat, or otherwise inflate my ego. That or just to prove how incredibly crazy the web really is. Small world, huh?
Archive for the 'Web Development' Category
Background
It is (about) day 2 of using ASP.NET and Visual Studio 2003 and I’ve finally managed to deploy an application to the new webserver. Basically all it does is read the iTunes text file output (File –> Export Song List… –> Text File) and outputs a DataGrid component with the artist, album, and song title with nice pagination. The nice thing is that the DataGrid handles the pagination and pretty much any operations with the data. I have to say, I really wrote this in about 2 hours in the wee hours of the night so if it breaks, let me know.
Why ASP.NET is unique…
There are so many people that have told me that ASP.NET and .NET in general is pretty much a waste of my time, but see, there are so many others who are using it and loving it. Here are a few reasons I personally see promise in the language(s).
- .NET keeps the code out of the interface using ‘Code Behind’ allowing your layout people to work on layout, and your coders to work on… code.
- .NET uses more than one language, but those languages can be used in both desktop and web based development. What this means is, an employer only has to hire one person and they could easily jump from web to desktop in hours instead of weeks.
- I can’t say just how much .NET WebForms really act like desktop applications. You can actually write subroutines that run on the webpage based on user actions. This is really unique, as at my work we usually have to shoehorn it by creating a new page or using a ton of javascript. .NET tries to take care of it for you and does a darn good job.
- Choices: You get a choice of VB.NET, J#, and C#. They all work pretty much the same with the .NET framework, but it really gives programmers the choice to specialize or just pick their favourite to work in. Personally, I like C# because it reminds me of Java and C mashed together, but these choices give developers with different backgrounds the ability to work together.
- Postbacks: .NET has a built in way of handling postbacks, you know, when there is an error or if you want to process data on the same page it is displayed, .NET can handle it for you.
- Source code safety: ASP.NET builds. It actually has to complie, which for some of us LAMP developers sounds like a royal pain, but really it keeps your source safe. Think about it, if you lose a client, or a client demands FTP access, they cannot access your source (at least not easily). It’s really a beautiful thing.
Hello World, for good measure…
I of course had to write a classic ‘Hello World’ in C# (desktop!) for good measure. It has a little more than a standard hello world, but I think it just shows how carried away I can get at 2am.
Well, that’s it for now. More when I finally write something useful!
I saw this amazing link on Digg today and thought I needed to make my stance on MySpace heard. MySpace.com is quite honestly the most rebellious and anarchistic social networking site I have ever seen. Users can pretty much do whatever they want to their profile, post what they want, and befriend who they want. All in all, this sounds like a wonderful Utopia of social goodness and web based interaction. The problem with all this freedom is that at some point that animated GIF background, your flash based video and music player (which autostarts no doubt) will make your content illegible and probably annoy any potential viewer. On top of the usual suspects, there is illiteracy. The article actually graphs the millions of grammatical and spelling errors that MySpace is chock full of and I must say, it is very, very scary.
Anyways, enough ranting. Enjoy the link.
Updated - February 20th, 2008
There is no readme file for my plugin, and for that I apologize. If you need further instructions, just drop me an email and I’ll do my best to lend a hand. Though, this plugin is quite out of date and I would heartily recommend using the sidebar widgets HTML plugin instead, as it does much of the same thing and is included with the new Wordpress distribution.
A few months ago the company I work for (cloudspace) built an awesome link tracking system called MyBlogLog. Ever since, I’ve been trying to use it with Wordpress. After upgrading to Wordpress 2.0, I decided it was time to integrate MyBlogLog into Wordpress without opening the template code. I spent about an hour or two learning the Wordpress plugin API and came up with the MyBlogLog Wordpress plugin. At the moment, it only integrates the actual link tracking code and the Top 5 Links script. The plugin allows you to enable or disable the Top 5 Links script and set its colors. The plugin hooks the main tracking script in just before the content of the site and the Top 5 Links code is inserted just after the Meta section of your template. As far as I know, there are no template specific issues thus far and everything should be working. I wrote this plugin for myself, but I figured others might find it useful as well so I am going ahead and releasing the plugin here.
Just a note to anyone reading Digg and anyone who has used the Vitaly Friedman Web Developer Handbook website. Some very unscrupulous guy in Romania has blatantly ripped the site off. The reason I am so upset is because, quite honestly, Vitaly’s site is the best collection of web developer links ever created. A cheap knockoff that gets dugg is just begging to be ripped apart. I will be adding this to the “users who blogged this” on digg, so hopefully the following link gets some traffic:
The original complaint: Dealing With Plagiarism Issues (Vitaly Friedman’s Blog)
The real site: The Web Developer’s Handbook
For some reason every Web 2.0 application I have ever used, and pretty much every web application period (that I’ve used) fails me on this one stickler that I have. Let me update my data in bulk. Spending hours tagging photos, bookmarks, and the like is not what I think of as convienient, ‘cool’, or fun. If I wanted to do that, I’d use paper and scribble every URL on a post-it note and throw it in a hat for tag-soup. Really, why add AJAX if I can’t add the same tag to many different items at once without going to another page? Why have a really nice fading modal box for deletion if it still refreshes the page (ma.gnolia)?
A lot of these applications are very sweet, money making ideas but frankly, until I can do everything with ease… I won’t use the application nearly as much. When I can right click a link in the browser, tag it, and send it on its way I will be a little happier. When I can tag a ton of items at once, and add/edit/delete them on the fly, I will be willing to pay for the service. Unless of course it costs more than a candybar a week, cause then I just can’t justify it… I’ll build it myself.
Just kidding, sometimes.
It has come across my mind today that many of us web-developers are starting to support the W3C web standards. Whether you picked the archaic HTML 4.01, or the XHTML 1.1 Transitional, or any other standard for that matter you have most likely noticed something very odd. No one cares. Time and time again I have to ask myself, why do I support standards when all people really want are flashy graphics and some text? What is wrong with forgetting to close a tag as long as I remember to post those awesome pictures of that thing, with the thing?
Well, obviously, my answer to this is completely and conclusively non-conclusive. I have friends who are just now learning about standards the hard way, via the validator. They’ve heard me whine to them that they need to start closing their br tags and inputs, and that they really should strive to get that mystical badge of honor, This document is valid (X)HTML! Wait, what now? I still haven’t even begun to beat around the issue at hand. Oh no, we’re not even close to that yet. So finally my friends have their page validating, and still using archaic tables for layouts. Do what? Tabular data? No, that is my layout. Now the funny thing is, you aren’t supposed to use tables for non-tabular data, right? Yeah, the validator could care less. As long as the block elements and inline elements all line up like ducks in a row, the validator puts its seal of approval on it. So tell me again, why do I need to validate my code?
I have heard so many people explain to me why keeping to the W3 web standards is a great idea. Heck, I’ve read articles about it trying to explain it to other people. The final point is, no one really cares. If the page loads up, and looks nice, very few will complain. Personally, I cringe everytime I see a br tag that isn’t closed, and I will certainly email a webmaster if there is a JavaScript error or if their site is not accessible (508), yet government funded. I am standards crazy, however, it doesn’t matter. So long as browsers render pages in quirks mode, no one shall care.
Don’t get me wrong, I think at some point standards will be so incredibly useful everyone will want to follow them. However, logistically speaking, it will not happen next year, or the year after, or the year after that… Until standards get to that point, I will probably have to use links (the browser) to weed through all the excess animated gifs, banner ads, and fluff. [I actually did this the other day because the cable company chopped our bandwidth... very, very interesting.]
So, in conclusion… If you want to spread standards, don’t tell people they should do it ’cause you said so. Tell them something off the wall, crazy, and outrageous. Tell them the sky will fall if they don’t close the holes in their code. Then tell them about proper document structure. Yes, the navigation really does need to have a textual element, so I can read it in links. That’s another rant though.
For your viewing pleasure:
- http://www.webstandards.org/
- A List Apart: Accessibility = Good for Search Engines
- A List Apart: Taming Lists (List based navigation)
I could probably add links and garbage to this all day, but I won’t. 
