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Changing times for web developers

amazedsaint.com

131–140 of 147 posts

Re: Changing times for web developers

#131
post #111

This is against the grain, but it is obvious to me that the way forward for web development is to rise above Javascript and simple DOM mangling, which is what most of these popular tools assist with. Javascript does not scale complexity and manipulating DOM elements directly is both error-prone and a lousy programming paradigm. We need something in between that offers a sane development model and deals with the compl…

The DOM is indeed too low-level. We need higher-level components, and the ability to develop custom components. We also need a way to firewall segments of a page, so we can reason about it at a higher level of abstraction. This technology is coming, it's called shadow dom ( http://glazkov.com/2011/01/14/what-the-heck-is-shadow-dom/ ). I've been developing a 100.000 line single page javascript app for the past few yea…

Have you tried using the Dojo/Dijit Framework at all? I have been using it for medium to large sized web applications recently. I break pages and components into dijit widgets and everything becomes separated very nicely. It has a similar declarative markup to the link you posted.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#132
post #127
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

does make sense for a website , doesnt make sense for a web app.

Why not? Should web apps require javascript? Shouldn't the be usable even when javascript is unavailable.

only if the cost of supporting is less than the benefit, which for a lot of sites it probably isn't. The people who turn off javascript are in the extreme minority

Re: Changing times for web developers

#133
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> GWT is essentially depricated and really not the right direction to go. Where does it say that on the GWT site? https://developers.google.com/web-toolkit/

At this years Google IO they hinted that GWT is going to be ported to Dart. How that will change GWT's future is anyone's guess.

http://www.dartlang.org/support/faq.html#future-for-GWT

"Dart and GWT both share the goal of enabling structured web programming. In fact, many of the same engineers who brought you GWT are working on Dart. We view Dart as an ambitious evolution of GWT's mission to make web apps better for end users, and we're optimistic about its potential. As Dart evolves and becomes ready for prime time, we anticipate working closely with the GWT developer community to explore Dart."

"Meanwhile, rest assured that GWT will continue to be a productive and reliable way to build the most ambitious web apps—and even games like Angry Birds. Key projects within Google rely on GWT every day, and we plan to continue improving (and open-sourcing) GWT based on their real-world needs."

I personally don't care what it's called, or even the language, as long as it builds on the strong foundation that has been laid with GWT.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#135
post #11

I'm always amazed to see how people who give advice (and good ones in this case) are totally unable to follow them on their websites. 296 http requests. 1.85mb transfered. Yslow grade D. So yeah, these are good advices. In fact, the OP should follow 'em if he wants to "survive".

He disclaims against that in the end. He lol'ed, even.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#136
Seems like the JavaScript has become the glue to hold everything together now. I took a look at TodoMVC and I was a bit frustrated. I don't believe MVC has to be this cumbersome. Chaining callbacks, spaghetti inheritance; certainly better than a Jquery DOM mess but I wish there was something a little more straight forward.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#137
post #28
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "HTML5: Most of the web doesn't have support for it yet." Say what? You probably meant to say "most of the internet explorer installed base doesn't have support for it" which is a far, far cry from "most of the web".

No, what he said was correct. Even my beloved chrome does not have 100% compliance. Now combine the incomplete implementations, coupled with the rate of browser adoption, HTML5 simply isn't ubiquitous for a number of years. So you will be looking at polyfills and excanvas scripts for the foreseeable future. What he could have said was 100% of the web does not have 100% support for HTML5.

And when "HTML5" (whatever that means anymore) finally is ubiquitous it'll be the old tired standard and everyone will be dying for the day they can finally use all that hot new stuff in the next version.

Thus is the nature of any technology whose design is controlled largely by a committee of companies who are each other's top competitors.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#138

"Changing times"? What exactly is he talking about? Many of the things he mentioned have been pretty standard, even among the least-knowledgeable web developers, for years now. jQuery has had pretty significant traction for 4 or so years now. Crockford's work is extremely well-know, as well, and has been for some time now. Minifying JavaScript and CSS files isn't new, nor are REST and HTML5. The times did change, but…

> jQuery has had pretty significant traction for 4 or so years now. One could probably assume you already know it. Right? =) > Minifying JavaScript and CSS files isn't new, nor are REST and HTML5. Being new and being widely practiced are two different things. Also, REST is something people still struggle with today, because they assumed they knew it because it's deceptively easy. And HTML5? Really? It takes just 10 s…

>One could probably assume you already know it. Right? =)

There are actually web developers who don't know jQuery?

Re: Changing times for web developers

#139
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this years Google IO they hinted that GWT is going to be ported to Dart. How that will change GWT's future is anyone's guess.

http://www.dartlang.org/support/faq.html#future-for-GWT "Dart and GWT both share the goal of enabling structured web programming. In fact, many of the same engineers who brought you GWT are working on Dart. We view Dart as an ambitious evolution of GWT's mission to make web apps better for end users, and we're optimistic about its potential. As Dart evolves and becomes ready for prime time, we anticipate working clos…

Ok thanks, so Google wants us to use their browser, their OS (Chromebook) their systems language Go, their web language Dart, I'm not sure where this is headed. An old expression about putting all ones eggs in one basket comes to mind.

Re: Changing times for web developers

#140
post #111

This is against the grain, but it is obvious to me that the way forward for web development is to rise above Javascript and simple DOM mangling, which is what most of these popular tools assist with. Javascript does not scale complexity and manipulating DOM elements directly is both error-prone and a lousy programming paradigm. We need something in between that offers a sane development model and deals with the compl…

The DOM is indeed too low-level. We need higher-level components, and the ability to develop custom components. We also need a way to firewall segments of a page, so we can reason about it at a higher level of abstraction. This technology is coming, it's called shadow dom ( http://glazkov.com/2011/01/14/what-the-heck-is-shadow-dom/ ). I've been developing a 100.000 line single page javascript app for the past few yea…

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