Tiffany B. Brown » Web Development & Programming

Frameworks: Yay! Nay! How do you decide?

tiffany — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:00:24 +0000

Frameworks in web development have been the hotness for a few years now. But not everyone is “frameworks! yay!” A few high profile developers have questioned their use.

The goal of frameworks — be they server side, JavaScript-based, or CSS-based — is to decrease development time. With server-side frameworks, I also find that they force some organization and structure to my code that it might not otherwise have. But every framework has a learning curve.

They also come with a performance cost. More code means more processing time and/or effort, longer download times and — this is particularly important when talking about client-side code for mobile devices — more energy consumption.

There’s a trade off with frameworks, then, between development ease and optimized code.

I personally think CSS frameworks are overkill. Even using a reset style sheet is often more code than necessary. With JavaScript frameworks, my opinion is more balanced. JavaScript frameworks are wonderful for quickly creating animated effects. But if the task is just to toggle the visibility of an element or clear a search box, surely, custom code is the lighter weight option.

The one area where I am most in favor of using frameworks is application development. Applications have a lot of little pieces to worry about. I kind of like the reassurances that frameworks offer. That said, I agree with Rasmus Lerdorf that a good framework should be lightweight and speedy (his favorite, if you can call it that, is CodeIgniter).

But what about you? How do you decide whether to develop something yourself or use a framework / library? Do you prefer frameworks for developing server-side applications? What about for client-side development? When, where, and why do you use frameworks?

“Design Code” by the Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper)

tiffany — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:50:05 +0000

I am incredibly impressed with this dude’s ability to rhyme about web standards. Not that his rhyming skills are hot, mind you, but the subject matter isn’t exactly the stuff of legendary hip-hop.

Internet Explorer 8 round-up

tiffany — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:07:17 +0000

My take: On IE8: Pragmatic and practical, but I still don’t like it

UPDATES:

Microsoft versioning: accessibility implications: What Internet Explorer’s change means for accessibility.
Best Standards Support: Sam Ruby offers a server-side suggestion for handling IE8 content requests.
: Mike Davies argues that this should and perhaps could be the end of the line for Internet Explorer.
Microsoft᾿s “Super Standards” Mode: Important Facts: Jeff Schiller offers the clearest explanation I’ve seen about the changes coming with IE8.
Mistakes, Sadness, Regret: Ian Hickson on IE8, HTML5 and Microsoft.
Big Questions On IE8′s Big Progress: Alex Russell has some questions about how Microsoft will implement conflicts between meta tags.
Wisdom and folly: IE8′s super standards mode cuts both ways: Peter Bright over at Ars Technica gives a rundown of how this new ‘super-standards’ mode will work in IE8
Meta Madness: What seems to have slipped past the Microsoft Task Force of WaSP (or maybe it didn’t and they’re just playing coy) is that by implementing this specific feature in any other browser immediately either: A) Reduces its market size of viable web pages that will upgrade to new versions of the browser or B) Forces new versions of the browser to bloat, including backwards support for old-style rendering. – John Ressig
Bobbing Heads and the IE8 Meta Tag: Shelley Powers blasts this IE announcement.
In defense of version targeting: Jeffrey Zeldman says: When I look at the scenarios of who is likely to do what where web standards and version targeting are concerned, the IE7 default for those who don’t opt in appears to be the correct design decision.
Versioning, Compatibility and Standards: The WebKit team says it won’t be joining this tag march.
Opt-out version targeting is spam: If they’ve included a DOCTYPE, they’ve declared they want to render to standards. If they did that in ignorance, it’s time they started earning their money instead of letting Dreamweaver do their jobs. — Ben Buchanan

It started this morning with Aaron Gustafson’s article on A List Apart announcing a new method of versioning HTML documents in the forthcoming Internet Explorer 8. Reaction is coming in from around the web. A few notable posts are below. I’ll keep updating this post as I come across stuff.

Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8: Aaron Gustafson discusses Microsoft̵s latest effort to maintain web standards and also maintain backward compatibility.
Compatibility and IE8: Some background information relating to Microsoft’s decision.
Broken: Unless you explicitly declare that you want IE8 to behave as IE8, it will behave as IE7.Jeremy Keith
: Mozilla hacker Robert O’Callahan weighs in on why this is (almost certainly) a bad idea.
IE8 to include version targeting: Jonathan Snook likes the approach.
From Switches to Targets: A Standardista’s Journey: Eric Meyer argues that maybe version isn̵t such a bad thing.
Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8: Aaron Gustafson discusses Microsoft̵s latest effort to maintain web standards and also maintain backward compatibility.
The Internet Explorer lock-in: Anne van Kesteren is not a fan of this Microsoft initiative.

ies4linux: Now with Mac support!

tiffany — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 19:52:30 +0000

I’ve mentioned ies4Linux before, as well as a round-about way to get it running on your Mac OS X machine.

Well, first Mike Kronenberg cut out a few steps and released ies4osx. Then Sérgio Luís Lopes Júnior added those changes into the latest version of ies4linux.

This isn’t yet a one-step operation. You will still need to install Darwine first.

Aptana reaches 1.0, announces paid pro edition

tiffany — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:01:33 +0000

Aptana, one of my favorite open source text editors, has reached its 1.0 milestone, re-naming the product Aptana Studio (née Aptana IDE) and adding a supported, professional version for an introductory price of $99 (regular price $199).

What do you get in the pro edition that’s not available in the community version?

JSON support
Support for secure FTP connections (via SSH & SSL)
JavaScript debugging for Internet Explorer
Project reporting engine
Priority support for one year
Access to preview and nightly builds

Earlier, no-cost releases of Aptana supported SFTP server connections. I’m disappointed to see that change with the release of a professional version.

Aptana is, without question, one of the best front-end development environments available (I haven’t used its server-side language features much). At $99, it hits a sweet-spot between affordable text editors like Panic’s Coda (Mac only; currently $79; regularly $99), BBEdit (Mac-only; $125), or NoteTab (Window only; $29.95) and pricier editors such as Dreamweaver (Mac / Win; $399).

At its full $199 price, however, it becomes harder to justify its purchase. For $100 less, Coda gives you many of Aptana’s core features and adds some sexy bits (like a built-in shell emulator and CSS color picker) of its own. For $74 less, BBEdit gives you a wider range of language support and a deliciously uncluttered interface. Plus there are some powerful free text editors such as jEdit (Java-based; cross-platform) and HTML-Kit (Windows only) that are good enough for many developers.

What’s your take? Have you used Aptana? Would you consider a professional license? Are you too wedded to your current text editor to switch?

Related posts:

Validator S.A.C.: A stand-alone markup validator for Mac OS X

tiffany — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:13:21 +0000

Ever need to validate your HTML files without an Internet connection? Or maybe you just weren’t quite ready to upload your files to a server, but still wanted to check them. That’s where Validator S.A.C. comes in handy.

Validator S.A.C. is a Mac-only, stand-alone version of the W3C Markup Validator. With it, you can check the validity of HTML, XHTML, SMIL and MathML documents right from your desktop. Or you can run the validator as a web service on your Mac, which makes it available to other Macs on your network via Bonjour, and to other computers via IP. Plus you can run Validator S.A.C. from the disk image, or from a USB drive without installing.

The interface is nearly as easy to use as the online W3C validator. Enter a file’s location — either directly in the form field, or by selecting File > Open from the menu bar (or Command + O) — and click “Check” to validate — no Internet connection necessary.

JavaScript Holy War: What’s your favorite framework or toolkit?

tiffany — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 13:55:34 +0000

Digital Web has two articles that are related to this post. Check out Excerpt: Accelerated DOM Scripting with Ajax, APIs and Libraries and jQuery Crash Course

As the number of web-based applications grow, so do the number JavaScript frameworks and toolkits with the goal of making cross-browser development an easier process. But which to choose?

Well, that’s where you come in: what is your preferred JavaScript framework or toolkit? Have you tried more than one? What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of your choice framework or toolkit as compared to others? Or maybe you hate frameworks and toolkits altogether. Duke it out in the comments.

Some of the combatants in this holy war (for those new to JavaScript frameworks and toolkits) include:

I explicitly left two libraries off of the list: Moo.fx and Script.aculo.us because they both build on other frameworks (Mootools and Prototype, respectively).

There’s also some debate about the definition and use of the terms ‘framework,’ and ‘library’ (a working definition: Frameworks tend to control the way an applications is structured and manage them from the outside). I doubt very many folks can or care to parse those semantics, and I’m pretty sure I have rolled some libraries into my definition of framework. I ask your forgiveness in advance.

Elsewhere

Keep JavaScript Simple