Greetings WOW members and Web professionals everywhere. Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute.
Today?’s podcast is a continuation of the media coverage of the Web Design World Conference that took place in Seattle, WA last week.
For today?’s podcast, I had the pleasure to interview Joe Marini, Director Development Tools Ecosystem at Microsoft regarding his sessions entitled: “Compatibility in the Brave New World and Effective JavaScript Programming.” Joe?’s a veteran Web professional with extensive experience dating back over 15 years where he served as one of the original team members of the Dreamweaver engineering team at Macromedia. He?’s also a terrific public speaker, an easy going guy and is an author of a best selling book entitled “The Document Object Model” published by McGraw Hill.
Check out the four minute interview on today’s WOW Technology Minute website.
Also, here are a few of my notes from his session, “Compatibility in a Brave New World.”
•A BIG question often asked by Web Pro?’s, is “How do I make my pages and scripts compatible across all browsers and “What about the portable devices?”
•From an historical context, this is not a new problem. In the 80?’s we had several dozen competing personal computer makers, each with its own operating system
•In the 90?’s we experienced consolidation around several major operating systems
•In the years of 2,000S, several dozen competing mobile devices debut with their own versions
•Roll the clock to today and consolidation around several major mobile operating system
•Tomorrow we will experience intelligent device manufactures with their own embedded operating system
In summary, Joe points out the following:
•Compatibility is a subject that spans a lot more than just browsers and versions
•The problem has been around since the dawn of technology and will always be with us
•Standards don?’t solve the problems by themselves
•There are multiple ways to approach the problem across the Web tiers, most are not mutually exclusive
•Understand the audience, the requirements and the trade-offs
Joe?’s list of recommended resources:
•Wikipedia Comparison of JavaScript Frameworks
•Dojo Frameworks: http://dojotoolkit.org
•Yahoo UI: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui
•http://script.aculo.us
•http://wurfl.sourceforge.net/index.php
From his session on Effective JavaScript Programming:
The need for effective JavaScript includes:
•JavaScript has evolved and grown
•From simple interactivity to full-featured language
•The types of scripts written have also flourished
•Now full two-way server connectivity with Ajax, complex interactivity on the screen, full access to page content via the DOM
•With these changes, script developers have more opportunity than ever
Today s podcast is sponsored by the Webmaster Survival Guide. Check out all of the great resources and links on the Webmaster Survival Guide website.
Transcript of Web Compatibility JavaScript Interview Joe Marini
BILL CULLIFER: Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute, here at Web Design World Seattle. I have the pleasure to be interviewing Joe Marini, Director of Development Tools Ecosystems at Microsoft. Joe, good morning and thanks for agreeing to this interview.
JOE MARINI: Oh yes, no problem. Thanks for having me.
BILL: Joe, you presented yesterday and later on today on a couple of topics that I have an extreme interest in. And one is on “Compatibility in the Brave New World.” And then the second one you talked a little bit more in depth, technically, about JavaScript. Can you, for the subscribers of this podcast, give us a summary on the “Compatibility in the Brave New World” and what that session was all about?
JOE: Sure. When you?’re looking at what compatibility means today I think a lot of people have a [phone rings], excuse me one second–
BILL: No, it?’s all good. It?’s Joe, catching a phone live. [laughter] Gotta love it.
JOE: Compatibility today, I think a lot of people misunderstand what it means fundamentally. They go with a preconceived notion, basically, I take a Web page, I run it through a Web server, the Web page comes out the other side, it looks great in all the browsers, right? That?’s what most people, I think, in the Web space describe as compatibility. What they don?’t realize is that compatibility expands in many more dimensions than that, right? What is that Web browser running on? Is it running on a desktop PC or is it running on something like this? Is it running on, in the future smart devices like maybe a car or a refrigerator? On top of that throw in all the Web 2.0 APIs that are being produced. All of these add dimensions to compatibility. And it?’s really more a way of living, it?’s a way of designing your Web applications upfront so that as these changes come along you haven?’t made any preconceived notions about what your content is going to be viewed on, whether it?’s going to be a desktop PC, or mobile device or whatever. That?’s really the message about compatibility, trying to deliver your message. Think ahead so that when new technologies come along, new platforms come along, you plan for that and you can move your content readily to those new platforms.
BILL: Yeah, very good point. I appreciate that. So the second session, the JavaScript session, that you?’re presenting today, can you talk to a little about the intended audience of that and what exactly, at the end of the day, are you trying to accomplish with that session?
JOE: You know, if you look at where JavaScript was ten years ago and you look at where it is today, it?’s almost ninety degrees. Ten years ago how was JavaScript being used? It was being used for roll-over buttons, it was being used for simple form validation. Today you?’ve got AJAX in the mix, right? You?’ve got all these complex interactions going on on screen, drag and drop interfaces and really complex user interfaces. So JavaScript itself has evolved over time to enable more and more powerful experiences on the Web. At the same time though, a lot of people who may have learned JavaScript in the early years didn?’t really have a technical background. They put in snippets of code here and there and they hacked it together to make it work. So what I?’m trying to do with this session today is to really take a step back and illustrate some important concepts you need to know about programming in general, from a designer?’s point of view, about how to get the most performance out of JavaScript, right ways and wrong ways to do things, just general concepts that you need to understand in order to build these more complex applications.
BILL: Yeah, fair enough. And I appreciate this is a Web design centric conference so you?’re presenting technical concepts to some artistic designers that may not…I mean, you obviously see a connection, right, between–
JOE: There?’s going to be people who are very design centric and don?’t do a whole lot of coding. There will be people who do both design and coding. There will be people who are maybe more code centric than design centric. But anyone along that spectrum, at some point, if you?’re going to be doing complex Web design, at some point you?’re going to have to have some kind of interactivity, right? That means doing some type of Java coding. And even if you don?’t do a whole lot of coding, chances are you?’re working with a developer who is. You may have to make some changes to the person?’s code, you may have to read it to see what?’s going on, you may have to make some suggested changes. It?’s important to know what?’s going on under the hood so you can have that intelligent conversation.
BILL: Very well said. I couldn?’t have said that better. Excellent point. Thank you so much for your insight and for your effort here at the conference. Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) with the Web Design conference, Web Design World, with Joe Marini. And he?’s from Microsoft and we thank you so much for your time.
JOE: Thank you.
ANNOUNCER: Today?’s minute is sponsored by the Webmaster?’s Survival Guide. When you need professional resources be sure to check out webmastersurvivalguide.com. There?’s something there for all skill levels and disciplines. And be sure to ask about advertising opportunities with this PR6 website from the World Organization of Webmasters.