WHAT WILL WEB DEVELOPMENT LOOK LIKE IN 5 YEARS
Developing applications for the web has changed significantly over the last 5 years. Since 2005 the term AJAX has been coined, Ruby on Rails is now an open source web application framework, jQuery was created and has subsequently revolutionized JavaScript development, and now HTML5 is the top buzzword of the day. I believe the next 5 years will hold just as many improvements for web developers. I foresee a new framework will be created to make developing fully interactive AJAX applications as easy as it is to write current MVC applications. Current frameworks like Ruby on Rails and Symfony provide everything you need to develop a modern application without having to build plumbing infrastructure; however, they do not provide nice components for interactive applications. In addition to a robust server core, this new framework will have a client side JavaScript component that simplifies the process of building interactive web 2.0 applications. Some critical components would be:
BASH BASICS
Bash is a shell scripting language included on most Linux and Mac computers. It’s useful for writing small scripts that don’t require another software language to be installed and are immediately portable. Good places to use bash scripts are when you want to write a cronjob, backup some files, or run an update task. Here are the basics to get you started. Start your script with She-Bang header: #!/bin/bash Variables are assigned by a key-value pairing:
HTTP HEADER TO FORCE BROWSER DOWNLOAD
A content disposition header can be used to tell web browsers to ask the user where they want to save the file (and download it) instead of actually opening the file in a browser tab/window. Very handy if you want to have a download button. Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="filename.mp3" Tested in: Firefox, Safari, IE, Opera, and Google Chrome
PHP SESSION SHARING AMONG SUBDOMAINS
PHP supports sharing sessions among subdomains which can be very useful for sharing cookies and sessions among multiple web applications. I wanted my users to remain logged in while navigating from www.example.com to site1.example.com. By default PHP will treat these domains as two separate sites and users would have to login to each subdomain. All you have to do is to either set the following setting in your php.ini file:
VALIDATING A FACEBOOK SESSION WITHIN AN IFRAME
Facebook takes security seriously and there are many many things a Facebook app cannot do. Sometimes it is necessary to create an iFrame and load the page in to work around Facebook’s security model. This example shows how you can continue to use the $facebook->require_login() method while you are inside an iFrame. Each Facebook request to your application contains a number of parameters that you can use to authenticate if the request really came from Facebook and if the user is actually logged in. These parameters looks like this:
BUILDING FOR MOBILE WITH DEVICE ORIENTATION
Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and Firefox for Mobile 1.0 (Fennec) both have support for modifying a web applications look based on screen dimensions and current orientation. These abilities give web developers the power to build better web applications for mobile devices and the ability to optimize the browsing experience when screen space is constrained. CSS Orientation Properties Web applications look and feel is defined by a CSS file, so therefore the Firefox developers made it super easy to tie current orientation and screen dimensions into which CSS file to load.
THE COST OF ENDORSING H.264
As you’ve probably heard, both YouTube and Vimeo have released beta support to their massively popular websites to play videos using the HTML5 video tag instead of Flash. While I am glad the video sites are finally switching to the native HTML video tag, I am perplexed why they have gone with the non-free option. Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, and soon Opera all support the HTML5 video tag with the ability to play Ogg Theora encoded videos (except Safari). On the other hand, H.264 is only supported by Google Chrome and Safari. Both of these formats do the same thing, they specify a compression standard that allows for efficient playback at relatively small file sizes. There are a number of technical differences, but generally, they preform relatively the same. The big difference between the two is that Ogg Theora is royalty free and available for anybody to use, while H.264 is encumbered by patents held by the MPEG LA association. This same organization will charge anybody who uses it a hefty royalty fee starting in 2011.
FACEBOOK VS YOU!
Have you had the… how should I describe it… experience of writing a Facebook application? No? OK, here’s an introduction to what you can expect. When developing an application you must learn Rule #1 Facebook is the gatekeeper. Everything you do, be it HTML, CSS or JavaScript, is restricted by Facebook. Only the commands, functions, CSS properties, HTML tags etc. that Facebook allows are permissible. If you have an error in your HTML such as an unclosed tag or if you try to use a CSS property that does not exist, Facebook will render a very nice message saying you made an error.
UPCOMINGHOLIDAY.COM NOW WITH GEOLOCATION
UpcomingHoliday.com has been updated and now includes geolocation support. If your browser supports it your country should automatically find and select your country. If not, it will fall back to IP based country lookup. Geolocation is a HTML 5 feature that is supported by Safari on the iPhone 3.0 OS, Firefox 3.5 and Google Chrome. UpcomingHoliday.com is an application that tells you what and when your next federal holiday is. Currently it’s available for people in: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Nigeria, United Kingdom and United States.
QUALITY SOFTWARE @ THIRDI
I work at Thirdi Software, and one of the initiatives I started was a Quality Software @ Thirdi email newsletter and series of blog posts highlighting quality solutions to software problems. It’s mostly targeted at developers but there’s also some insights to be had for the quality assurance team and for project managers. The posts were originally posted on the company blog and reproduced here for archival purposes. They touch on a lot of basic information for software developers including software design, upcoming technologies and useful tips to make your life easier.