Hello Google DocType, Goodbye WebDevout

Poor WebDevout. All that time and effort into resource sites like that and Google comes along with Google Doctype - with an aim to be the definitive, community-driven source for all documentation about the open web development. As long as the "open web" doesn't include things like XHTML or SVG or SMIL, that is. Oh, and as long as you don't care about the Opera web browser.

It will be interesting to see how the web development community at large reacts to this - I'm guessing mostly positive (as opposed to the backlash I saw regarding Google Knol). I like the test-driven aspect, but since all the pages are text/html, this makes it problematic for some of the technologies that I care about. It will be interesting to see how the project evolves over time as more technologies graduate and make it into Google's view of the 'open web' stack (perhaps when those technologies shed some Draconian pounds). For now, I'll just hope that SVG makes its way back into HTML5...

Anyway, congratulations to Mark Pilgrim for giving it its legs and pushing it out the door.

§460 · May 14, 2008 · Google, Software, Technology, Web · 2 comments · Tags: ,

Linking To An Arbitrary Section Of A Web Page

Today I wanted to send a link to a specific location in this web page. If you're curious, go to the link and search in the page for "square bracket notation". Unfortunately, the web page does not identify that section in the source. Is there any way to do this with today's modern browsers (Firefox, Opera, Safari)?

What I'm looking for is something like SVG Fragment Identifiers where you can use XPointer syntax in the URL to navigate to a specific section of a document. Before I spend time learning XPointer syntax, can anyone tell me if any HTML browsers support it as fragments in the URLs?

Another option is to link to a cached page from a specific Google Search, but it still requires the user to scroll down to the highlighted section. It's a shame that Google doesn't insert specific anchors into the web page for this very purpose. It might make some web authors angry that Google mucks about with their source, but this is a case where I don't mind - authors should learn to properly identify portions of their documents. This becomes increasingly important for mobile devices with those smaller screens.

§397 · October 9, 2007 · Google, Questions, Software, Technology, Web · 1 comment ·

Feed Sweep

To supplement all the iPhone buzz, I thought I'd throw up a few totally unrelated links/stories I found in my feed aggregator to make you a well-rounded geek. Read the rest of this entry ...

§384 · June 29, 2007 · C++, Google, Microsoft, QuickLinks, Software, Technology, Web · Comments Off on Feed Sweep ·

Lots More SVG From Google and … Blobs!

Here's a mess of notes from the World Of SVG that you might find exciting (I certainly did!) Read the rest of this entry ...

§359 · April 18, 2007 · Google, QuickLinks, Software, SVG, Technology, Web · 2 comments ·

Let the Web Hacker Wars Begin

The Next Big Thing from Laszlo, OpenLaszlo 4 (OL4) codenamed "Legals", is nearing completion and we should see a first Beta in January. This is the release of OpenLaszlo that will be able to compile to more than one runtime, allowing web developers to target either Flash or DHTML. In future versions of OL we might see more runtimes added to support Microsoft's WPF/E and W3's SVG and SMIL.

It will be interesting to see how web development will change in the coming year, as DHTML toolkits like Dojo, YUI, MochiKit, Google Web Toolkit, Microsoft Atlas continue to mature, Adobe's Flex 2 continues making inroads and Microsoft's WPF/E deployment gets underway in earnest. Meanwhile, the venerable Java Platform is still evolving, parts of it now open source and Jave SE 6 recently becoming available.

All of these are signs that seasoned web developers are finally ready to move up the tool-chain stack away from the simple text editor. I think key things to look for in differentiation between the various frameworks are:

  • Tool Support: What kind of developer tools are out there to support development in your framework/language(s) of choice? From what I understand, Adobe has always been good with developer tools. On the Java side, there's NetBeans. On the DHTML side, there's Eclipse's wtp. Maybe it's time I looked into IDEforLaszlo in the New Year. Do your tools allow you to quickly and easily test and debug your code?
  • Community Involvement: Not necessarily just an open source community, but a vibrant one with lots of energy and open participation. Of course, a transparent development process will help here.
  • Cross-Platform Support: You need to support all of the "high tier" browsers like Firefox, Opera and Safari and you need to support multiple operating systems equally. People are passionate about their browsers and operating systems. Projects need to be careful not to lose the next hot web developer to a more compatible framework.
  • Ease of Deployment: How easy is it to change one line of code and deploy that change? That was always one of the beauties of the early days of the web - simply update your HTML file and save it on the server
  • Beware Of Vendor Lock-In: This is going to sound very anti-corporate, but the truth is that when one company controls the toolkits and the standards, there is always the potential for that project to be shelved or neglected or dropped in favour of new ventures. This ends up taking its toll on the web developer. With open standards and open source toolkits, developers can shield themselves from the whims of corporations.

Needless to say, competition will engender a very exciting year, with the winners being the web community as projects vie for the hearts of hackers everywhere, sparking further innovation. I hereby dub 2007 as the year of the "Web Hacker Wars" - let the battle begin!


§321 · December 19, 2006 · Adobe, Ajax, Google, JavaScript, Laszlo, Microsoft, RIA, Software, SVG, Technology, Web · Comments Off on Let the Web Hacker Wars Begin ·

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