18 Feb 2009, Google
Ajax Reloaded: Javascript Libraries Panel
presented by
Mountain View Javascript Meetup Group

There is a new way to find people who you share a common interest with, it is called “meetup.com.” This website is made for all sorts of sports, hobbies and professional interests, and is focussed around meeting face to face. This particular meeting was fabulous, as it gathered the top experts in the field for a panel discussion.

I teach a course called “Ajax”, my newest course at Foothill. This is a programming technique that allows software engineers to make websites that behave as though they were desktop applications. For example, Google makes a word processor that you run from their website through your browser. Most engineers use a toolkit to implement such websites, and there are a number of toolkits available with various features.

This panel included the people who had developed the leading toolkits themselves, so they could discuss the advantages of one over the others. The atmosphere of cooperation and sharing of information was fabulous, as these (competitors) seemed to be so happy to have each other!

Adam Moore – Yahoo UI
Dylan Schiemann – DOJO
Fred Sauer – Google Web Toolkit
Tom Occhino – MooTools
Yehuda Katz – JQuery

What I learned:
MooTools is used by FaceBook, and is the only toolkit that is meant to be standalone. The others all can be used together. Occhino described it as concise, elegant, idealistic.

Dojo is comprehensive and cutting edge. All panelists agreed that if some new feature appears implementable, Dojo will have that capability first.

They mentioned two other technologies for creating web apps: Flash from Adobe, which doesn’t work on iphone. Silverlight from Microsoft won’t work on older Macs. Panelists said that Flash and Silverlight are stop gap measures that assume the browser won’t improve in two years.

In fact there is a new standard HTML 5 coming out. I don’t know when the browsers will start supporting it, and what new features it will bring, but I have to look into it.

We were all very pleased to hear from the recruiters in attendance. Indeed, there are still companies hiring! One person sang the praises of a jobs website called simplyhired.com

Sometimes websites developed with Ajax have their content somewhat hidden so search engines have a hard time finding them. One of the panelists said that this problem is solved if you make your website accessible (to disabled people), and degradeable (for old browsers).

Things I need to study:
HTML 5
comet
sizzle
query selector engine
prototypical inheritance

Ajax Reloaded: Javascript Libraries Panel
18 Feb 2008, Google
presented by
Mountain View Javascript Meetup Group

http://javascript.meetup.com/9/calendar/9561899/

There is a new way to find people who you share a common interest with, it is called “meetup.com.” This website is made for all sorts of sports, hobbies and professional interests, and is focussed around meeting face to face. This particular meeting was fabulous, as it gathered the top experts in the field for a panel discussion.

I teach a course called “Ajax”, my newest course at Foothill. This is a programming technique that allows software engineers to make websites that behave as though they were desktop applications. For example, Google makes a word processor that you run from their website through your browser. Most engineers use a toolkit to implement such websites, and there are a number of toolkits available with various features.

This panel included the people who had developed the leading toolkits themselves, so they could discuss the advantages of one over the others. The atmosphere of cooperation and sharing of information was fabulous, as these (competitors) seemed to be so happy to have each other!

Adam Moore – Yahoo UI
Dylan Schiemann – DOJO
Fred Sauer – Google Web Toolkit
Tom Occhino – MooTools
Yehuda Katz – JQuery

What I learned:
MooTools is used by FaceBook, and is the only toolkit that is meant to be standalone. The others all can be used together. Occhino described it as concise, elegant, idealistic.

Dojo is comprehensive and cutting edge. All panelists agreed that if some new feature appears implementable, Dojo will have that capability first.

They mentioned two other technologies for creating web apps: Flash from Adobe, which doesn’t work on iphone. Silverlight from Microsoft won’t work on older Macs. Panelists said that Flash and Silverlight are stop gap measures that assume the browser won’t improve in two years.

In fact there is a new standard HTML 5 coming out. I don’t know when the browsers will start supporting it, and what new features it will bring, but I have to look into it.

We were all very pleased to hear from the recruiters in attendance. Indeed, there are still companies hiring! One person sang the praises of a jobs website called simplyhired.com

Sometimes websites developed with Ajax have their content somewhat hidden so search engines have a hard time finding them. One of the panelists said that this problem is solved if you make your website accessible (to disabled people), and degradeable (for old browsers).

Things I need to study:
HTML 5
comet
sizzle
query selector engine
prototypical inheritance