Welcome to the Web Conference, Version 2.0

Feb 13 22:36 UTC 2007

This is the Web Conference, 2nd Edition, where we discuss all things
related to the World Wide Web, such as the core web standards
including HTTP, HTML, CSS, XML, RDF as well as interesting newer
trends and technologies like AJAX, RSS, weblogs, microformats, tagging,
and wikis.

We're living in an exciting era of transition.  In the long-ago days
of the 1990s, the web was a mostly-read-only medium for publishing
documents.  This was Web 1.0.  But now we're more than halfway through
the first decade of the 21st century, and the web has become a
read-write, social medium that users are continuously shaping by
contributing searchable, linkable, and even re-usable data (think
weblogs, Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia, del.icio.us).  This is the era of
Web 2.0, in which the web is radically transforming the way people
acquire knowledge and interact with one another.  

We're here to discuss both the web phenomenon itself and its technical
underpinnings.  A new era merits a new conference.  We welcome both
technical items like "How do I do drop-down menus in JavaScript?" and
non-technical ones such as "Flickr is Cool! Discuss."  Do you have a
question about web technology, or news about some interesting web site
or web service that you'd like to share, or some web-related issue you
want to discuss?  Then by all means post an item here.

It's ironic that, to some extent, the web that has made one of the
original purposes of a conference like this -- to serve as a
repository of information, a place to look stuff up -- obsolete.  Do
you want to find out what PHP is all about?  You certainly don't come
here; you do a Wikipedia lookup, or type "php" or define:php or
php+tutorial into Google, or something like that.

But conferences, being vehicles for social interaction, provide value
that tutorials and search engines don't -- having conversations,
sharing insights and perspectives, directing people's attention to
places of interest.  This conference won't be an encyclopedia of the
web, but it's my hope that we can have some enlightening conversations
about the web here, and that these conversations will be useful to the
participants.

I suggest responding to this item by introducing yourself.  I'll
start.

response 2 of 19:

Feb 14 06:04 UTC 2007

I'm Dan Cross.  My training I'm a Mathematician, but I work as a software
engineer.  I once worked for a dot-com company, which built a social
networking site similar in nature to myspace (in fact, it was the grandaddy
of all such sites).  Today, I work at a company probably everyone here uses
on a daily basis without even thinking about.  In neither of these jobs have
I ever worked hands-on with the user-interface code (e.g., HTML or any of
the other canonical `web technologies'), but I have a feeling for them
regardless.

response 4 of 19:

Feb 19 13:40 UTC 2007

I'm Colleen.  I've had varied interests and occupations.  Right now I'm
volunteering at Menlo Innovations, which is an agile programming software
company that rights user-driven software and uses automated unit testing to
make weekly releases of useable, upgraded software to clients.  

I'm also a beginning scripter on Second Life, which uses its own scripting
language (based on C++) to create some amazing 3D objects and effects.

response 6 of 19:

Feb 19 19:16 UTC 2007

User-driven software is software that is designed by people who specify
functional requirements, not by people who write code.  The developers do not
get to add any elements to the code that are not explicitly requested, and
the developers do not get to say "C++ can't do that" when what they really
mean is it isn't easy to do that in C++.  

Paying clients are not necessarily the main user, so they have to agree to
let the main user's workstyle and need be the user interface.  Fancy bells
and whistles that are easy to add and give power user functionality are kept
out of the main screen of the software.

It is a way of focusing design so that it is intuitive.  It is not a software
point of view, but a design point of view.  One of the best books I know that
makes the point is "The Design of Everyday Things".

response 8 of 19:

Mar 23 05:03 UTC 2007

Hi John

response 10 of 19:

Mar 24 02:41 UTC 2007

I'm a software developer (java/jsp) for a number of major websites and
currently leading a research team in mobile technology.  I'll try to be
understandable.

response 12 of 19:

Sep 26 23:27 UTC 2008

Good!  I'm glad to hear that we have some really web savvy folks showing up
now.  This will make things more interesting.

response 14 of 19:

Sep 28 21:26 UTC 2008

If I may quote myself from item #6 of the Web Conference...

Dreamweaver is the only real choice for sophisticated web design. I use 
it for both ASP and PHP dynamic pages. It really simplifies - rather 
facilitates - the incorporation of Access Database (ASP) and MySQL 
(PHP). While it is not fool proof it is certainly powerfull.

I have also found Cute HTML a fantastic code source editor. It offers 
syntax checking and code optimization (Two utilities I would feel lost 
without.) 

In the LINUX platform I would strongly recommend Quanta+. It offers bou-
coup features and is user friendly. The site management features alone 
make it worth adding to the arsenal.

For Text editing I say notepad is handy mainly for holding code 
snippets (as a side-kick) but get yourself a free copy of JSoft's 
EditPadPro. You get tabbed pages and syntax coloring. And a very slick 
find and replace that can work for all open pages (so handy.)

The one bit of software I would be totally lost without is On-Target 
Software's Technical Editor 2.65 C.1993. It is a DOS mode ascii editor 
with block editing mode that has saved literally hundreds of 
programming hours. Every computer I have ever had gets this little 
jewel as program one after the OS. Everyone has their own favorite 
simple text editor but I tell you, if you cannot BLOCK edit you do not 
know what you are missing. TE 2.65 is very hard to get hold of these 
days that is why almost every backup disk I ever make contains this APP.

If anyone knows of an HTML editor that does a decent job of CSS I would 
love to hear about it. Dreamweaver obviously tries it's heart out, but 
to develop standards based pages is a bear! (thank you firefox!) 

response 16 of 19:

Sep 29 13:22 UTC 2008

Perhaps one of the toughest things for the nOOb designer to wrap their 
head around is that 'what you see' can never be expected to be 'what 
the other guy sees'. The best you can do is make sure the information 
(content) that you are trying to deliver is made available to all who 
come looking for it. 

When I design a page I like to view it in several browsers. I use IE6 
as primary testing browser (thinking that most visitors will be on IE - 
true according to webstats.) Secondly I will check on Linux driven 
FireFox5 (to point out all the holes in CSS - IE being very forgiving 
of CSS errors.) One of the features I like about FireFox is the ability 
to completely turn off the stylesheet so I will view the page style 
free. I will then visit the page on LYNX for the ultimate test of 
accessability. I figure if LYNX can do it then it's probably good for 
most mobiles/palm pilots etc.

Then I will try every browser I come across from windows3.11 html 
renderers to PSP2 video game. The thing I have come to relize is that 
to depend on Flash effects and JAVA trickery is to to exclude a certian 
segment of the websurfing public. That's not to say that I don't 
utilize these valuable tools, but never on the front door and only when 
html can't deliver the product.

Back in the early '90s I was 'bent on text'. I was a strict LYNX surfer 
and would resist the graphics browsers at every turn. Mostly I stuck 
with LYNX because I was usually using a 1200baud dial-up connection to 
the local library "Call-A-Cat" and would worm my way to a remote 
library that offered LYNX browsing (usually Arizona or Tennessee) so I 
was able to explore the internet for free. Using this approach lead to 
a 'following the path of least resistance' attitude to surfing the net 
that carries over to my attitude in web designing. 

I guess you can see how it is that I have come to keep a weather eye on 
good ol' GREX here. ;)

response 18 of 19:

Sep 30 18:00 UTC 2008

CSS is no doubt the way to go in web design for a whole host of 
reasons. The keyword is XML. XML (or extensable markup language) is 
poised to be the backbone of digital communications. At least XML is 
the key to cross platform compatability and diverse content delivery 
systems now and into the future. Adopting a 'standards based' aproach 
to web design helps to 'future proof' your web pages and sites. 

The beauty of Cascading Style Sheets is all your styling and layout 
information is carried 'outboard' of your all-important content. This 
way if the browser of the future does some really wierd things to the 
design of your site you can write a browser specific stylesheet to 
accomodate 'who-knows-what' and by testing for browser type you can 
custom deliver said CSS. Your content can then be routed to whoever 
needs/wants it; Firefox here, screen reader there, cellphone over 
younder, Morse code generater or jumbo-tron just beyond that hill - 
nobody knows.

The power behind XML - the way I view it - is:
combine two of the most basic elements of the computer. 

1. ASCII text delivered in 
2. hierarchally organized format.

You pass it on or you take it in... what the other guy does with it is 
pretty much up to him. Of course this assumes that what you are 
delivering is information in the form of words - but remember those 
words could also be computer language in search of processing.

ANYWAY...  as for RTFM... There is a book that really opened my eyes to 
this whole 'standards based' XML way of looking at the web. I strongly 
recommend, Jeffery Zeldman's - "Designing With Web Standards". I found 
it at the library but I'm sure it is worth whatever price Amazon has 
for it. Once you start utilizing the stuff he's talking about you will 
look back on your past web designing efforts and most likely feel silly.

Don't get me wrong, standards based design (XHTML strict) is not for 
the faint of heart, but starting down that road by learning the power 
and beauty of CSS is sure to reward you in ways you have yet to 
conceive.