Since one of the stated aims of this blog, is my desire to learn javascript, this post talks about javascript standards and the google web toolkit…

On bioscreencast, Suresh , our lone web ranger , using the amazing yui library, his web design  skills and tech wizardry, designed the site first beta site to play well on firefox and safari . Both these browsers are  closer to the ECMAscript standards than something like Internet Explorer (IE). Consequently our site initilly worked on firefox and safari.

Like most javascript centric UI’s , the site had to face up to the real problems associated with javascript i.e browser personalities . Javascript is famous for how it behaves somewhat differently depending on whether you are using a browser like Internet Explorer or something like Firefox and safari. The ECMA standard was a move to get people to agree on what is “javascript”. Despite the existence of this standard , its interesting that even two standards compliant browsers …dont necessarily treat your website code exactly the same way!. Which makes navigating the javascript jungle a crazy proposition.

This diversity , provided the justification for things like the google web toolkit. How the GWT works is simple, you code in Java ..the program sits on the server..and when the browser requests a particular URL , the gwt java app generates the javascript depending on the browser..so IE gets IE centric javascript code , firefox,  javascript that suites its palate etc etc…. SO for people who want the “AJAXy” sexiness that goes with javascript..you could just stick to java and still harness the dynamic characteristics of javascript.

So , to summarize, coding in javascript necessitates the ability to deal with many of its dialects..or throwing all that out and adopting the java Google web toolkit.

In any case..it turns out, with a few very minor tweaks to the javascript code , bioscreencast.com now plays very well with all browsers especially IE 6 and IE7.

Based on the feedback we have got from many people and from our analytics..it is amazing how many people are still using Internet explorer 5 and 6, and its good to know that our website now welcomes most browsers…

The entire site was coded into life by one person, our head web geek and javascript junkie, Suresh.

As a wannabe coder, I came away amazed at the sheer power of the many open source libraries out there, the robustness of mysql databases, the sheer elegance of css..the swiss army knife like ffmpeg , the clumsiness of php, the list goes on. What made the whole process doubly enjoyable was that all five of us are relative web newbies.. and learning how these things work along the way was a lot of fun.

Watching Suresh work his web magic has made me want to learn more of the six technologies I want to master, and I have also added a few more to the list( more on this in future posts)

Just thought Id give my plug for Bioscreencast.com. I hope the life scientists out there ,  like the site,  and all of you will keep your feedback coming.

Links:

The Bioscreencast website

The Bioscreencast Blog

One of our co-conspirator Deepaks intro post

The entire site was coded and crafted by one person, our head geek Suresh .

The reasons for these will hopefully emerge as I begin posting. But I will try and spell them out here

Java :I like java for two reasons , its one of the most widely used languages in the enterprise space and the second and very important reason are the Java IDEs. Both java IDEs I use namely Eclipse and Netbeans are Free and amazingly featured. Code prompting available in both IDEs make mastering an API a lot easier than learning the same functionality using other languages or platforms. Also, I love Javadoc !. It really makes picking up new APIs a little easier

Python : My first crack at automating anything came with Perl scripting. I will not lie if I say that If I have to do anything today I will first use Perl. But after several year of Perl use I found I was re-using very little code. I have to get more object oriented in the way I code, and since I never quite got a hang of Perl objects , and its namespace conventions!. Python which is at its heart a purely object oriented scripting language with libraries that easily rival Java was a natural scripting alternative.Learning Python I hope will teach me how to script smart objects that will beg to be reused.

Javascript : This is a surprising bedfellow to my codeitch. I want to learn javascript simply because it is becoming very fashionable. Google Maps and gmail have AJAX at their core and Javascript is the J in AJAX. Plus I have always fancied having a web frontend to everything I do and I am sure Javascript will beg to be used when that happens.

The above are the three languages I want to master.

Apart from these there are two platforms that I want to get comfortable with and they are

Excel : Everyone in the business world uses Excel. Spreadsheets were the PCs killer App and Excel is in my mind microsofts great product. I have seen the amazing things ou can do in Excel without writing a single line of code, and I want to learn to use its power.

Matlab: This platform from Mathworks is the bread and butter of engineering computation. I am anything but an engineer but have seen matlabs power when it comes to simulations. A lot of the very academic questions that I have in my research can really benefit from learning the Matlab platform and no I am not fully convinced on why exactly I need to use Matlab, maybe I will find a more concrete reason.

refs: My tumblr feed