The final word
It has been an interesting adventure for me to put this course together. As the course stands right now, it represents a snapshot of my knowledge and methods.
One thing that I've learned in assembling this course is that the area of front-end engineering is very turbulent and changing rapidly. One quickly becomes out of date. Furthermore, different folks have different religious convictions about what is important and what should be included in such a course.
I thought that I would exploit your knowledge, tastes and working methods by listing on this page my own various decisions and frustrations and seeing how the class reacts.
Thus, our course represents my web "world view" and the following items are missing from our course. If you have suggestions about stuff that should be in a course like this, send them along. [Note that the domain here is client-side development/front-end development and not server-side development. That is, don't send me e-mail requesting material about Ruby on Rails.]
I have been so frustrated trying to get cookies to work! I was intending to include them, but this has been my experience...on my office PC I can get cookies to work on Firefox 2, but not on IE 7. Yes, I've fiddled with the security settings with IE 7. Yes, I went online and looked for special instructions regarding cookies on IE 7. Mysteriously, it would appear that other people can put cookies on my version of IE 7 on my office machine. I suppose that I could find some web site that is putting cookies on my IE 7 and then look at their code. But, come on! It has to be easier than that!
I've also tried working with the instructor's PC up in our computer classroom, but in that environment I discovered that I can't put cookies on either Firefox 2 or IE 7.
I don't know...maybe somebody out there can rescue me. I even copied the cookie code right out of the Shelley Powers book and it didn't work in IE.
Back in 2001, I used to teach Java programming. With Java one can write an "applet" - a small web application that runs in a web browser. Everything was cool, but two things happened...I moved on to C# and IE 4 started to block Aplets, etc., because Microsoft refused to permit the Java engine plug-in to IE. There was a court case, etc. Nevertheless, some folks have persisted in using Java applets. I haven't included applets in our course, but you might be interested in Applets Code Samples and Getting Started with Applets.
Silverlight is a .Net plug-in that does many wonderful things to create an RIA - Rich Internet Application.
Some folks have urged me to include Silverlight, as Microsoft's response to Flash. That is, Adobe's Flash is a full-featured environment for creating web pages that can produce multimedia, etc., and Microsoft has developed a competing product.
Scott Guthrie's blog has an introduction and links to tutorials in Silverlight.
Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that permits one to re-mix web pages, i.e., change a web page's look and feel and functionality. I've taught Greasemonkey several times before and could have included it except that it builds on many of the skills that we're first encountering in our course (i.e., DOM, XPath, etc.).
Note that IE 6 had an equivalent plug-in called Turnabout that permitted one to re-mix web pages. There is no re-mix plug-in for IE 7.
A student writes ...
Hi Terry,
W3 Schools has a try-it editor where cookies work in IE 7 and Firefox. 8-) And they share all the code as well. Click the "Create a welcome cookie" link: http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_cookies.asp Click the try-it button, enter your name in the alert box, click OK, and click the try-it button again.
I tested it and it worked for me in IE7. If you still had a problem getting it to work, then it must be IE's security settings. Follow these directions (http://www.tizag.com/javascriptT/javascript-enable.php) or this video I developed for the BeneFIT course: http://courses.washington.edu/benefit/FIT100/Lessons/Lesson1/DemoVideos/SetupIE/IE7Setup.htm
Best,
D.A. Clements, MLIS
Lecturer, Information School and Extension University of Washington Campus Box 352840, Seattle, WA 98195-2840
Office: Mary Gates 330J
Voice: 206-543-4304 | Fax: 206-616-3152
Terry talks...
I think you're right. Thanks D.A.!