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Poll: Do you consider HTML a programming language? (About.com)
Yes No View Results Technically, HTML is a markup language, not a programming language. But when I was trying to define the difference, it seemed like HTML (or HTML along with something like…
GMail, DHTML e Javascript
[Luca Lizzeri’s Wikilab] Alcune elucubrazioni su come funziona GMail: * Jon Udell “sotto il cofano di Gmail” su Infoworld; * GMailAPI, linterfaccia di programmazione per comunicare con GMail di Hwang Johnvey; * Riflessioni di uno sviluppatore di IBM sullarchitettura delle applicazioni web basate su DHTML e Javascript e su Gmail in particolare. Il segreto della velocit di GMail sta nel fatto che il motore dellinterfaccia utente (UI) un modulo Javascript che viene caricato in uno dei frame HTML allinizio della sessione. Successivamente, le azioni sullinterfaccia vengono instradate dal motore Javascript caricato nel browser, che comunica con i server di Google tramite loggetto XmlHttpRequest. Ricevuti i dati (in formato DataPack), il motore della UI li interpreta e modifica la UI in base ad essi, intervenendo dinamicamente sui dati della pagina DHTML, anzich ricaricare lintera pagina dopo ogni azione dellutente. Hwang Johnvey spiega approfonditamente in cosa consiste il formato DataPack: la UI di GMail scambia con i server file html che contengono solo dichiarazioni di array Javascript che contengono dati su cosa e come aggiornare. Per chi interessato ad approfondire questi temi, esiste il gruppo di discussione GMail Agent. Larticolo di Korateng Ofosu-Amaah (programmatore Ghanese di IBM residente a Cambridge Massachussets) approfondisce…
On GMail and DHTML architecture again
[Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah] So Jon Udell has been pondering GMail and its architecture on his blog. He’s also trying to figure out when to augment DHTML apps with even richer client technology. Below follows what I thought would be a short email that I repeat here for blogospheric conversation’s sake. GMail’s architecture is actually very generic for a DHTML app. Everyone with a clue should be trying to leverage the browser and that, in essence, is all they are doing. I helped implement an analogous architecture in Lotus K-station back in 1999. The major difference now is that everyone is using the “v.5″ versions of the browsers; no one cares any longer about Netscape 4.7x. For me the tipping point for rich DOM/JavaScript applications came when we saw mainstream applications like Hotmail and Yahoo Mail start using DHTML menus. My Yahoo only switched to DHTML menus when it was relaunched a few weeks ago and that’s my litmus test for conservatism. (Ironically GMail switched back from DHTML menus to standard HTML selects for its “More actions” and apply label bar a month or so ago - although that might just be from usability testing). A similar event happened in the past year with the way users can rate items in Amazon.com wishlists and also in Netflix without seemingly causing page reloads - you know those five stars. I mention the spread of all these little DHTML flourishes because I remember back in 2000 spending 3 months and well over 10 heated meetings trying to convince IBM architects to allow the use of simple things like DHTML menus and losing the battle. Of course given that kind of resistance, it was unlikely that features like drag-and-drop which one got from the UI engine in…