Assignment 4 (Week 16) — Writing Scripts — “I’m late, I’m late, for…..”
… you know what….
Scripts in my web project
1. Image carousels — I have many image carousels in my website. Not surprising given it is a photography coaching business. The following is an example of the .html and .js for one of the carousels on the OUR WORK page (+ my favourite image from the carousel)
OUR WORK > Costa Rica
2. A price calculator included in the booking form on the page BOOKING. The purpose is to summarise in actual price terms of the options provided earlier on the LEARN page. CP client has not yet agreed on the text for this page but the business model is agreed.
The following is a screen shot of the calculator from the BOOKING page, the .html and .js code:
So now to the rest of the assessment:
Open Platform — too late for tarts!
Open platform
- an open and extensible platform / API (application programming interface) allows third party developers to introduce customizations to the system without ever touching core source code
- above all, platforms with mass adoption have a wealth of existing extensions and modules ready to be adapted to any site.
Open source
- with open source, the end product’s source materials are accessible to build a community of owners that improves the product through developing the source code
- however, the only unique attribute of an open source project is the openness of the entire code base.
Summary
Professor Google explains that tech savvy clients are seeking the following characteristics:
- an extensible, and well documented platform or API open to third party developers
- a platform with a critical mass of adoption.
Another of Professor Google’s minions adds that:
- not surprisingly, the dominant open source web content management systems (WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc.) are also open platforms.
Client side scripting
Client side scripting refers to computer programs that are executed ‘client side’, i.e. by the user’s web browser.
This is different from Server side scripting where the script is run on the server side and the client is not aware of the process.
Client side scripting enables web pages to respond to user input or other ‘local/user’ conditions or changes. This enables many of the modern uses of the internet such as shopping, banking, sharing, chatting, interactive games, etc.
Dynamic HTML
Dynamic HTML enables web pages to be scripted, i.e. to have changing content depending on user input.
- user input can include events (managed by event handlers) — e.g. when a user clicks a button or enters text
- scripts are executed on the user’s computer by the web browser and can operate without further reference to the server
Internet protocols
Internet protocols govern the methods by which data is sent on the internet. Each computer has at least one IP address that identifies it uniquely.
Data is sent in packets. Data packets contain both the sender’s internet address and the receiver’s address
SGML
Standard generalised markup language (SGML) — is a standard for defining generalized markup languages for documents (SGML; ISO 8879:1986)
HTML syntax closely resembles SGML syntax, however HTML5 does not attempt to define HTML as an SGML application and defines its own parsing rules.
Security
Web security is critical for businesses that conduct operations online. Web servers are one of the most targeted public faces of an organization, because of the sensitive data they usually host. A secure web application and an insecure web server, or vice versa, puts a business at risk. Useful issues to attend to for web server security include:
- remote access
- different testing and production environments
- separating web application and data base privileges
- systematic monitoring of user accounts
- up to date security tools
Documentation
Documentation is important to enable people to build on, adapt and/or change the code you have developed. There are a range of tools focused on documenting Web APIs. Some can integrate into the code base and build processes to create useful views of endpoints and latest code changes.
“Begin at the beginning,”
the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
This reminds me — I must/will Go Ask Alice (ref. Jefferson Airplane).
