Principles & techniques

Hypertext: In-Python Haml / Tomer Filiba. I recently got back to web development for some venture I'm working on, which reminded me just how lousy the state of the art is. There's no nice way to put it: we're doing web development all wrong. It's not an anecdotal thing I have against this or that -- it's every facet of it. It's a stack of inferior technologies, held together by the glues of time and legacy. And the sad thing is, they are here to stay. Nobody's going to kill HTTP or JavaScript, not even Google (at least not in the foreseeable future). It's a hand we have to play.

This isn't new[1], of course. Templates? My first objective is to kill templates and templating engines - they just drive me crazy. Moreover, I hate templating languages: they are always cumbersome, crippled-down versions of Python, while providing no added value[2]. {% extends 'base.html' %} {% block content %} <ul> {% for user in users %} <li><a href="{{ user.url }}">{{ user.username }}</a></li> {% endfor %} </ul> {% endblock %} Haml Hypertext Voila. Online Web Tutorials. Web Services Essentials: Chapter 6: WSDL Essentials. How JavaScript & HTML5 Are Remaking the Web. The Future Web Series is supported by Elsevier's SciVerse Application Marketplace and Developer Network.

The SciVerse applications platform enables developers to build apps based on trusted scientific content. Learn more. HTML5 is no longer just a buzz word. It — along with JavaScript and CSS3 — is quickly helping reshape perceptions of what a web browser and web standards can achieve. With browsers implementing more HTML5 features across platforms and devices, developers are starting to integrate many of the new features and frameworks into their web apps, websites and web designs. Although HTML5 is its own standard, the power of HTML5 is really only best realized with the use of CSS 3 and JavaScript. JavaScript, in particular, has quickly emerged as one of the best ways to help render great looking effects, animations and content in a self-contained, platform-agnostic way. WebGL Brain Surface and Tractography Viewer Google Body Browser MathBoard Arcade Fire, "The Wilderness Downtown" Web Developer's Handbook | CSS, Web Development, Color Tools, SEO, Usability etc.

Creativity css: selected showcases css galleries & showcases color tools color schemes, palettes color patterns fashion: colors selection color theory royalty free photos specifications usability & accessibility add a link (free) seo tools seo references howtogetthingsdone freelancers web 2.0 2read: this week. Courses - Google Code University - Google Code. Repurposing the Hash Sign for the New Web. 1 Introduction [RFC 3986] defines the character string following the ? Sign in a URI as the "query component". The character string follwing the # sign is known as the "fragment identifier" and used to address specific locations in a document.

Nearly 20 years later, the Web has built a strong set of conventions around how URI parameters are used. As transactional applications began moving on to the Web in the late 1990's, query parameters formed a core building block for how application state was communicated between client and server. In this phase of Web evolution, clients were still comparatively simple, and client-side URI parameters did not move beyond the use of fragment identifiers. This document explores the issues that arise in this context, and attempts to define best practices that help: Create URIs for intermediate states/pages in a Web application so that the back button does the right thingEnable clients to address into specific points in a stream of content, e.g., video. URL Design — Warpspire. December 28, 2010 You should take time to design your URL structure. If there’s one thing I hope you remember after reading this article it’s to take time to design your URL structure.

Don’t leave it up to your framework. Don’t leave it up to chance. URL Design is a complex subject. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t best practices for creating great URLs. Why you need to be designing your URLs The URL bar has become a main attraction of modern browsers. URLs are universal. Any regular semi-technical user of your site should be able to navigate 90% of your app based off memory of the URL structure. Top level sections are gold The most valuable aspect of any URL is what lies at the top level section. Do I seem dramatic? Another quick tip — whenever you’re building a new site, think about blacklisting a set of vanity URLs (and maybe learn a little bit about bad URL design from Quora’s URLs). Namespacing is a great tool to expand URLs A great example.

Screw Hashbangs: Building the Ultimate Infinite Scroll. I’m just a student in a field unrelated to computer science, but I’ve been coding for years as a hobby. So, when I saw the current state of infinite scroll, I thought perhaps I could do something to improve it. I’d like to share what I came up with. (Demo: The impatient can just try it out by scrolling+navigating away+using the back button on the front page of my site. Works in current versions of Safari, Chrome, Firefox.) Hashbangs Lie Anybody that has even casually coded JavaScript over the past two years can tell you the story: Google proposed using the hashbang (#!) To enable stateful, crawlable AJAX pages. But the real problem is the lying. Hashbangs for Lunch Let’s say you are at a restaurant.

Case 1cafe.com/entrees/burger/ketchup/ If the server accepted your order with a URL sans fragment identifier, then you get everything at once, your ketchup is on the side of your plate, and you can immediately begin enjoying your delicious burger. Case 3cafe.com/#! “What the heck is going on?” Five Principles to Design By. Five high-level principles that guide my design. 1. Technology Serves Humans. Too often people blame themselves for the shortcomings of technology. When their computer crashes, they say “I must have done something dumb”. If a web site is poorly designed, they say “I must be stupid.

This is horrible! Technology serves humans. 2. Art is about personal expression. Design, on the other hand, is about use. Unlike Art, Design is always contextual. Great Art, on the other hand, is always in style. The litmus test. 3. Designers do not create experiences, they create artifacts to experience. The ultimate experience is something that happens in the user, and it is theirs. 4. An interesting property of great design is that it is taken for granted. Bad design is obvious because it hurts to use. 5. As Saint Exupery said, “In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.” 9 Outstanding Websites for Design Inspiration.

When it comes to web design and development, we've offered up our top picks for tools of the trade. We've shared great tips from pro developers. We've even wrangled exemplary sites to learn from. But sometimes, a healthy dose of artistic inspiration is in order. If you're a web designer (or web design afficianado) and low on creative juice, take a gander at some of these sites — recommended by top designers themselves — that push the limits of what artistic and technical expression can be on the web.

Have you come accross a truly spectacular site design that deserves the web's attention? Image courtesy of iStockphoto, skodonnell. Usability Toolkit. Representational State Transfer. Representational State Transfer (REST) is a software architecture style consisting of guidelines and best practices for creating scalable web services.[1][2] REST is a coordinated set of constraints applied to the design of components in a distributed hypermedia system that can lead to a more performant and maintainable architecture.[3] REST has gained widespread acceptance across the Web[citation needed] as a simpler alternative to SOAP and WSDL-based Web services.

RESTful systems typically, but not always, communicate over the Hypertext Transfer Protocol with the same HTTP verbs (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.) used by web browsers to retrieve web pages and send data to remote servers.[3] The REST architectural style was developed by W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG) in parallel with HTTP 1.1, based on the existing design of HTTP 1.0.[4] The World Wide Web represents the largest implementation of a system conforming to the REST architectural style. Architectural properties[edit] Free online tutorials, Tips, Tricks, Resources, Graphics, Designing, Web promotion, Web page design, Templates at. How to Embed Almost Anything in your Website.

Learn how to embed videos, mp3 music, Flash videos (both swf and flv), pictures, fonts, spreadsheets, charts, maps and everything else into your blog or website. Learn how to embed almost anything in your HTML web pages from Flash videos to Spreadsheets to high resolution photographs to static images from Google Maps and more. Embed RSS Feeds in Web Pages Go to this page, replace the feed URL with your own feed, use the default color scheme or change it to something else and then click Get Code. You’ll get a JavaScript snippet that can be easily placed in the sidebar of your blog. If you like to embed feeds from multiple sources, merge all of them into one using Yahoo Pipes and then pass the combined feed to the Google Gadget. You can also use RSS widgets like WidgetBox or YourMinis that are done in Flash and not JavaScript.

Embed High Quality or HD YouTube Videos Embed MP3 music and other Audio If you like to embed audio files like songs, podcasts or interviews in your web pages, use Yahoo! 5 Website Features You Can Easily Offload to Reduce Costs. This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

The term "offload" or "offloading" in information technology and computer science refers to the transfer of something from your system to an external system. In the context of websites, your system is your website (and your web servers/web host), and the external system consists of third-party web services such as Google Analytics or Shopify. This article suggests five common site features that you can host elsewhere. Why You Should Or Shouldn't Offload There are advantages and disadvantages to having parts of your website catered to by third-party web services. In order for you to decide what should and shouldn't be on your system, let's first talk about the pros and cons of website feature offloading. Pros of Offloading Cons of Offloading 1. Check out the following excellent hosted e-commerce management systems below. Responsive Web Design.

The English architect Christopher Wren once quipped that his chosen field “aims for Eternity,” and there’s something appealing about that formula: Unlike the web, which often feels like aiming for next week, architecture is a discipline very much defined by its permanence. Article Continues Below A building’s foundation defines its footprint, which defines its frame, which shapes the facade. Each phase of the architectural process is more immutable, more unchanging than the last. Creative decisions quite literally shape a physical space, defining the way in which people move through its confines for decades or even centuries.

Working on the web, however, is a wholly different matter. But the landscape is shifting, perhaps more quickly than we might like. In recent years, I’ve been meeting with more companies that request “an iPhone website” as part of their project. A flexible foundation#section1 Let’s consider an example design. Becoming responsive#section2 responsive architecture . Cogito » Blog Archive » The Ontology Myth. For the past year, I have been observing a phenomenon in the US market, that of the spread of the ‘myth’ of ontology. Ontologies are important elements for understanding text through semantic analysis, but they are insufficient (and, often, not even necessary) to resolve the problem of how to handle unstructured knowledge. Nonetheless, according to this ‘idea,’ they say that if you have a complete ontology, you don’t need anything else.

Instead, semantic technology should be able to do it all automatically (for example, the typical activities correlated to knowledge management activities such as automatic categorization and discovery of knowledge and relationships between data). This assumption lacks substance, and even if I understand the reasons why this idea has spread (in the end, we are all always searching for fast and automatic solutions) it is important to explain the reality (which is completely different from the utopic view that some would have you believe). 0Share.

Ontology is Overrated -- Categories, Links, and Tags. Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags This piece is based on two talks I gave in the spring of 2005 -- one at the O'Reilly ETech conference in March, entitled "Ontology Is Overrated", and one at the IMCExpo in April entitled "Folksonomies & Tags: The rise of user-developed classification. " The written version is a heavily edited concatenation of those two talks. Today I want to talk about categorization, and I want to convince you that a lot of what we think we know about categorization is wrong. In particular, I want to convince you that many of the ways we're attempting to apply categorization to the electronic world are actually a bad fit, because we've adopted habits of mind that are left over from earlier strategies. I also want to convince you that what we're seeing when we see the Web is actually a radical break with previous categorization strategies, rather than an extension of them.

PART I: Classification and Its Discontents # Q: What is Ontology? And yet. Domain. 19 of the Best Infographics from 2010. Research can sometimes be a bit of a chore, but when knowledge is wrapped up in charts, cartoons, or even some heart-holding robots, suddenly "information" isn't such a scary word. What do Facebook's 500 million users look like? Who's suing whom in the mobile world?

How does FarmVille stack up against actual farms? These questions and more are answered in the infographics below. Have a look through the list and let us know which graphics you liked best (or learned the most from) in the comments below. Survey Shows the Internet Would Have Passed Prop 19Prop 19, California’s controversial bid to legalize marijuana, lost at the polls on Tuesday, but if that vote had been up to the wider web of Internetusers, Prop 19 would have passed.Social Media’s Impact on the Midterm Elections [INFOGRAPHICS]Social media, especially Facebook, had a huge impact on how the U.S. midterm elections were perceived and decided.

Full WEB 2.0 API List. Information aesthetics. The Seven Principles You Need to Know to Build a Great Social Product. Attacked from Within. Why Link Exchanges are Bad for Your Site’s Health. Internal Linking Structure Elements Strategy. Wireframes, Prototypes, Specifications. Cultural algorithm. Let go and allow users to control their own experience. Trackbacks / Pingbacks / CommentAPI. Trackback. 10 Principles Of Effective Web Design | How-To. Hypertext Now: Hot Wired Style. Hypertext. What is the Fluid Project? - Fluid Project Wiki.