Microsoft and HTML 5

Previously all browser manufacturers cooperated with changes in HTML 5. That included everyone except Microsoft. This meant that developers had to code two versions of their web site. One would be specific to Internet Explorer. That is no fun.

HTML 5 supports Scalable Vector Graphics support. Some have speculated that Microsoft is concerned that SVG infringes on the Silverlight solution space. Luckily Microsoft is no longer holding out on HTML 5. They joined the SVG working group. Things are looking better for HTML 5.

Clear Web Pages

We have all seen a bunch of crazy web pages that annoy users. This is just a bad idea. You want to entice users to come to your pages, not alienate them. So what things do you need to concentrate on?

Color is a key component. Don’t use funky background colors on web pages. The same applies to the font colors. Bright colors are bad.

Another major component is the text. Don’t use weird affects on the text. You should also be sure to avoid huge fonts.

Finally you got to limit or avoid the use of animation and video. Web pages should be quick to load and easy to view.

Admin to Programmer

Everybody is talking about Cloud Computing these days. In fact, I read one survey that stated Cloud Computing was one of the leading tech topics for 2010. In legacy systems, you have programmers coding to network APIs. And sys admins manage workstations and servers. Roles get switched up in the cloud computing world. The sys admins have to learn a lot more tech.

Sys admins act more like programmers in cloud computing. Examples include script languages such as Python and PHP. They need to know SOAP and REST. The also need to become familiar with managing virtual machines. Admins may also need to ramp up on agile development.

It sounds like a system administrator job sound pretty existing in the cloud.

Web Technologies

Sooner or later I suspect the client/server system I work on will go to the web. Therefore I figure I had better learn web development. But what technology should I learn? There are many to choose from.

At first I took a Java programming class. Currently I am taking a class on HTML and CSS. However these are just the basics. There are web specific technologies out there which are waiting to be learned

I hear that AJAX is a simple choice. It allows you to update sections of a web page instead of reloading the whole darn thing. And if you want to do animation, then Adobe Flash is the tool for you. These days however, I hear more about Adobe AIR than Flash.

Finally the Microsoft solution is Silverlight. The latest incarnation of this technology is Silverlight 3. This product is focused on rich Internet applications. In other words, if you want a web app to look like a mature desktop app, pick Silverlight. You get .NET support to boot.

Microsoft XML

I just subscribed to Microsoft’s MSDN magazine. This month’s issue had a number of references to XML technology. I guess this is a sign that XML is here to stay. The buzzwords I read about were OOXML, XmlLite, and XAML.

OOXML stands for the Open Office XML. It was developed by Microsoft, and is used as the file format for Office 2007 applications. This is not related to the open source OpenOffice applications.

XmlLite is a library for high performance XML applications. It is shipped as a DLL. XmlLite comes with C++ support. You can use it out of the box with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. It does not do XML validation (to achieve high performance).

XAML stands for extensible application markup language. It is used a lot in the .NET framework. Specifically it is used in WPF, Silverlight, and WF.

Mashup Markup

There is a new markup language being standardized. It is the Enterprise Mashup Markup Language, otherwise known as EMML. This is an XML language. It employs XPath and XQuery.

EMML is being standardized by the Open Mashup Alliance. This is a group formed last month. It includes names like Adobe, HP, and Intel.

There are some who believe it is too early for such standardization. In the big scheme of things, mashups are new on the web. The jury is still out on this. For more information visit the Open Mashup Alliance on the web.

SOA Maturity Model

It has been a number of years since the Open Group created a working group for SOA. This working group has just published OSIMM, which stands for the Open Group Service Integration Maturity Model. This allows you to measure a company's maturity with respect to SOA. It sounds a lot like the CMMi maturity level for software development.

The top level in the model is SOA with dynamic service composition. And the bottom level is essentially No SOA. Unfortunately I think our project is at the bottom of the heap. We currently do not implement any SOA just yet. There is some talk though. And we will be processing XML input this upcoming year.