Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
Useful browser share graphs published by arstechnica today afaik:-- Microsoft and Mozilla's continuing Chrome conundrum http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2011/06/may-browser-market-share-microsoft-and-mozillas-continuing-chrome-conundrum.ars Paul On 7 June 2011 14:00, Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz wrote: I took those observations to mean not that the intranets themselves rely on IE6 but that they are using web apps that don't behave properly in the new browsers. Or perhaps more accurately that they behave properly in the new browsers where proper is defined by the W3C, whereas proper used to be defined by the specification of the web app itself and the behaviour elicited in the browser by the HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Once upon a time, that old software for which there is no excuse to be using it used to be the cutting edge that people scoffed at you if you /weren't/ using it and were using what was *then* considered the old software. And I think you missed the point when observing that new browsers are free. The problem isn't the cost of upgrading the browsers. The problem is that once you have upgraded all your clients to the new browser, your *apps* stop working, so you have to upgrade those apps and the chances are that will incur direct and indirect costs not to mention disruption and downtime to some extent. Even for the browser upgrades, I suspect there is still a cost because not all *users* are competent to upgrade themselves - we who live and breath IT tend to forget that many people are confused by (and can royally screw up) what we take for granted. Plus, in this day and age, it's pretty certain that users won't be able to just upgrade their browser software without central IT/admin support, something that those concerned with security questions would surely characterise as a good thing. After all, we can't have everyone just able to willy nilly install/upgrade software on their workstations... Those who live by the sword etc... ;) -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of John Bird Sent: Tuesday, 7 June 2011 13:43 To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] FW: Web development I am mystified why any government organisations would be stuck on IE6 given its the best door for any hacker wanting to intrude into a system. Its how Google was penetrated 18 months ago - hackers found workstations that had to use IE6 for historical reasons (reasons that were not all that good) I was astonished about 3 years ago to see an unnamed government department workstation using a pre-release version of Firefox, ie it was so old it was basically the old Netscape - with diagonal arrow buttons and all, probably something like v0.5 and from probably 2003. Surely any government IT department should not be relying on such old unpatched software if even to cover their own backsides when the inevitable problem occurs - its not a budget issue if free secure browsers abound. If they have to use IE6 for intranets, do they prevent IE6 from accessing the outside internet? And why can they not use later browsers for Intranets? John ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
Interesting. My AWStats for May shows IE visitors at 38.2%, Firefox at 33.1%, Chrome 18.2%. That's with 179680 hits. IE has been steadily decreasing. In April it was 40%, March 41%. Ross. -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Paul A Norman Sent: Tuesday, 7 June 2011 6:12 PM To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] FW: Web development Useful browser share graphs published by arstechnica today afaik:-- Microsoft and Mozilla's continuing Chrome conundrum http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2011/06/may-browser-market-share-microsoft-a nd-mozillas-continuing-chrome-conundrum.ars Paul On 7 June 2011 14:00, Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz wrote: I took those observations to mean not that the intranets themselves rely on IE6 but that they are using web apps that don't behave properly in the new browsers. Or perhaps more accurately that they behave properly in the new browsers where proper is defined by the W3C, whereas proper used to be defined by the specification of the web app itself and the behaviour elicited in the browser by the HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Once upon a time, that old software for which there is no excuse to be using it used to be the cutting edge that people scoffed at you if you /weren't/ using it and were using what was *then* considered the old software. And I think you missed the point when observing that new browsers are free. The problem isn't the cost of upgrading the browsers. The problem is that once you have upgraded all your clients to the new browser, your *apps* stop working, so you have to upgrade those apps and the chances are that will incur direct and indirect costs not to mention disruption and downtime to some extent. Even for the browser upgrades, I suspect there is still a cost because not all *users* are competent to upgrade themselves - we who live and breath IT tend to forget that many people are confused by (and can royally screw up) what we take for granted. Plus, in this day and age, it's pretty certain that users won't be able to just upgrade their browser software without central IT/admin support, something that those concerned with security questions would surely characterise as a good thing. After all, we can't have everyone just able to willy nilly install/upgrade software on their workstations... Those who live by the sword etc... ;) -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of John Bird Sent: Tuesday, 7 June 2011 13:43 To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] FW: Web development I am mystified why any government organisations would be stuck on IE6 given its the best door for any hacker wanting to intrude into a system. Its how Google was penetrated 18 months ago - hackers found workstations that had to use IE6 for historical reasons (reasons that were not all that good) I was astonished about 3 years ago to see an unnamed government department workstation using a pre-release version of Firefox, ie it was so old it was basically the old Netscape - with diagonal arrow buttons and all, probably something like v0.5 and from probably 2003. Surely any government IT department should not be relying on such old unpatched software if even to cover their own backsides when the inevitable problem occurs - its not a budget issue if free secure browsers abound. If they have to use IE6 for intranets, do they prevent IE6 from accessing the outside internet? And why can they not use later browsers for Intranets? John ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
I think you're probably using tools like: print phello/p; LOL Well, ultimately anyone writing (emitting) HTML is using tools *exactly* like that. The question is, what tool do you use to create the code that ends up emitting it, if you don't emit it directly yourself ? The problem I (personally) have with HTML is that it has been co-opted into a role for which it was never originally designed. It is a document markup language that has been strong armed into a role as a UI presentation technology. It sucks in that capacity and the solution has always been to shimmy some JavaScript in there on the clientside and pile frameworks and codegen on top of it on the server side to try and present a development platform that doesn't suck as much. The problem this creates of course is that whilst you are then using the universal and platform independent HTML thereby avoiding lock-in, you are instead locked into your chosen/adopted framework/codegen tool. (Flash/Silverlight/Java work slightly differently of course, presenting an alternative that exists essentially *inside* the HTML without using HTML itself - all of these suffer the same problem - platform restrictions. None of them have the universality of HTML and also result in lock-in). But on the specifics of checking your HTML: check the W3C validator service. Again, this is after the fact debugging. I don't have to submit my Pascal code to the P3C validator service to check it's validity. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
Jolyon == Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz writes: Jolyon The question is, what tool do you use to create the code Jolyon that ends up emitting it, if you don't emit it directly Jolyon yourself ? There are many techniques but a simple one is using something like TXMLWriter, see here http://www.berenddeboer.net/delphi Jolyon The problem I (personally) have with HTML is that it has Jolyon been co-opted into a role for which it was never Jolyon originally designed. It is a document markup language Jolyon that has been strong armed into a role as a UI Jolyon presentation technology. In many cases it is far more helpful to really see this as emitting document markup, with css for styling and javascript for progressive enhancement. Don't bring your Delphi habits over, you need to look at HTML technology very differently. But on the specifics of checking your HTML: check the W3C validator service. Jolyon Again, this is after the fact debugging. Jolyon I don't have to submit my Pascal code to the P3C validator Jolyon service to check it's validity. If you order your win32 calls wrong, what happens then? Where is your win32 call validator? But see above, using a tool like TXMLWriter you can make sure you invalid HTML is detected immediately, although at run-time. -- All the best, Berend de Boer -- Awesome Drupal hosting: https://www.xplainhosting.com/ ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
Ditto Javascript which is perfectly valid but which doesn't work the way you expect in browser X, Y, Z or perm any N from M. This a major reason to use clientside frameworks like jQuery, Ext etc. It centralises the browser dependency issues. You still have the big pain of wildly different security models in the browsers. Me - Java, serverside, javascript client side. Is this too traditional these day? Notice: This email and any attachments are confidential. If received in error please destroy and immediately notify us. Do not copy or disclose the contents. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
Well thats where half my time goes, getting the things to work on all browsers - especially the MS ones. Then there are people still using IE7!! On 7/06/2011 9:39 a.m., Jolyon Smith wrote: My problem isn't invalid HTML - it is perfectly valid HTML but which doesn't render the way you expect in browser X, Y Z or perm any N from M. Ditto Javascript which is perfectly valid but which doesn't work the way you expect in browser X, Y, Z or perm any N from M. Or CSS which is perfectly valid but which doesn't work the way you expect in browser X, Y, Z or perm any N from M. Or some combination of HTML, JavaScript or CSS which doesn't work in that particular combo in browser X, Y, Z or perm any N from M. I had thought that these issues might have been resolved at some point in the last 20 years, but sadly things really aren't much better today than they were then. In some cases worse, because the tools techniques also assume that things have improved, when they haven't... lulling you into a false sense of security. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
That was the MS principle - EEE ie, Embrace, Extend (in a non-standard way), Extinguish (the alternatives). They tried and failed that in the Java world already with J++ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J%2B%2B which includes the interesting quotes from internal MS emails: Retrieved 2009-03-15. A September 1997 E-mail message, sent by a Microsoft official identified as P. Sridharan, is quoted as saying: Let's move on and steal the Java language. That said, have we ever taken a look at how long it would take Microsoft to build a cross-platform Java that did work? Naturally, we would never do it, but it would give us some idea of how much time we have to work with in killing Sun's Java. ^ Microsoft A History of Anticompetitive Behavior and Consumer Harm. European Committee for Interoperable Systems. 2009-03-31. Retrieved 2009-04-22. We should just quietly grow j++ share and assume that people will take more advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java apps. However from what I have heard from friends, ASP and IE8/IE9 have made a decent job of reasserting standards, including using CSS, HTML5, XML and XSLT.Comments from others? John -Original Message- From: Rohit Gupta Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2011 10:22 AM To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] FW: Web development Well thats where half my time goes, getting the things to work on all browsers - especially the MS ones. Then there are people still using IE7!! On 7/06/2011 9:39 a.m., Jolyon Smith wrote: My problem isn't invalid HTML - it is perfectly valid HTML but which doesn't render the way you expect in browser X, Y Z or perm any N from M. Ditto Javascript which is perfectly valid but which doesn't work the way you expect in browser X, Y, Z or perm any N from M. Or CSS which is perfectly valid but which doesn't work the way you expect in browser X, Y, Z or perm any N from M. Or some combination of HTML, JavaScript or CSS which doesn't work in that particular combo in browser X, Y, Z or perm any N from M. I had thought that these issues might have been resolved at some point in the last 20 years, but sadly things really aren't much better today than they were then. In some cases worse, because the tools techniques also assume that things have improved, when they haven't... lulling you into a false sense of security. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
Forget IE7, I believe 1 in 10 people surfing the net still use IE 6 (though I think a lot of them are in China)... For our company, 6% of users hitting our site use IE 6... can't ignore even 6%! Regards Colin On 7/06/2011, at 10:22 AM, Rohit Gupta wrote: Well thats where half my time goes, getting the things to work on all browsers - especially the MS ones. Then there are people still using IE7!! On 7/06/2011 9:39 a.m., Jolyon Smith wrote: My problem isn't invalid HTML - it is perfectly valid HTML but which doesn't render the way you expect in browser X, Y Z or perm any N from M. Ditto Javascript which is perfectly valid but which doesn't work the way you expect in browser X, Y, Z or perm any N from M. Or CSS which is perfectly valid but which doesn't work the way you expect in browser X, Y, Z or perm any N from M. Or some combination of HTML, JavaScript or CSS which doesn't work in that particular combo in browser X, Y, Z or perm any N from M. I had thought that these issues might have been resolved at some point in the last 20 years, but sadly things really aren't much better today than they were then. In some cases worse, because the tools techniques also assume that things have improved, when they haven't... lulling you into a false sense of security. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe # Attention: The information in this email and in any attachments is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient then please do not distribute, copy or use this information. Please notify us immediately and then delete the message from your computer. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
Jolyon == Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz writes: Jolyon My problem isn't invalid HTML - it is perfectly valid Jolyon HTML but which doesn't render the way you expect in Jolyon browser X, Y Z or perm any N from M. Jolyon Ditto Javascript which is perfectly valid but which Jolyon doesn't work the way you expect in browser X, Y, Z or perm Jolyon any N from M. Jolyon Or CSS which is perfectly valid but which doesn't work the Jolyon way you expect in browser X, Y, Z or perm any N from M. Jolyon Or some combination of HTML, JavaScript or CSS which Jolyon doesn't work in that particular combo in browser X, Y, Z Jolyon or perm any N from M. Jolyon I had thought that these issues might have been resolved Jolyon at some point in the last 20 years, but sadly things Jolyon really aren't much better today than they were then. In Jolyon some cases worse, because the tools techniques also assume Jolyon that things have improved, when they haven't... lulling Jolyon you into a false sense of security. Missed this, but the issue here is that you are trying to do bare bones development. It's about complaining that an API call on Windows 95 works differently from Windows 8. All these things are, to a very large extend, solved by the frameworks people use. Obviously you can try to reinvent the wheel and discover all the incompatibilities yourself, but if you use a CSS reset style sheet, a JavaScript framework like jQuery you seldom experience issues of this kind. -- All the best, Berend de Boer -- Awesome Drupal hosting: https://www.xplainhosting.com/ ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
Not just J++ .NET was the EEE for Java. They had to settle for EE-ASLJC Embrace Extend Aw shucks, let's just co-exist :) ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
It's about complaining that an API call on Windows 95 works differently from Windows 8. Except that by and large they don't - in fact, the complaint is often quite the reverse (Why don't MS fix/improve this API in Windows 8? - answer: because it has to continue to work the same in all Windows to avoid breaking anything). All these things are, to a very large extend, solved by the frameworks people use. Which in turn create their own problems - either shortcomings in the framework or locking in to a specific technology (and being beholden to/at the mercy of the framework provider). Obviously you can try to reinvent the wheel and discover all the incompatibilities yourself Or how about this for a crazy idea... how about getting everyone to sing from the same stylesheet and FIXing the inconsistencies once and for all ... you know, what might be considered REAL progress, rather than just continually shovelling out new features that have all NEW inconsistencies... ? Just a thought. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
[Reply] HI all, At 10:47 on 7/06/2011 Colin wrote Forget IE7, I believe 1 in 10 people surfing the net still use IE 6 (though I think a lot of them are in China)... For our company, 6% of users hitting our site use IE 6... can't ignore even 6%! In New Zealand many large organisations at stuck at IE6 because they implemented intranet software that simply does not work in IE7 and above. This includes many Government organisations such as DHB's etc. FYI there is a fix Google have come up with that allows your site to be rendered by Chrome, but inside IE6. it's called Google Frame: http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/ cheers Gary Ref#: 41006 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
On 7 June 2011 12:29, Gary T. Benner g...@benner.co.nz wrote: [Reply] HI all, At 10:47 on 7/06/2011 Colin wrote Forget IE7, I believe 1 in 10 people surfing the net still use IE 6 (though I think a lot of them are in China)... For our company, 6% of users hitting our site use IE 6... can't ignore even 6%! In New Zealand many large organisations at stuck at IE6 because they implemented intranet software that simply does not work in IE7 and above. This includes many Government organisations such as DHB's etc. FYI there is a fix Google have come up with that allows your site to be rendered by Chrome, but inside IE6. it's called Google Frame: http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/ cheers Gary Gary Benner MNZCS ITCP Information Technology Certified Professional Onlearn Limited - Online Learning Hosting Support, Training Content Development 123 Internet Limited - Managed Web Hosting, Virtualisation, High Availability Systems Cluster Technologies Semantic Limited - Software Development Systems Design, Online Education, e-Commerce Disaster Warning Systems Limited - Public Emergency Warning and Communication Systems Mob: 021 966 992 DDI: +64 7 543 1206 Email: g...@benner.co.nz Skype: garybenner Ref#: 41006 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
Try that again :) As Gary points out Google Frame can sit inside IE - of virtually any current flavour. So we settled on focussing, when we needed to know the browser in advance, on Chrome. Which is sort of a shame because Firefox is excellent especially from a developer's point of view, and may be starting to lead in font rendering with Jonathan Kew's recent contributions. But we believe to have all our intranet stuff is rolled out to meet Chrome's expectations at present. Some IE 6 reporting figures are form applications that by default 'factory setting' identify themselves as IE 6, they allow an administrator or User to choose how the application will show itself, but few people seem to choose to actually make a new setting it seems. Downloaders both unattended and user started and some other applications for movie and sound aquisition ;) do this kind of thing too. Chinese abundant reporting of IE6 et al has been pointed out to suggest previous methods and lack of restrictions on how software might be acquired in China previously ;) I was in Villa, Vanuatu visiting with the Red Cross there once and was introduced in a Duty Free shop (should have perhaps been called an 'ethics free shop') to a pack for $50 USD which identified itself as being from mainland China which had every piece of modern software and drawing/audio/visual producing software then current ex-USA (including Delphi etc!). I was fascinated at the lengths the pirates had gone to, and could only detect a few obvious visual flaws in the re-production of it all. The shop owner himself appeared and was equally fascinated in my not wanting to buy it all even if he knocked a few more vatus off it! So when things identify themselves as IE6 it can be so in some big corporations, but the country code says more to me now-a-days. Paul On 7 June 2011 12:36, Paul A Norman paul.a.nor...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 June 2011 12:29, Gary T. Benner g...@benner.co.nz wrote: [Reply] HI all, At 10:47 on 7/06/2011 Colin wrote Forget IE7, I believe 1 in 10 people surfing the net still use IE 6 (though I think a lot of them are in China)... For our company, 6% of users hitting our site use IE 6... can't ignore even 6%! In New Zealand many large organisations at stuck at IE6 because they implemented intranet software that simply does not work in IE7 and above. This includes many Government organisations such as DHB's etc. FYI there is a fix Google have come up with that allows your site to be rendered by Chrome, but inside IE6. it's called Google Frame: http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/ cheers Gary Gary Benner MNZCS ITCP Information Technology Certified Professional Onlearn Limited - Online Learning Hosting Support, Training Content Development 123 Internet Limited - Managed Web Hosting, Virtualisation, High Availability Systems Cluster Technologies Semantic Limited - Software Development Systems Design, Online Education, e-Commerce Disaster Warning Systems Limited - Public Emergency Warning and Communication Systems Mob: 021 966 992 DDI: +64 7 543 1206 Email: g...@benner.co.nz Skype: garybenner Ref#: 41006 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
I use IETester from here http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage to test my websites with IE6/7/8/9 ... IE6 always requires workarounds and fixes but once you get to know what works and what doesnt it's usually not that much off an hassle. I usually spend minutes and not days to get things working across all IE versions - small price to pay to support that 10% of population that is still using old outdated browsers. The only thing I loathe about supporting the very old IE6 is that it can't display transparent PNG files - there are workarounds, but they don't work if you use CSS background sprite techniques (I am a big fan of minimizing web-requests to speeds up things). Regards, Stefan -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Paul A Norman Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2011 9:37 AM To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] FW: Web development On 7 June 2011 12:29, Gary T. Benner g...@benner.co.nz wrote: [Reply] HI all, At 10:47 on 7/06/2011 Colin wrote Forget IE7, I believe 1 in 10 people surfing the net still use IE 6 (though I think a lot of them are in China)... For our company, 6% of users hitting our site use IE 6... can't ignore even 6%! In New Zealand many large organisations at stuck at IE6 because they implemented intranet software that simply does not work in IE7 and above. This includes many Government organisations such as DHB's etc. FYI there is a fix Google have come up with that allows your site to be rendered by Chrome, but inside IE6. it's called Google Frame: http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/ cheers Gary Gary Benner MNZCS ITCP Information Technology Certified Professional Onlearn Limited - Online Learning Hosting Support, Training Content Development 123 Internet Limited - Managed Web Hosting, Virtualisation, High Availability Systems Cluster Technologies Semantic Limited - Software Development Systems Design, Online Education, e-Commerce Disaster Warning Systems Limited - Public Emergency Warning and Communication Systems Mob: 021 966 992 DDI: +64 7 543 1206 Email: g...@benner.co.nz Skype: garybenner Ref#: 41006 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
Hi Phil Ditto Javascript which is perfectly valid but which doesn't work the way you expect in browser X, Y, Z or perm any N from M. This a major reason to use clientside frameworks like jQuery, Ext etc. It centralises the browser dependency issues. You still have the big pain of wildly different security models in the browsers. I absolutely agree. Todd. Me - Java, serverside, javascript client side. Is this too traditional these day? Notice: This email and any attachments are confidential. If received in error please destroy and immediately notify us. Do not copy or disclose the contents. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe -- bPassion/b is no substitute for breason/b ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
[Reply] HI all, At 12:53 on 7/06/2011 Paul wrote I was in Villa, Vanuatu visiting with the Red Cross there once and was introduced in a Duty Free shop (should have perhaps been called an 'ethics free shop') to a pack for $50 USD which identified itself as being from mainland China which had every piece of modern software and drawing/audio/visual producing software then current ex-USA (including Delphi etc!). I was fascinated at the lengths the pirates had gone to, and could only detect a few obvious visual flaws in the re-production of it all. The shop owner himself appeared and was equally fascinated in my not wanting to buy it all even if he knocked a few more vatus off it! David Intersimone told me of one day he was in Singapore at a similar shop, and found Delphi there on sale for $5. He flashed his Borland business card on the counter, and the lady picked it up, looked it over, handed it back and said, sorry, cannot give you discount. kr Gary Ref#: 41006 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
I am mystified why any government organisations would be stuck on IE6 given its the best door for any hacker wanting to intrude into a system. Its how Google was penetrated 18 months ago - hackers found workstations that had to use IE6 for historical reasons (reasons that were not all that good) I was astonished about 3 years ago to see an unnamed government department workstation using a pre-release version of Firefox, ie it was so old it was basically the old Netscape - with diagonal arrow buttons and all, probably something like v0.5 and from probably 2003. Surely any government IT department should not be relying on such old unpatched software if even to cover their own backsides when the inevitable problem occurs - its not a budget issue if free secure browsers abound. If they have to use IE6 for intranets, do they prevent IE6 from accessing the outside internet? And why can they not use later browsers for Intranets? John ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
I took those observations to mean not that the intranets themselves rely on IE6 but that they are using web apps that don't behave properly in the new browsers. Or perhaps more accurately that they behave properly in the new browsers where proper is defined by the W3C, whereas proper used to be defined by the specification of the web app itself and the behaviour elicited in the browser by the HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Once upon a time, that old software for which there is no excuse to be using it used to be the cutting edge that people scoffed at you if you /weren't/ using it and were using what was *then* considered the old software. And I think you missed the point when observing that new browsers are free. The problem isn't the cost of upgrading the browsers. The problem is that once you have upgraded all your clients to the new browser, your *apps* stop working, so you have to upgrade those apps and the chances are that will incur direct and indirect costs not to mention disruption and downtime to some extent. Even for the browser upgrades, I suspect there is still a cost because not all *users* are competent to upgrade themselves - we who live and breath IT tend to forget that many people are confused by (and can royally screw up) what we take for granted. Plus, in this day and age, it's pretty certain that users won't be able to just upgrade their browser software without central IT/admin support, something that those concerned with security questions would surely characterise as a good thing. After all, we can't have everyone just able to willy nilly install/upgrade software on their workstations... Those who live by the sword etc... ;) -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of John Bird Sent: Tuesday, 7 June 2011 13:43 To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] FW: Web development I am mystified why any government organisations would be stuck on IE6 given its the best door for any hacker wanting to intrude into a system. Its how Google was penetrated 18 months ago - hackers found workstations that had to use IE6 for historical reasons (reasons that were not all that good) I was astonished about 3 years ago to see an unnamed government department workstation using a pre-release version of Firefox, ie it was so old it was basically the old Netscape - with diagonal arrow buttons and all, probably something like v0.5 and from probably 2003. Surely any government IT department should not be relying on such old unpatched software if even to cover their own backsides when the inevitable problem occurs - its not a budget issue if free secure browsers abound. If they have to use IE6 for intranets, do they prevent IE6 from accessing the outside internet? And why can they not use later browsers for Intranets? John ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
[DUG] FW: Web development
I guess Jolon is still using MSIE, right? .. The developer tools that are built into Google Chrome browser for example are quite good for debugging HTML/CSS(and even JavaScript). Just right click on the elements whose markup you want to see and say inspect and it will show you all the code and css applied to the element with a nice little editor that allows you to play with and modify each property on the fly. Also, developer tools such as MS Visual Studio (I am doing mostly ASP.NET MVC stuff lately) aren't too bad either with features such as autocomplete/autolookups/warnings for non-closed html-tags and invalid markup/attributes, etc that makes writing valid HTML/CSS pretty easy. As for other opinions on this whole website development talk: I definitely would stay away from writing websites in Delphi. It might be ok to use if all you need is a small quick and dirty inhouse webapp or prototype .. but what you gain in familiarity by using Delphi is quickly offset by disadvantages. PHP/.NET/RoR have huge communities of developers - if you have a problem or need some example code/library then just google for it and you will most likely find something - whereas for Delphi it's mostly up to you to figure it out and then there is the thing about maintenance if you leave the company, will they still be able to find a Delphi developer to maintain and lock after the website?). I think it's better to go with more popular web development languages. Personally I am really happy developing with the ASP.NET MVC framework. Never really liked traditional ASP.NET WebForms (viewstate is just such a bloat and if you try to AJAX'ify the website things can quickly become very complicated and badly performing) - The new ASP.NET MVC on the other hand is absolutly fantastic in this regard and a joy to work with - the seperation of Data/GUI/Logic (MVC development pattern) is much better and more modular then the intermingled mess ASP.NET WebForms was. I also heard a lot of good about Ruby on Rails. As far as development goes it sounds easy and fast - but seems to have a bit of scaling problems (if your projects require that, most don't). PHP is probably the most popular web-language, but never really got to like it. I don't like weakly typed script languages that just break during execution ... I like my code to be compiled and raise errors during compilation time if I made some mistake - makes developing/changing existing code/database tables so much easier and less error prone if you have everything strong typed. ASP.NET also has a couple of goodies that I probably would miss a lot in PHP - like, automatic XSS injection prevention, URL-Rewriting, Localisation, Authorization (user login, roles, etc), HttpModules that allow you to plug directly into the web execution pipeline of the IIS webserver, etc. ... I think the ASP.NET framework makes writing secure and high performing websites a lot easier then PHP does. Regards, Stefan -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Berend de Boer Sent: Friday, June 03, 2011 6:44 PM To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] Web development Jolyon == Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz writes: Jolyon but in the end got fed up with wrestling with HTML and CSS Jolyon - working with those technologies is like stepping back in Jolyon time in terms to tools and debugging etc, Really I would say that the available tools and capabilities are light years beyond what's offered. And we're not even talking about the ease with which you create very nice interfaces, which would be impossible to create any other way. -- All the best, Berend de Boer -- Awesome Drupal hosting: https://www.xplainhosting.com/ ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
We have moved some of our stuff to Java, and are quite happy so far. In terms of rapid development (in the Java world), there are things like Spring Roo and Seam Forge, the latter being the newest and least documented... I have had a little look, but nothing serious so can't really comment that much (other than, it looks good, but then so do so many things until you did a bit deeper). In terms of wanting to stay away from HTML, CSS, etc, then there is Vaadin or even GWT (both Java related... we are playing with Vaadin at the moment). The thing with Java is there are so many frameworks and so many options it is easy to go around in circles trying to pick (what you think is) the best one. What we have used in a real project is JSF using Facelets and a little bit of Seam... there is a learning curve, but it is not too bad (we have not delved into Java EE, just using Tomcat). The Java IDE's are also really great, we have settled on Eclipse, but you will find passionate battles about that, as well as for the frameworks. Anyway, just thought I would through that in from left field... Happy hunting. Regards Colin On 3/06/2011, at 11:49 PM, Stefan Mueller wrote: I guess Jolon is still using MSIE, right? .. The developer tools that are built into Google Chrome browser for example are quite good for debugging HTML/CSS(and even JavaScript). Just right click on the elements whose markup you want to see and say inspect and it will show you all the code and css applied to the element with a nice little editor that allows you to play with and modify each property on the fly. Also, developer tools such as MS Visual Studio (I am doing mostly ASP.NET MVC stuff lately) aren't too bad either with features such as autocomplete/autolookups/warnings for non-closed html-tags and invalid markup/attributes, etc that makes writing valid HTML/CSS pretty easy. As for other opinions on this whole website development talk: I definitely would stay away from writing websites in Delphi. It might be ok to use if all you need is a small quick and dirty inhouse webapp or prototype .. but what you gain in familiarity by using Delphi is quickly offset by disadvantages. PHP/.NET/RoR have huge communities of developers - if you have a problem or need some example code/library then just google for it and you will most likely find something - whereas for Delphi it's mostly up to you to figure it out and then there is the thing about maintenance if you leave the company, will they still be able to find a Delphi developer to maintain and lock after the website?). I think it's better to go with more popular web development languages. Personally I am really happy developing with the ASP.NET MVC framework. Never really liked traditional ASP.NET WebForms (viewstate is just such a bloat and if you try to AJAX'ify the website things can quickly become very complicated and badly performing) - The new ASP.NET MVC on the other hand is absolutly fantastic in this regard and a joy to work with - the seperation of Data/GUI/Logic (MVC development pattern) is much better and more modular then the intermingled mess ASP.NET WebForms was. I also heard a lot of good about Ruby on Rails. As far as development goes it sounds easy and fast - but seems to have a bit of scaling problems (if your projects require that, most don't). PHP is probably the most popular web-language, but never really got to like it. I don't like weakly typed script languages that just break during execution ... I like my code to be compiled and raise errors during compilation time if I made some mistake - makes developing/changing existing code/database tables so much easier and less error prone if you have everything strong typed. ASP.NET also has a couple of goodies that I probably would miss a lot in PHP - like, automatic XSS injection prevention, URL-Rewriting, Localisation, Authorization (user login, roles, etc), HttpModules that allow you to plug directly into the web execution pipeline of the IIS webserver, etc. ... I think the ASP.NET framework makes writing secure and high performing websites a lot easier then PHP does. Regards, Stefan -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Berend de Boer Sent: Friday, June 03, 2011 6:44 PM To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] Web development Jolyon == Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz writes: Jolyon but in the end got fed up with wrestling with HTML and CSS Jolyon - working with those technologies is like stepping back in Jolyon time in terms to tools and debugging etc, Really I would say that the available tools and capabilities are light years beyond what's offered. And we're not even talking about the ease with which you create very nice interfaces, which would be impossible to create any other way. -- All
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
No, I use Chrome+ (not Google Chrome, but the proper one). The tools I was referring to were the design and coding tools which are like going back 20 years in terms of development practices, cos the only way to know if your code works is to run it, and if it doesn't work you can't step thru your HTML/CSS to see why things aren't aligned correctly or working how you (or the standards) expect things to. That of course is true of all declarative programming languages. Inspect Element is good for seeing what HTML you or your framework has spat out, but it doesn't help you spit out the right HTML in the first place. -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Stefan Mueller Sent: Friday, 3 June 2011 23:49 To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List' Subject: [DUG] FW: Web development I guess Jolon is still using MSIE, right? .. The developer tools that are built into Google Chrome browser for example are quite good for debugging HTML/CSS(and even JavaScript). Just right click on the elements whose markup you want to see and say inspect and it will show you all the code and css applied to the element with a nice little editor that allows you to play with and modify each property on the fly. Also, developer tools such as MS Visual Studio (I am doing mostly ASP.NET MVC stuff lately) aren't too bad either with features such as autocomplete/autolookups/warnings for non-closed html-tags and invalid markup/attributes, etc that makes writing valid HTML/CSS pretty easy. As for other opinions on this whole website development talk: I definitely would stay away from writing websites in Delphi. It might be ok to use if all you need is a small quick and dirty inhouse webapp or prototype .. but what you gain in familiarity by using Delphi is quickly offset by disadvantages. PHP/.NET/RoR have huge communities of developers - if you have a problem or need some example code/library then just google for it and you will most likely find something - whereas for Delphi it's mostly up to you to figure it out and then there is the thing about maintenance if you leave the company, will they still be able to find a Delphi developer to maintain and lock after the website?). I think it's better to go with more popular web development languages. Personally I am really happy developing with the ASP.NET MVC framework. Never really liked traditional ASP.NET WebForms (viewstate is just such a bloat and if you try to AJAX'ify the website things can quickly become very complicated and badly performing) - The new ASP.NET MVC on the other hand is absolutly fantastic in this regard and a joy to work with - the seperation of Data/GUI/Logic (MVC development pattern) is much better and more modular then the intermingled mess ASP.NET WebForms was. I also heard a lot of good about Ruby on Rails. As far as development goes it sounds easy and fast - but seems to have a bit of scaling problems (if your projects require that, most don't). PHP is probably the most popular web-language, but never really got to like it. I don't like weakly typed script languages that just break during execution ... I like my code to be compiled and raise errors during compilation time if I made some mistake - makes developing/changing existing code/database tables so much easier and less error prone if you have everything strong typed. ASP.NET also has a couple of goodies that I probably would miss a lot in PHP - like, automatic XSS injection prevention, URL-Rewriting, Localisation, Authorization (user login, roles, etc), HttpModules that allow you to plug directly into the web execution pipeline of the IIS webserver, etc. ... I think the ASP.NET framework makes writing secure and high performing websites a lot easier then PHP does. Regards, Stefan -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Berend de Boer Sent: Friday, June 03, 2011 6:44 PM To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] Web development Jolyon == Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz writes: Jolyon but in the end got fed up with wrestling with HTML and CSS Jolyon - working with those technologies is like stepping back in Jolyon time in terms to tools and debugging etc, Really I would say that the available tools and capabilities are light years beyond what's offered. And we're not even talking about the ease with which you create very nice interfaces, which would be impossible to create any other way. -- All the best, Berend de Boer -- Awesome Drupal hosting: https://www.xplainhosting.com/ ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
Jolyon == Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz writes: Jolyon Inspect Element is good for seeing what HTML you or your Jolyon framework has spat out, but it doesn't help you spit out Jolyon the right HTML in the first place. I think you're probably using tools like: print phello/p; to write your HTML :-) But on the specifics of checking your HTML: check the W3C validator service. Install Pendule if you're using chrome and such checks are just a click away. -- All the best, Berend de Boer -- Awesome Drupal hosting: https://www.xplainhosting.com/ ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] FW: Web development
I am an outside observer of Web development as I don't personally do it either, but interested to find the best practice tools to pick up, as its such a promising area for the future. I guess like a lot of Delphi programmers, if we are going to pick up web development (and seems to be the mainstream for the future) we are naturally biased towards something as powerful, great IDE and well designed language as we have been blessed with in Delphi. * Have heard comments in the past that the best state of the Art IDE is some of the Java ones (ie better than Visual Studio or Delphi) * Haven't seen anyone comment on Ruby yet * Web development is certainly an area where the open source and free tools are often equal to or ahead of the commercial tools * Open source tools starting with HTML editing like Kompozer are often well integrated with W3C standards (including validating HTML code). The W3C site is an excellent starting reference for good standards. * Waiting for comments from people like Gary B and others who have done very comprehensive PHP projects, for which there are very extensive frameworks out there. They seem to be able to turn out large systems with ease and speed of development comparable to Delphi, including excellent controls, Ajax, web commerce and ordering modules, and of course as good integration with Firebird as Delphi has. * I had the impression that the various extensions to Firefox (Firebug, Greasemonkey, Javascript viewers, error console etc) have generally been thought to be the best tools for web developers in browsers. Don't know much as don't personally use these much, but being involved on the Firefox development forum I know they are redoing these tools constantly - the View HTML Source etc are getting makeovers at the moment. Latest Firefox is a joy to use btw (V7.0a1 alpha nightly build - yes its 3 versions ahead). All the latest browsers (ie9, Firefox, Opera, Chrome) seem to be rewriting the state of the art constantly which is a great thing. John Jolyon == Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz writes: Jolyon Inspect Element is good for seeing what HTML you or your Jolyon framework has spat out, but it doesn't help you spit out Jolyon the right HTML in the first place. I think you're probably using tools like: print phello/p; to write your HTML :-) But on the specifics of checking your HTML: check the W3C validator service. Install Pendule if you're using chrome and such checks are just a click away. -- All the best, Berend de Boer -- Awesome Drupal hosting: https://www.xplainhosting.com/ ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
