What is the best Client Side development tool?

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myleow
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What is the best Client Side development tool?

Post by myleow »

What is the best Client side scipting language that has the least security vunerability?



What is the best Front End development IDE? Dreamweaver??

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Mian
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John Cartwright
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Post by John Cartwright »

Every language has their vulnerabilities and are always being updated to fix the exploits so I don't believe its fair to say one language is the most secure.

On a second note, I would stay away from dreamweaver.
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

The best client-side scripting language is none.

All WYSIWYG editors are bad. Text editors are the IDE of choice. The "best"-ish depends on the platform you work on. For the most part, there isn't a best. But there are many good ones.
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Advise appreciated

Post by myleow »

Well i am going to develop a front end interface, as simple as possible for my site.

I did most of the backend PHP development, current all error checkings are done via PHP and a simple HTML for front end. Since users only interacts with the front end and doesn't know about the back, front end presentation and respond time is pretty important.

What is the best way to make a U/I appeal to users? I am thinking as simple as possible so it will load fast and don't have to be bogged down with extra stuff.

I am thinking of using Javascript or Flash. I am pretty new to both. So it is difficult for me to decide.

Appreciate any advice you have to share.

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Mian
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Jean-Yves
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Post by Jean-Yves »

I'd stay clear of Flash. It's good for eye-candy but is over the top if you are buidling a process-driven site. Also your users will need to have the plug-in installed. I personally loath Flash sites.

IMHO, stick with Javascript for the front-end, and ALWAYS revalidate any input at the back end.

To make your site look good, use CSS (and a decent graphic artist! ;) )

As an aside, VBScript is a no-no unless you can gurantee that ALL your users will ALWAYS be using IE.
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Post by myleow »

I will experiment with Javascript and CSS then. I am thinking that i still need to generate the pages using PHP.
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Jean-Yves
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Post by Jean-Yves »

myleow wrote:I will experiment with Javascript and CSS then. I am thinking that i still need to generate the pages using PHP.
Yes, since PHP is server-side. Javascript and CSS are client-side tools.

Server side tools are used to process requests and data, generate the html and send it to the browser. Amongst other things.

JS is a language that works once the html has arrived at your browser (OK, strictly speaking you can have server-side JS too, but let's not go there right now).

If you are unclear about the difference, you should really read a generic web-programming introduction.

Hope that helps
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Post by rehfeld »

dreamweaver can be nice to make your html. its fast, and as long as you dont go nested table crazy, the html it creates is fair.
but its still kinda amature to use it.

but for php, noooooooo........handcode only

i still recomend(like said above) to use a text editor as the ide. its the only way your gonna learn it, and you have so much more power and controll.

i dont like ide's much.
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Post by Draco_03 »

Jean-Yves wrote:I'd stay clear of Flash. It's good for eye-candy but is over the top if you are buidling a process-driven site. Also your users will need to have the plug-in installed. I personally loath Flash sites.
I totally disagree,

Flash is much more then eye-candy. It can do a lot of dynamic stuff better then any html (or php) driven website.
The server to do so cost a lot, that's the draw back.

And as for you have to get the plug-in, well it comes with windows xp, and over 90% of casual users have flash player. If you don't, your missing a good part of the web.
I understand the fact that you don't like flash, but you should,t advise people not to use it, because of your personal preference.
Flash can be a powerful tool, when use properly. And do not forget that flash is CROSS-BROWSER, since it's a player :)

Everyone will always see what you make the SAME WAY. Wich is a reliefe because us developper take a lot of time on this issue.

Anyways, saying people cannot view your site because they don't have the player is like sayoing don't use javascript, because it might be turned off.

Myleow, I'd say go with what your confortable with, and flash can do much MUCH more then javascript. (faster)

My 2 cent
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Post by patrikG »

Regarding front-end editor have a look at this: http://www.interactivetools.com/products/htmlarea/

and for a more cross-browser version (not as powerful, but does everything you'd want):

https://sourceforge.net/projects/tinyhtml/

Regarding best IDE: search this forum - there are plenty of threads about it. Some say Zend, others Komodo, others PHPEdit, others Scyte, others ...
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Post by phpScott »

I have seen some very execellent work done with flash, fully dynamic and cutomizable sites, that load fairly quickly, however as for speed I think that could be debatable as to which is faster.

Javascript has been around for along time and is the defacto standard for doing client side scripting.

My recomandation is to use what you feel comfortable with, that includes dreamweaver, but don't use gui's as a crutch because if something isn't working right then you will have to look at the code and decipher it.
The last placed I worked at all the designers used dreamweaver and when ever a table didn't line up right or the js didn't work they would come crawling to me to help them fix it because they didn't understand the code that was being generated.

The best thing you can do is practice and as lots of questions.
To avoid getting into trouble, search google, php.net and this site for answers first then if you can't find the answer by all means post here and we will do our best to helpl
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Post by Draco_03 »

Phpscott sorry i wasn't clear, I meant faster to devlop :)
I never tested wich language is faster (action script or javascript), but it isn't quite easy since when you load flash you load the "whole" thing (excpet for external movie clip) but whatever, so when it's loaded, it's done.

But anyways I meant faster to developpe 8)
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Post by kettle_drum »

And do not forget that flash is CROSS-BROWSER, since it's a player.
That would surely mean that everything was cross-browser....as long as you had a 'player' to run it. HTML is cross-browser as well, its just IE doesnt follow the rules.

I wouldnt use flash for several reasons:

1) It often takes too long to load. A lot of people still dont have fast internet connections and give up on sites with flash.
2) I generally go to web sites to find infomation in the form of text that i can read and take on board what i waht to find fast - flash is there to jazz things up, and it makes me wonder if the site has any useful info if its hiding it behind some jazzy front.
3) 90% of people may have flash plugins - but that is still low, thats a hole 10% of users that your <span style='color:blue' title='I'm naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span> off when you dont have to. Its a silly pratice to not to make your site viewable by ALL people who visit.
4) The wait is rarely worth it. Yes ive seen some nice sites made in flash...but ive seen more in just plain html/css and images.

Yes i can see a reason for using it to make games to see how far you can hit a penguin...but then that makes me think, why not just code it c/c++/java and make the user download it to play it.
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Post by andre_c »

Personally, the only use that I see for flash is (like somebody said early) is eye candy.
It's true that you can effectively combine flash with server-side code but i find that it's not worth it unless you need that eye candy.
For a project in which the usability is more important than the look of it, I think flash is overkill.
Javascript and CSS are surprisingly cross-browser compatible once you have some experience and learn a few tricks. And I think they're a lot easier to maintain.
Also, if javascript is turned off, most likely a few features won't work. If the flash plugin is missing, whole squares from website will be grayed out. And it's easier to get a user to turn on javascript (which is included in most browsers) than to get them to download a plugin.
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Post by Draco_03 »

kettle_drum wrote: That would surely mean that everything was cross-browser....as long as you had a 'player' to run it. HTML is cross-browser as well, its just IE doesnt follow the rules.
Well, IE is a browser right? HTML doesn't work properly sometimes on IE right. THen HTML is NOT crossbrowser. Cross-Browser and W3C is not the same thing.
kettle_drum wrote: I wouldnt use flash for several reasons:

1) It often takes too long to load. A lot of people still dont have fast internet connections and give up on sites with flash.
You can have flash that vary from 30k to 4megs, what you saying is based on "nothing". What often is ? And too long for you you might be quite well for someone.
Since we don't know what the user is developping how can we judge if it will or will not take too much time to load?The only flash that takes long to load are "usually" (when done by a skilled programmer) packed with FX. Wich the user knew perfectly well it would be longer to load, but gives a much more "interesting" web experience. That's basically up too the developper.
kettle_drum wrote: 2) I generally go to web sites to find infomation in the form of text that i can read and take on board what i waht to find fast - flash is there to jazz things up, and it makes me wonder if the site has any useful info if its hiding it behind some jazzy front.
And I might agree or not, but in this case it's irrelevent since neither you, or me, represent tha majority of people. For exemple when I come into a site to look for info, and i get to see somehting like 2advance, I want to click in all sections to see the whole site, because it got my eye. So it's really a question of taste
kettle_drum wrote: 3) 90% of people may have flash plugins - but that is still low, thats a hole 10% of users that your <span style='color:blue' title='I'm naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span> off when you dont have to. Its a silly pratice to not to make your site viewable by ALL people who visit.
When i said over 90%, it's because I didn't remember the exact % i think it mor elike 97%, but whatever, I for one doesn't support NS4 when I developpe a website and I for one always suggest to my clinets to use flash (when necessary), because it's the future. That's a fact more and more site are made with flash. It's growing.
kettle_drum wrote: 4) The wait is rarely worth it. Yes ive seen some nice sites made in flash...but ive seen more in just plain html/css and images.

Yes i can see a reason for using it to make games to see how far you can hit a penguin...but then that makes me think, why not just code it c/c++/java and make the user download it to play it.
That is far fetched kettle_drum :)
doing a flash website is nothing cmoparable as to make an executable to download..seriously.The wait is rarely worth it, again, if you browse for a specific information and you don't care has to how it is presented, I agree. But I brose often about stuff that I would like well presented, and "especially" if you offer a service, then there is no question about it, 99% of employers(that's a wild guess) that offer job through internet and look at your website, don't care about the backend, you could be the best programmer in the world if your site look like a txt file, you might lose the job over to someone that is less experienced that you but did his site more "appealing" to the eye.

ps : There is no intention of starting a war html vs flash, if I offended anyone in my post I apologize in advance, it is merely what I think.

my 2 cents :)
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