CSS Blog

Since the publication of HTML 4.01, HTML standard was not changed. Many developers declared HTML dead and switched to XHTML. I am also not an exception, because I switched from HTML to XHTML Transitional, then to Strict and later completely to XHTML 1.1. Mostly I develop web pages based on TYPO3 and use many plug-ins. I have a lot of work in the adaptation of templates so that they generate a proper code. The reason is, different developers of the plugins are using different technoligy.
Today, I learned via Golem.de that Mozilla integraded into Firefox 3.1 a video-tag. Moreover, according to Golem, Opera and Safari made it too. This means that you can soon use video-tag instead of Flash or Silverlight. It also means that HTML is not dead, because video-tag ist a part of the HTML 5.0 specification.
It’s just so that when you are the developer, you have to lern every day something new. If you stop for some time, to lern new technologies, then you have bad cards, if you would like to stay in business for a long time. But why must it be so complicated? Why should I use parallel HTML and XHTML? Would it not make sense, to develop an once technology constantly, instead to develop multiple specifications? I could understand the situation if there was no organization which control the developing of standards. But this organisation exists! I would prefer to continue using XTML, instead of HTML 5, because there will be a chaos, between developers, who works on the same project, e.g. TYPO3.

Today I am read a magazine about web technologies and found an interesting article about Qooxdoo. Qooxdoo is an open source project, launched by 1&1. It is an Ajax Framework. This framework provides, in contrast to Prototype not only the JavaScript methods, but also a GUI toolkit. This means that you can build a complex web application with a graphical interface, without to have HTML, CSS and DOM knowledge. It is not important what for server technology are you using for developing. You could take PHP as well as Java, Python, Perl or Ruby programming language. Qooxdoo use the principle of object orientation. Of course, the scripts generated by Qooxdoo will be supported by all popular browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari version 3. This means that the developer have not to worry about the low level issues of different browser. Another advantage of Qooxdoo is the fact that no additional plug-ins, such as Java, Flash or Silverlight are needed.
You can find interesting examples on the website of the project, which make it clear what you can do within the framework and they are really fascinating. You get the feeling that you use an application written in C + + or Java. Thanks to the internal optimizer, all applications bekame really quickly. Those who wish to create commercial projects will be certainly comfortable with built on the opfuscation tool. This feature is very important because it can protect a source code. This brings additional security, which plays today a major role.
One prominent example of the project, powered by Qooxdoo Framework is the Webmailer of GMX. Here are the advantages of this technology particularly clear. The Webmailer application of GMX looks like a normal program such as Outlook and is very pleasant to use.
I think that it was a very clever idea of 1&1, to release this framework as an open source project. Not only 1&1 will benefit by the development of their own web applications, because they can save a lot of money but also the foreign developers who receives a powerful tool for creating Web-based applications for free. The example of Eclipse project can show how good this strategy could work.