Templates, Hijax and our Presentation
At the end of today’s assessment presentation for KXA351 Software Engineering Project A there was a five minute question period where we had to field our assessor’s some answers. Which was kind of interesting for the things that attracted attention.
The first issue that hit my radar was the question as to whether or not our WordPress templates were actually downloaded off the Internet. Seriously. Apparently I make templates that appear a little too professional to be made by me - and I guess in a way that’s a compliment. It won’t be such a compliment if someone accuses me openly of plagiarising my own handiwork but there you go. Interesting feedback.
The same assessor, a post graduate Computer Science student, then went on to talk about our contact form. We used Jeremy Keith’s hijax script to make sure that with JavaScript enabled the user gets the validation and feedback without a page refresh. Without JavaScript enabled then there is a page refresh. While it needed some work on our part in a future release the principle was obvious. But not to the assessor. I was told using Ajax for this is like crushing a Coke can with a car. Seriously.
The assessor in question then went into a long explanation of why they considered old school JavaScript validation on the client and also PHP validation on the server to be the best way to go. I said “one script” does it all - the PHP. He said, but JavaScript can do all this by itself. I said “but what about the 10% of users WITHOUT JavaScript enabled”? In the end my animated explanations either made the penny drop for him or he simply shut us down and moved on.
Assessment is a funny thing and more so when you actually have some industry level skills in a given area. The post-graduate assessor was wrong on both counts - I didn’t filch the design and that Hijax, although it has some usability issues (back button for example), provides a better scenario than maintaining 2 separate validation scripts. One script does everything. And, in the end I was left wondering if he even understood what I was talking about when I mentioned MX values and Port 25.
If anyone is a JavaScripter out there reading this - can you check these two from the client side if someone enters an email address? Maybe. I don’t know. But even if you can it strikes me as an incredibly stupid place to consider doing validation of that nature.
OK, that frees me up now for the next six weeks. Lindy is off tomorrow for 2 and a half weeks in Alice Springs and I’m at home with the car in at the mechanic for an indeterminate period. The bill is very high. Almost too high to consider saving. So its back to being a bus baby. And I get to sleep on the couch. And gardening.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Also, I’d add to that bit about JavaScript doing critical validation - does it make sense to validate on the person’s machine anyway? I mean if I’m trying to prevent form hijacking then the last place I want to try to do the preventing is on the hijacker’s friggen own computer right?
The right tool for the right job. Protect yourself on the server and enhance the experience on the client for those with capable browsers.
OMG what’s so difficult to comprehend in that world view?
Don’t you think its interesting how a lot of very smart people just don’t get these things? I mean seriously. How can that not make sense to anyone?!