Group items tagged

Here's a sticky note to share with everyone.

Hey everyone. If you are a member of the group, you can see what others have to say about pages on the web!

Just wondering if you have specific page numbers of the textbook you want us to read. Do you want us to do all the exercises in the book?

Ha, I didn't see this hiding up here. It's up to you which (and whether) you want to do the exercizes in the book. The advantage of the book, I think, is that it provides a nice structured approach, it gets you started on the right foot right away, and it focusses on what is important. The downside is that there is some "fluff." Sometime we all need a bit of fluff. So, the long and the short of it is, if I were in your shoes, I would work through the book quickly. Some of what is covered there is also covered in my lectures. In fact, I think this is the largest amount of overlap I have ever had between a text and the lectures. But I suspect you will need more depth in some cases than you get from the lectures. You might try watching the lectures, and then working through the section of the book. It's probably too much to actually "read" during a week (yikes) but it is highly skimable. And there will be an opportunity to return to it, as we move into some of the programming.

For challenge webprog-1-b: Question about the syllabus (and a suggestion) Question: I've been submitting challenges through adding bookmarks on Diigo; however, I used sticky notes on this one. Do you have a preference of how we submit challenges? Thanks. Suggestion: Very thorough lecture, but in future ones, it might be helpful to mention in computer requirements that Mac users need at least OS X 10.4 to access Firefox, Firebug, etc.

Challenge for webprog-1-b: question #2 If we want to improve our grade on one of the challenges, are we allowed to redo it?

Monica: Need to bookmark as well as sticky. I find the assignments according to the tag, so if it's not tagged, I won't find it. Firefox, Firebug, Firezilla, etc. are all available for 10.4 and before. Just google, e.g., "Firefox earlier releases." They may not have the same features as the most recent version. In practice, you can survive without any of these; they are just nice to have. As for your last question: the grade on an assignment is binary: either you get all the points or you don't. If you didn't, you'll need to send me a note when you redo it, so I can recheck it. If it's still before the deadline, you can rec. full points. If it is after the deadline, you get reduced points.

Can this be in the form a conversation with another person or do I have to be the only one in the video?

More the merrier, I say! Whatever increases interestingness (and I think this would) is a good thing.

What's the difference between naming an HTML file with .html or .htm? Both work, right?

HTML is the "correct" choice, though .htm will also work. The latter is a result of limitations of the early DOS & Windows systems, which could only handle 3 letter extensions (and 8 letter filenames). Why is it still used today? Microsoft continues to push it as a feature, not a bug, and those using MS servers or ASP are more likely to use it, unless, of course, it is a .asp page. But the standard usage is still .html.

Congratulations!

Thanks :)

I just want to be sure that all the work I've done, including my bookmarks for webprog-1-a have been seen. I am missing grades for work that I've done in 1-a and 1-b...I'm sure it's hard to keep track of everything. Thank You!

Matt, I try to check every day, but sometimes I go a couple of days without. If I'm still missing something of your, and it shows up in your collected bookmarks, let me know and I'll do a quick audit, making sure all your bookmarks (assuming they meet the standards of the challenge) show up in the gradebook.

Who ultimately decides what new coding practices are? Do they have pow-wows every X amount of years to discuss the evolution of code? How long before they become mainstream and accepted by all browsers and designers/programmers alike?

It's complicated. W3C is considered the standards issueing group, and yes, they pretty much continually talk about what needs to happen in the next standard. In that, it's a bit like the video standards, with the MPEG group deciding what should be included as part of an MPEG-2 or MPEG-6 standard. However, it's also the case that there is a bit more variability in how well browsers follow that standard. As the book suggests, it's much better today than it was a few years back, when you would have effectively had to design different sites for each browser. There are still some oddities in Internet Explorer that you will likely have to design hacks for, but it's not like it used to be.