Explore Posterous

Reflections on Two Years of Mozilla Application Development - Part 2

Before getting into the nuts and bolts of Mozilla programming, let me share some more background.  In 2005 I graduated from the a university in Kentucky with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science.  I participated in a cooperative education program that gave me some helpful on work experience.  I primarily used C++, with a small sampling of Java, VB, Perl, and other languages.  I had almost no experience with JavaScript.  After graduation, I began working part-time Christian ministry on staff at a local church.  A year and a half later I began an additional part-time job - working remotely from Kentucky as a contractor for a small company in Raleigh, North Carolina.

At that time I joined a two-person team (industrial/organization psychologist and software developer) who developed software for military clients to aid in the assessment and selection of certain elite soldiers.  What began as a complicated Excel spreadsheet years prior had evolved into (and outgrown) a Microsoft Access database.  When I joined the team, we were working to separate the front-end from the back-end database, with plans to move the database to a more industrial-strength database.  We also planned to move the application to a client-server model, eventually.

Our lead developer selected the Mozilla platform for designing our client interface.  I was not familiar with XUL at the time, but I was comfortable developing with a proven technology -- a la Firefox and Thunderbird.

In my next post I will begin discuss the benefits of XUL application development.

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (0) »

Reflections on Two Years of Mozilla Application Development - Part 1

Two years ago I began using Mozilla as a platform for application development.  Non-developers may not realize that Mozilla is more than Firefox, or more than Firefox and Thunderbird.  It certainly can be confusing - after all, Mozilla includes a non-profit foundation and a subsidiary corporation.  It is an open source project, and Firefox is certainly their flagship product.

Firefox (and other Mozilla products) are built using web technologies like Javascript and CSS - and something else called XML User interface Language (XUL).  XUL provides the ability for the user to describe and create a interface in a simple fashion using XML.

Beyond using XUL to create Mozilla applications, Mozilla also offers the technologies up for other people to create their own applications.  In 2007, I began working along-side another developer to use XUL to create a new front-end for an application.  In this series I will share what I've learned and make observations about the use of Mozilla as a platform for application development.

Read Part 2.

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (3) »

XUL

via http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (0) »

A simple categorization of client-side web application frameworks

I recently wanted to find a new framework to use to create a very client-heavy web application, and after some searching on the Internet, I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of options.  These frameworks differ on a variety of dimensions, but the one I found most useful for me was to categorize them based on their "heaviness."  What I mean by a heavy framework here is one that is used for making very desktop-like applications for the browser - things that make it very simple to do things like undo in your app and end up producing a very fat client type application.  Light frameworks, on the other hand, are not much more than a layer on top of raw Javascript to help you do things like AJAX calls or DOM manipulation more easily.  Although I am looking for a heavy framework, all of these frameworks have their place.

Note that this list, right now, is based solely on what I have been reading over the past weekend and I haven't actually hacked around with any of the frameworks (I plan to once I finish making my shortlist).  Please feel free to let me know in the comments if you think I have miscategorized any of the frameworks.  I also realize that ranking the heaviness of the framework is somewhat simplistic and doesn't take everything about the framework's ability into account (everybody is unique, after all), but it just seemed like a useful heuristic to me (and I feel like it would take me at least a month to really judge all of these frameworks).   I hope, at some point, to write up more detailed reviews of some of these frameworks.  

Anyway, my classifications are below.  

• Heavyweight (The entire app is pretty much on the client side and the framework is focused very much on making desktop-like applications - these are often used to create what are known as RIAs)
• Flex
• Sproutcore
• Cappuccino
• Open Laszlo
• Silverlight
• Qooxdoo
• JavascriptMVC
• Spry
• OAT
• JavaFX
• Tibco GI
• Light heavyweight (These frameworks still make it possible to make desktop-like applications with huge widget libraries, but seem to be one level of abstraction below the heavyweights)
• Dojo
• YUI
• EXT
• Middleweight (These frameworks don't differ that much from the light heavyweights, except they seem to have fewer widgets and UI tools)
• Google web toolkit (GWT)
• Open Rico
• Welterweight (These frameworks make writing AJAX and doing DOM manipulation easier, but they seem a bit low on tools to make a full fledged desktop like application)
• JQuery
• Prototype/scriptaculous
• Fork
• Lightweight (These seem to basically be very light abstractions on top of Javascript/CSS - more like Javascript utility libraries than actual frameworks)
• Moo Tools
• X Library
• Mochikit
• XUL

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (6) »