Forum selection drop-down??

[Dolda2000]

but that is totally against the spirit of programming in general! why should we shun people who have come up with a viable solution, albeit one which is esoteric. i was super insane at html/css/javascript a couple years ago, and remember staying up all night on several occasions coding menubars and ui's... i think that the DOM is flawed a tad, but i see no problem with a standard such as that

If it were viable, I'd agree with you. However, it isn't. If you just want a completely client-side user interface (i.e. with no interaction with the server), then you should write a program in either case, since that is... well, I'd actually care to say better in each and every way, except it may get too many privileges for the end-user to feel comfortable. If the last issue is a problem, you should use Java WebStart instead.

If you want a user interface that does communicate with the server, the web falls immediately, since it's just too impractical to implement with a protocol like HTTP. That is because of the nature of the web, which makes you completely lose all client-side state every time you wish to communicate with the server (sure, you could create some hack using hidden frames and stuff, but now we're talking about being so ugly that I wouldn't even touch it with a pair of pliers).

So Dolda, what do you suggest for "interface technology"?

Well, there is X11 which is mature and ready to use. I can agree it might not be the best thing over the Internet at large, though, thanks to the latency. However, then there is NEWS, which would be great for things like that.

[lakerdonald]

i think we're suffering from a case of miscommunication
i'm not suggesting a substitute for X11, just i don't think that there is anything wrong with a nice client side scripting language to create an interactive menu bar as a substitute for a bland frame to the side

[Dolda2000]

Well, the thing is that that menu bar is really just an esthetical improvement which has more or less no practical value. Considering the lack of practical value, it doesn't justify the cost for having to implement JavaScript in a browser.

Also, you can just implement a menu bar with CSS. ;-)

[lakerdonald]

like i said before:
CSS is easily deployed through javascript

[Dolda2000]

Not at all -- CSS is self-containing. Since there is so little actual practical for JavaScript, it does not justify the cost of having to implement it in a browser. For that reason, if everyone tries to stay away from JavaScript, it will decline in popularity so much that it does not have to be implemented in new browsers anymore.

As a programmer, I naturally like things that increase the functionality of a program. However, when it's supposed to be a standard, you have to consider if adding functionality to the standard is worth the cost of implementing it. And when it comes to JavaScript, I say that it's not worth it. The only thing that currently makes it worth it is its current popularity, and that is why everyone should shy it like the bubonic plague, so that it won't be worth it anymore.

[lakerdonald]

okay
fine...we have contrasting opinions.s'aight...
lol

[the_unforgiven]

the_unforgiven, thanks for your suggestion, however it is a little more complicated than that. Think permissions, ordering of listing, and grouping by category.

The way I am running mysqld at the moment, even the slightest underperforming query has a big impact on server load.

Like I said, the box has been removed for a reason. When I work out the most suitable way to cache it then you will get an option in your forum profile to enable or disable the jumpbox.

Sure...
I'm looking forward for it..

Thanks a lot..

[scientica]

> NEWS
uhm... Dolda, could you please give an URL with more info on that (I'm guessing it's not news as in mail/usenet/nntp)

X11, I've seen things about it, though I've lost the url, I trie dit once but due to a version missmatch the plugin for firefox just crashed it... (so I actually never really tried it) -- also, iirc it required several linux/unix specific features, such as X11 - which means it's not crossplatform.


I think much of JavaScript's bad reputation actually comes from Microsoft's implementation/version, which in reallirt is JScript. JScipt is in one way a subset of JavaScript, and in one way an extension, eg, some code that really shouldn't be runnanble JavaScript seems to work when read as JScript (also there are some differences in the names of different things, for insance I know mozilla/gecko uses "className" isntead of "class" for a poperty related to elements, this due to DOM having a member named "class", which isn't the class from '<tag class="">'. I'm not sure but I think JScript/MSIE interprents "class" as "className"...). Btw, recently I've run accross EMCA scripts, which I belive is some standard for JavaScript, though I really don't know anything about it or it's correlation to JavaScript or JScript, does anyone know?



btw, css is just king, eg, if you want scrollbars for a pice of text, you can use JavaScript or css. (from my own experience I can tell, chances are you'll never get the JavaScript "solution" to work, the css is just "instant working" )