April 27 Development Techniques galin
Bilimora JavaScript and PHP are both important coding languages for the web projects we put together. Most of the times it is pretty obvious which language you must use since one language is a server-side language (PHP) and the other an object oriented language (Javascript). But every now and then a scenario arises where you may use either language.
For example, take the video player design on some of the entertainment sites I make. Recently, I made an update to the player that sped up the load time (and took the stress off my server) significantly. This is because of a coding goal of minimizing the amount of PHP necessary for laying out a page.
Minimizing PHP is a good practice for multiple reasons. It takes stress off your server, and it speeds up the load time of your site. The server impact follows from the way PHP functions. PHP loads information from your server (hints ‘server-side language’). The less PHP code, the less work your server has to do. Less work for your server also speeds up the load time of your site following simple logic (everything must load from the server, so less is better).
With my video player example, originally, the player had been coded with an inefficient amount of PHP being used for laying out the HTML. Using Javascript instead to write the HTML after page actions, the load time of these sites sped up drastically.
When it comes to web development and coding, the attitude of ‘less is more’ is always important. Part of search algorithms for SEO purposes looks at the load time of your site now. It also costs more bandwidth to load more from your server. For web development, constantly thinking ‘less is more’ is very important for implenting PHP in a proper manner.
Contact us today for web expertise on your PHP and database driven websites!
April 13 Development Techniques galin
I code in three different web languages that all work together to accomplish about any task you need for your website. Well three is a stretch because only two involve traditional (difficult) programming. The two languages being PHP and Javascript.
PHP stands for “Hypertext Preprocessor”. It is a server-side scripting language. In simple terms, this means you use php to grab and display specific information from your server. This is great for sites that need to provide a lot of information.
For example, lets say you wanted to make a website that allowed users to view their order status depending on the login. This would be accomplished with PHP. After logging in, depending on what user it is, proper PHP coding would send a query to the database that would then output the specific users information based on what information is in the database.
Javascript is called an “object-oriented scripting language”. This language is used for on page actions (as opposed to page load actions which PHP accomplishes). This is great for making a specific page (after initial load) look dynamic.
An example of Javascript code would be when you hover over the menu at the top. The effect of a drop menu is done through Javascript.
So, Javascript and PHP go hand in hand. For successful web development it is important to feel comfortable with a server side language and an object oriented language so you can cover every angle you are presented with. In my opinion, these are the best two to use since there is a lot of information on Javascript and PHP on the web.
April 11 Customer Website Tips galin
When making a website, you should always keep in mind that you should put some way to have your users contact you from the site. One way to accomplish this is through just having a contact page with email addresses and phone numbers.
A contact page is nice but just putting email addresses up isn’t that practical for users. People use mail clients on web browsers like gmail, yahoo mail, etc. When you just put links up to email addresses and a user clicks it, the click opens the default mail program on your computers operating system. For a lot of people, they do not use these. These users would have to log into their email in their web browser, then copy and paste the email address to send it. Annoying and time consuming for the user, right?
Luckily there is a simple solution to make users not say expletives when using your website: Ozar Contact Forms. Contact Forms are ways for users to send emails to you directly from a website. An example of one is the one located at the bottom of every page on this site. These are easy to set up, and we always suggest them to customers. They are great for gathering information about your users and for making the experience better for your website users.
February 14 Development Techniques galin
My route towards web development is very unusual. I received two Bachelors of Science in Math and Economics at the University of Michigan. I took one computer programming class for my Actuarial Math degree in C++. That and a basic intro to javascript class through my old company are the only formal trainings I have had. Today, I feel comfortable researching and building whatever a customer may want. Why is that?
The internet is why. When I first started at my old job, they needed extra hands to do some HTML/CSS work. I didn’t have enough work to do, so I said to myself “Why not”. A co-worker there showed me a website, w3schools.com. If you want to learn computer languages, go there. Read through a tutorial. Read through it again. Then read through it again. The tutorial I would start with is the CSS and HTML stuff.
I still use this website as a reference point for how to code things I want to code. It has most of the syntax stuff you would ever want in the languages of PHP, Javascript, and HTML/CSS.
I do think my analytical degree background and my extremely analytical brain are other reasons why I am so efficient and comfortable with web development. If you think you have a similar mindset and want to get involved in an excellent industry, read that site and feel free to email me questions at galin@gpmwebsolutions.com.
