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Posted by Toby Inkster on 11/22/06 17:28
Sanders Kaufman wrote:
> Toby Inkster wrote:
>
>> Although a good idea, you don't actually need to know much about XML to
>> use AJAX. AJAX can be a very useful set of techniques, and I'm glad I've
>> started using them. I find it especially useful to be able to validate
>> form fields against a server script in a javascript "onblur" event.
>
> Wow - I'm really surprised to see so many developers say that XML (a
> fundamental web dev skill) should not be bothered with.
I didn't say not to bother learning XML -- just that it's not particularly
essential for doing AJAX-ey things. (Despite what the 'X' in 'AJAX' stands
for.)
XML can be a great tool for exchanging data -- especially as pretty much
any programming language these days has built-in support or commonly
installed libraries that make generating and parsing XML piss-easy.
But XML is anything but essential for AJAX. This is because your
server-side component can format its results as, say, "text/plain" or
"text/html" instead of "text/xml".
> This kind of advice is like telling a math major to learn addition and
> subtraction, but don't bother with multiplication.
I've got a maths degree and I can tell you that there is very little
multiplication involved in University-level mathematics, and addition
and subtraction are used even less. If it had just been adding numbers
up, I might have found it a bit easier.
> Really - the fundamental skills of professional web dev are HTML,
> CSS, XML, JavaScript - everything else feeds off of those core
> competencies.
Personally I find the most essential skills are a good understanding of
general programming princples (recursion, logic, code reusability,
security & robustness), sound database design (at least the first three
normal forms) and usability.
--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
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