Well, I quit my job that I've had for the past 7 1/2 years... It's a really odd sensation to not have the same thing to do everyday... Friday is my last day. Until then I am supposed to write some sort of ReadMe file for the internal site I've been working on. I should rephrase that. I am supposed to write a series of ReadMe files on the aspects of the internal site I've been working on that no one else seems to understand. Which is to say, three files:
  1. CSS
  2. DOM Scripting
  3. AJAX
I've been somewhat nonplussed about the whole thing. Frankly, I'm of the opinion that if you don't know the basics of CSS, you shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the back side of a website. Similarly, if you don't know anything about the DOM, don't go near DOM scripting. Especially not on a production site. But, in the end, I want to leave here on good terms, so I've been working on the ReadMe files... Here's what I've garnered from writing the CSS one and the DOM scripting one. CSS - Trying to explain a relatively involved fluid layout that uses a liquid multi-column layout (using negative margins... read the ALA article, it's really good) to someone who doesn't understand even the very basics of CSS (like, none at all) is about as futile an experiment as I can imagine... I spent a couple pages going over the very basics of CSS, like syntax and specificity... and gave some examples using the color: property and varying complexity of selectors (tagName, .class, #idName, .class1 .class2, tagName.class, etc.. ad nauseum). Then I skip over almost all of the things that I consider more difficult to grok like floats, cross-browser incompatibilities and the like... and jump right to: "here is how to make your markup work with the CSS that I've already created for you." I feel like an ass forcing the markup to match some set pattern. However, the fact of the matter is that the set pattern I'm forcing is actually just standard valid XHTML and an enclosing div with a class of "widget", so I don't feel all that badly. I wish that there was someone here who got CSS, because I worked really hard on this site and would hate to see it stagnate due to lack of understanding. DOM Scripting - The one thing I decided straight off on this ReadMe was that I would assume familiarity with javascript syntax (this is a C# shop, afterall... the syntax is almost identical). I also assumed an understanding of the DOM. I feel like that was a total cop out. Seriously, I know that that understanding is not there. Understanding of basic HTML is barely there... So, I explained attaching events to things programmatically... and the benefits of pushing stupid processing off on the client. Essentially, the non-ajax portion of the js used on this site was strictly table oriented. Styling and Sorting tablular data. Fun fact about ASP.NET, you can sort tables... but it posts back for every sort. The example I used was about 1,000 records (about 450k in markup) so to sort by any given column in descending order would mean transferring that same exact data 5 times (from server, back, back-reordered, back, back-reordered). That's kinda fucked up. The sort itself in js takes about 1 second... so, 2 seconds total, since we sort first ascending, then descending. So, I remembered how awesome and powerful javascript can be. And was reminded about how annoying a lot of out of the box ASP stuff is. (Note, .NET might be pushing this onto the client now... I'm not as up to date on .NET as I really should be.. seeing as how it's my job [both new and old...]) anywho. um. yeah. exit interview in an hour. should be interesting. -d.