Technology - Web Development 6 - Webfeed, Podcasting & Client Side Scripting

Synopsis

We discuss webfeed, using the RSS and Atom protocols - which revolutionise the discovery of web-based material - and podcasting, which downloads the identified audio visual resources for later playback. We also discuss Java, JavaScript, ECMAScript, XUL and SMIL programming languages which are executed within the web browser, together with the XMLHttpRequest communications protocol and the JSON data format, which is an alternative to XML.

Table of Contents

• 1. Synopsis
• 2. Webfeed - RSS, Atom and PodCasting
  • 2.1 Basic Syndication
  • 2.2 Metadata
  • 2.3 Active bookmarks
  • 2.4 Link types for webfeed
  • 2.5 Atom versus RSS
  • 2.6 Podcasting
    • 2.6.1 Apple’s iTunes
    • 2.6.2 Broadcatching and video distribution
• 3. Java and scripting languages
  • 3.1 Java
    • 3.1.1 Write once, run anywhere
    • 3.1.2 Design goals
    • 3.1.3 Strongly typed
    • 3.1.4 Strictness a barrier to use for GUI?
    • 3.1.5 Applications
  • 3.2 SMIL
  • 3.3 XUL
    • 3.3.1 XUL applications without installation
    • 3.3.2 Standalone XUL applications
  • 3.4 Other scripting languages
  • 3.5 JavaScript and ECMAScript
    • 3.5.1 History and standards
    • 3.5.2 Dynamic typing
    • 3.5.3 Robustness
    • 3.5.4 Advanced uses - DHTML
    • 3.5.5 Security
    • 3.5.6 XMLHttpRequest
    • 3.5.7 XML, JSON and other formats
• 4. Related reports