I’d just like to mention the subject of browser caching. Technically, this is a major design flaw (I’m being polite here) which dates back to the days of dial-in internet connections which were very slow, but it remains the 21st Century default. Simply turning caching off globally in your browser may simply replace one problem with another. On a Windows browser you generally press F5 or click on Reload to fetch the latest page version, otherwise your browser will display any old cached page it still has, and you would not know whether the page you are then seeing has been superseded or not.This leads to people complaining that “your website never changes” or “your information is obsolete” when that’s not the case if only their browser presented the latest page version by default. So news items may not get through to people unless they know about F5 etc.We’ve just disabled browser caching across the entire Cambrian website (i.e. explicitly for every page) so when you next reload one of our pages (having pressed F5 etc for a final time to get it) then our pages will not cache again, so you’ll always see the latest version on future visits to our site. If anyone notices any problems with this change, then please let our webmaster know via an email.Stuart FranceCCC C&A Officer
On a Windows browser you generally press F5 or click on Reload to fetch the latest page version, otherwise your browser will display any old cached page it still has, and you would not know whether the page you are then seeing has been superseded or not.
Anyone who possessed common sense would have implemented browser page caching in the following manner on every occasion by default:1) compare the saved date of the browser's cached copy with the create date of the latest server version of the asset - which has very little overhead as only a few bytes move in either direction2) if latter is more recent than former then automatically replace the cached page with a fresh download.
And don't get me started on Python. Whose great idea was it that which column stuff is written in matters?
You're doing a great job of convincing me the overall design is terribly flawed if all that's the case, and how anyone who is just developing the odd few webpages once in a blue moon is supposed to understand the implications, let alone the people viewing the pages who believe what they're seeing is current content because that's what common sense would imply, is unimaginable.
I wonder how the Internet of Things will ever work? If you've got some sensor or device that pings a webpage all day long for instance to supply some data, or obtain some data, and most people and organisations on the planet embrace the IoT eventually, and they are all downloading reams and reams of Javascript because it cannot be cached because it is subject to perpetual change in a rapidly moving software development cycle. And it's all supposed to run on nanopower hardware with a slice of lemon and a couple of pennies. Then what? Go on. Tell me. I dare you.
You know, at least Microsoft got it right when they based shared code (on Windows) on the DLL concept which goes back a lot lot further than Windows. Where is the DLL in web technology? Why should more than one page in the same browser instance have to download the same JS library?
The very idea that JS is all mixed up intimately with HTML inside some kind of IT food blender, and PHP kinda looks like JS but isn't (different committees involved no doubt) and PHP is in the client side HTML food processor as well as on the server side... it just beggars belief that it's been allowed to evolve like that.
And don't get me started on Python. Whose great idea was it that which column stuff is written in matters? This is a throw-back to Fortran 66.
This is a throw-back to Fortran 66.
What I meant by the ‘food blender’ approach to webpage programming is being able to write HTML, CSS, PHP and JS all in the same source code file, such as: [...]
QuoteThe mixing of content and coding is another reason why PHP is crap;
The mixing of content and coding is another reason why PHP is crap;
Plus for efficiency, it can get better performance to inline stuff as it reduces the number of connections/requests needed.
Just like the C programming language (from the same stable) where some sort of intellectual status obtains from writing down with the smallest number of letters and the highest symbols-to-alphanumerics ratio something that can otherwise be stated far more clearly.
Your comment was succinctly ad hominem, Chris.
I made my living out of software for the past 40 years and created a business that employs other people doing the same. I must have got something right somewhere along the line.The sad thing is that people are doomed to repeat history unless they appreciate it, and this applies to programming as much as to anything else, including the BCA's present management. Software development history professors are in short supply.Universities don't even teach programming now across the sciences. One of my colleagues from the 1980s has gone back to the university where we both used to work (he is now mid-70s) to teach programming part-time to the undergraduates. I find this hard to believe but it has happened.A lot of what I do is embedded code, and recruiting people now who can bring together hardware and software coupled to originality is a real struggle I can tell you.
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