Javascript

Javascript to me in an indispensible tool for creating powerful web applications. It can help remind users to behave correctly, and it can be used to have the page change itself according to user requests.

At scheduling.com, I had a tangled situation in that my web pages and applications could be viewed by users through one of two web servers. It would have been very unwieldy from the server to determine how users were viewing my pages, and often I needed to know exactly which URL they were browsing through or whether I had access to server-specific tools. Enter Javascript.

I also have enjoyed using Javascript to enforce rules that would otherwise need to be followed by users. Users don't always follow instructions, so the more frequently rules can be forced on the user by the code, the better. Javascript is an easy way to watch page flow or to make sure forms are correctly used.

This site uses a Javascript function to efficiently manage screenshot thumbnails and popups. The code snippet, shown here, lets me give you thumbnails and popups by putting into the HTML simply this:

<script>gr200("imgname","155","Caption")</script>

All the formatting is done by the script, which means that I can change formatting throughout the site by modifying only one function. Thanks to Louis Gray for complaining that this site initially did the full screen images on their own pages instead of in popups.