01-June-2005

Jesus Perez in  Refactoring describes the Open-Closed principle put forward by  Robert C. Martin of Object Mentor Inc. in his article, The Open Closed Principle. Jesus' own diagram can be viewed in Replace Type Code with Subclasses. Check out his index of refactorings to get further ideas for improving your code.

Focusing on methodology or on people
Centrarse en la metodología o en las personas

Joserra in  Najaraba.com compares the article by Miguel Angel Abián critical of agile methodologies in javaHispano.org with an article by Alistair Cockburn on Characterizing People as Non-Linear, First-Order Components in Software Development. Although the type of project that you are undertaking should have some influence on the choice of methodology, the more important factor and predictor of success is the team of people that is involved.

Introduction to web site metrics (part 1)
Introducción a las métricas web (parte I)

jleyva in  Métricas Web gives us notice of a series of articles that he proposes to write on web metrics. The articles will be organized as follows:

1. The concept of web site metrics
2. Web graph properties
3. Web page significance
4. Usage characterization
5. Web page similarity
6. Web page search and retrieval
7. Information theory

The concept of web site metrics

Web site metrics are the set of measurements that can be made to describe the most important characteristics of a web site in a mathematical or scientific way.

The earliest studies were concerned about aspects such as the size of the site, how easy it was not connect to, its visibility and the way in which its content was arranged. Since then, new factors such as the number of visits, the means of access to the site, and everything to do with the usability of the site have been introduced. Dhyani and his collaborators wrote a very technical article in which they defined a number of such metrics and classified them according to the attributes that they measure. [The reference that I found was A Survey of Web Metrics, but this may not be the same as the one being used by jleyva]. The other articles will follow.

Breaking popup blockers
Evitar el bloqueador de popups

 Javier Gutiérrez Chamorro (Guti) in  Bitácora de Guti announces that he has found a way to beat popup blockers in Firefox and Opera. It seems that if the code for opening the popup does not reside on the HTML page, but is made instead from Shockwave then the popup blocker is fooled. Internet Explorer 6 is not so easily tricked. The code is available from his page.

Ajax: a new toolkit for Ajax in PHP5
Ajax: Toxic, un nuevo cajón de herramientas para manejar Ajax con PHP5

clbustos in  Php y otras yerbas gives a link to Toxic, a toolkit for Ajax and also to the report in Version Zero the latest blog in Spanish on technical and programming subjects.

Scope, Events and the class Delegate
Ámbitos, Eventos y clase Delegate

The author of  Retrato en Sepia wrote an earlier article explaining the problem of the scope of execution of ActionScript events. He had offered a solution, but recognizes that his solution can become complicated when the class becomes large. In version 7.2 of Flash MX, there is a new class called Delegate that allows for a more scaleable and maintainable solution. The way to use this class is explained in his article.