It does not look good for Target. Web Accessibility news

[SpaceGirl]

I did notice a huge hunk of impressive looking code from you soon
after I posted. This is a "wonderful, accessible, low-bandwidth
flash site"?

Seriously, I am sure it is something; but an example of a site
site it is not.

Here's a great example:

http://dev.getoutsmart.com/os3d/demos/videoroom/

Entire 3d engine, with UI's projected onto the walls and a character
than can walk around. Under 100Kb, created in Flex, which is Adobe's
tool for generating Flash on the fly.

Note the working calendar, pie 3d charting etc etc etc. See the black
screen on the wall? That's for steaming video. Mouse over it to see full
VCR controls and to stream video into the 3d environment. Try doing that
in JavaScript

This entire thing is about the size of 2 or 3 jpegs on a regular web
site (in kb).




--

x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

http://www.northleithmill.com

-.-

Kammy has a new home: http://www.bitesizedjapan.com

 

[Neredbojias]

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sat, 06 Oct 2007 21:58:18
GMT William Gill scribed:

I agree with everything you say, but I don't see the "single simple
solution."

"Equitable", "within reason", or like the ADA says "reasonable
accommodations", are as subjective as "common sense." BTW expenses
come off the top, before "a third" is calculated.

Having dealt with many contracts, laws, lawyers,and judges over the
years I have developed a deep respect for the law of unintended
consequences. The hair on the back of my neck stands up whenever I
hear "that will be easy to fix."

Companies hire actuaries all the time to calculate their "exposures."
Some decide it's cheaper to produce an unsafe product, or skirt a law,
than it is to fix or prevent a problem. It's a numbers game, and
lawyers play it too. Assume for purposes of discussion, that we are
able to define "reasonable" attorney compensation. If a lawyer knows
he/she can make X dollars on one case or the same X dollars on
another, but the second will take more time and effort, which one do
you think he/she will take? Companies have lawyers; they know the
kinds of cases others will shy away from. Are you ready to grant them
license to disregard any laws that don't "cost" them, because no one
can or will "prove it?"

Let's put the principle in another context. I have a couple million
dollars. I can put it in a bank and it will produce a nice safe
return, or I can invest it in a business where, if I'm successful, I
can make a nice profit, and BTW create a few jobs. I could lose
everything, but if I COULD make enough to chance it, I might. Now
someone says "hold on a minute, you're not paying your fair share of
taxes." Will that change the equation, and possibly my mind? What
about those people who needed those jobs?

Elsewhere in this thread, someone suggests putting it all in the hands
of judges to throw out the "unreasonable." Though they can and do do
this now, I'm not sure I want all that power solely their hands, and
if you had seen SOME of the judges I have seen, you wouldn't want any
of it in their hands.

Bottom line, I think we agree in principle, but I'm more cautious
about the solution. I believe in asking "If it's so easy to fix, why
hasn't someone already fixed it?" The answer may be "No one has
tried." or it could be "This is how we fixed it!"

Yeah, your bottom line (and examples supporting it) are pretty darn
accurate. I guess what I'm advocating is a stricter interpretation and
limitation on what non-productive advocates can justifiably glean from
the primary proceeds of their independent clients. I certainly _don't_
believe that the solution lies with the judges because judges _are_
lawyers and will generally be swayed by the associated inequitable
mindset intrinsically related to their "calling".

I suppose my viewpoint is a bit socialistic, but I simply cannot accept
the old "It's not perfect but it works" tenet. The legal system is
hardly more than a joke in my book when money dictates advantage, as it
does now. Why did Patty Hearst "get off" with a slap on the tush? And
what about OJ? -Is he ?really? "innocent" just because his
state-of-the-art lawyers "uncovered" something that 99%+ of everyone
else's lawyers would not have? (-This is an example; don't know enough
about the OJ case to quote actual figures, but the point stands as it
demonstrates a prevailing condition.) A large part of the reason for
much of the crime today is the lack of confidence in the equality of the
legal system to begin with.

Here's one tenet I do believe in: if something's broke, fix it. The
legal system, and the associated judicial system, have been broke for a
long time, and no amount of pontificating and/or platitudizing changes a
fact into a non-fact. In this country (as in most), you can buy
"justice" - plain and clear, if not always simple. The answer is to
rectify this by a stricter, possibly more cynical recognition of who
benefits from what and why and then act upon that "new" information in a
logical and erudite manner. The old stupidities, traditional or not,
just don't hack it in the brave, new world. When justice is for sale,
there is no justice - for anyone.

 

[Jerry Stuckle]

Ben C wrote: [...]
For better or for worse.

For better, as it really encourages reuse and superclasses (classes of
classes etc).

In theory, yes. Where it goes wrong I think is when it is encourages
people to design arbitrary class hierarchies, which either get
overcomplicated, or require constant and painstaking "refactoring" when
the requirements change.

OO doesn't "encourage" anything. Just like C doesn't encourage
spaghetti code. People can design as well or as poorly as they like.

One might say well that's just bad OO programming, not OO programming in
general. But that's a cop-out-- the real question is how hard or easy is
it to do good or bad OO programming.

It's bad OO design. It is easy to do good OO programming, with the
right training and experience.

OO can encourage people to make too many design decisions up-front,
before they really know what they want to do yet.

Good design (not just OO) dictates that your decisions MUST be made up
front. Can you imagine creating the blueprints after the house is 1/2
built? But that's how a lot of people approach programming problems.

It's supposed to protect against dreaded type mismatch errors-- you pass
the wrong type of object to a function by mistake-- but how often do
such errors actually really happen?

Nothing in OO protects against type mismatch errors. That is completely
dependent on how strict the language's type checking is. PASCAL, for
instance, is a non-OO language, but does not allow any type mismatches.


--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
(e-mail address removed)
==================

 

[Karl Groves]

Here is a little "website", I made an index especially for you
Travis, use your back button between reads and tell me honestly
if you did not absolutely split your sides for minutes on end:

http://dorayme.150m.com/jokes/jokesIndex.html

I know I laughed uncontrollably at the popups that came up on *every* page.

 

[Ben C]

Ben C wrote: [...]

One might say well that's just bad OO programming, not OO programming in
general. But that's a cop-out-- the real question is how hard or easy is
it to do good or bad OO programming.

It's bad OO design. It is easy to do good OO programming, with the
right training and experience.

I can believe you in theory, but I've never actually seen any good OO
programming, and lot of bad OO programming. Where does this training
come from? Who has this experience?

Name a good open source OO-designed program and I will gladly have a
look at it and be prepared to learn something.

Good design (not just OO) dictates that your decisions MUST be made up
front.

For houses, yes, not for programs.

Can you imagine creating the blueprints after the house is 1/2 built?
But that's how a lot of people approach programming problems.

Indeed, and many programming problems are better approached that way.

Nothing in OO protects against type mismatch errors. That is completely
dependent on how strict the language's type checking is. PASCAL, for
instance, is a non-OO language, but does not allow any type mismatches.

OK, yes, OO and strict type checking are different things, and you can
have either without the other.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Here's a great example:

http://dev.getoutsmart.com/os3d/demos/videoroom/

Entire 3d engine, with UI's projected onto the walls and a character
than can walk around. Under 100Kb, created in Flex, which is Adobe's
tool for generating Flash on the fly.

Wow! At a download rate that oscillated between 5.1-5.2kb/sec, pretty
much the max on dialup, I got to watch an inane gyrating atom thingy for
2min 15sec! Then it improved to a BLACK screen with a small line of
teeny writing for 40 secs when finally a little boy showed up! Wow again
3 minuets of pure heart-stopping entertainment only to be rewarded with
with this graphic with writing that looks about 8 pixels high on *a
curve* that I cannot change at all.... I guess the dark grey text on
black at the bottom at a generous 10 pixels high, that I also cannot
adjust, is supposed to help! The whole this sits in a static 700 pixels
rectangle...oooh.

Sorry, all "flash" no guts. I'm sorry but after the gee-factor wears
off, this would be very frustrating experience if you are trying to get
any info from such a site. It is kind of like those themes for Windows
that at added animations, noises and fancy screensavers to your PC. Cute
for the moment but if you actually did work on your PC, well...

The problem is both you and Travis have miss the point. It is no how
small the initial script is, (I showed how small a Perl script can be),
but how small the end product that downloads that's important. AND
whether or not it can be usable to the "user"!

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

I know I laughed uncontrollably at the popups that came up on *every* page.

Disable JS. It is the only way to view the site without interruption.

 

[Jerry Stuckle]

Ben C wrote: [...]

One might say well that's just bad OO programming, not OO programming in
general. But that's a cop-out-- the real question is how hard or easy is
it to do good or bad OO programming.

It's bad OO design. It is easy to do good OO programming, with the
right training and experience.

I can believe you in theory, but I've never actually seen any good OO
programming, and lot of bad OO programming. Where does this training
come from? Who has this experience?

For one thing, I've been doing OO design for around 20 years, 17 of
those as a consultant. I've been on some projects which have good
designs, and managed OO projects. Also, I've taught several OOAD
courses to various organizations.

The experience is in some corporations. I have been brought in as a
consultant when they don't have that experience, to help them along.
Some I train, some already have been trained but no experience.

You're not going to get it out of a library book. This is something you
need to do hands on, with experienced designers.

Name a good open source OO-designed program and I will gladly have a
look at it and be prepared to learn something.

I have no idea. I don't follow much open source. But again, this is
something you aren't going to learn by reading - any more than you can
become a good golfer by reading golf magazines.

For houses, yes, not for programs.

Nope, the same it true for programs. Otherwise those programs become a
mess of fixes, half-assed patches and other such stuff. It wastes
programmers time and makes the code less reliable and harder to maintain
and modify later.

Indeed, and many programming problems are better approached that way.

Nope. No programming problem is "better" approached that way. Only
those who are either unable or don't want to plan ahead think that.

Programmers want to write code. You have to drag them kicking and
screaming to write *any* doc. And they will find every excuse they can
to not do it. Including that it "isn't necessary".

OK, yes, OO and strict type checking are different things, and you can
have either without the other.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
(e-mail address removed)
==================

 

[Ben C]

Ben C wrote: [...]

I can believe you in theory, but I've never actually seen any good OO
programming, and lot of bad OO programming. Where does this training
come from? Who has this experience?

For one thing, I've been doing OO design for around 20 years, 17 of
those as a consultant. I've been on some projects which have good
designs, and managed OO projects. Also, I've taught several OOAD
courses to various organizations.

The experience is in some corporations. I have been brought in as a
consultant when they don't have that experience, to help them along.
Some I train, some already have been trained but no experience.

You're not going to get it out of a library book. This is something you
need to do hands on, with experienced designers.

No disrespect, but this kind of talk isn't winning me over.

[...]

Nope, the same it true for programs. Otherwise those programs become a
mess of fixes, half-assed patches and other such stuff.

Not true.

It wastes programmers time and makes the code less reliable and harder
to maintain and modify later.

No-one's arguing for spaghetti here. Everyone wants a well-structured
program at the end that does the right thing and is easy to maintain.
But how do you get there?

There are no easy answers. OO and design up-front have plenty of
problems too. The most obvious is committing to the wrong design too
early because at the time of making the design the problem was not
properly understood (however much everyone may have claimed they
understood it).

Nope. No programming problem is "better" approached that way. Only
those who are either unable or don't want to plan ahead think that.

In my experience many people believe they are more able to plan ahead
than they actually are. Especially when they are put under pressure to
produce professional-looking designs and plans.

Programmers want to write code. You have to drag them kicking and
screaming to write *any* doc. And they will find every excuse they can
to not do it. Including that it "isn't necessary".

Generalizations like that aren't helpful. If you insist on a doc, or a
design, or a plan, then most people will produce them in order to make
you shut up. They won't necessarily be any use though.

 

[Norman Peelman]

Ben C wrote: [...]
As more people start to browse the web on phones (for which it has to
become a bit cheaper, but it will) designers will start testing their
sites more on phone browsers and it will all start to work better.

There is also the argument that in Europe people like to talk to their
friends on their phones, not play games, watch cartoons, or browse the
web. But this argument now falls down as people have started using the
web mainly to talk to their (so-called) friends anyway.
Sure, the same is true over here.

Wherever over there is... It's in Japan that some of that gimmicky stuff
on phones actually caught on.

The U.S.

I was thinking of things like FaceBook, not instant messaging. Part of
what "Web 2.0" consists of is porting good old internet things, like
email, instant messaging and discussion groups, to the web.

Which haven't caught on at all. No one I know accesses facebook, etc.
from a cell phone. Neither do they do any of the rest.

Those who need that access have blackberrys and wireless pda's. Some
even have wireless cards for their laptops. But no one I know is
accessing the web from their cell phones - at least not with any
regularity.

My girlfriend uses it for getting her ebay alerts (she ebays alot!)
but we rarely if never use it for any other type of web service. The
screens are just too small (typical cellphone) to make it worthwhile.
Some are getting faster though.

Norm

 

[Adrienne Boswell]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed dorayme

Openwave© Phone Simulator 7.0, Version 7.0.107, is a
Windows-based application. And, for my Mac, thar's the rub. But I
suppose I could look to installing it on a Win box I have. Thanks
for this. I have it bookmarked.

I hope this software does not lull users into error by allowing
much bigger and better screens and button controls than are to be
found on real life mobiles that most people can afford?

No, the application is a phone, and the size of the "screen" is about
the same as an actual phone. To use the phone, you click on the buttons
as if you were using a real phone. It has menus, etc, just like a phone,
and features similar to a phone. I think you'll be impressed.

When we ordered phones from ATT/Cingular, we got our phones free with
signup. They're Nokia phones, pretty standard.

 

[Travis Newbury]

I did notice a huge hunk of impressive looking code from you soon
after I posted. This is a "wonderful, accessible, low-bandwidth
flash site"?

Seriously, I am sure it is something; but an example of a site
site it is not.

It is an example of a 5K piece of flash that can do a shit load of
stuff (this meets all the criteria for the unicorn site)

And no, it is not on line anywhere, but I will be more that willing to
email it to who ever wants it. Both the SWF file and the FLA so you
can see how it works.

 

[Travis Newbury]

Wow! At a download rate that oscillated between 5.1-5.2kb/sec, pretty
much the max on dialup, I got to watch an inane gyrating atom thingy for
2min 15sec!

If that is your download rate, then enjoy text sites. It sux to be
you.

The problem is both you and Travis have miss the point. It is no how
small the initial script is, (I showed how small a Perl script can be),
but how small the end product that downloads that's important. AND
whether or not it can be usable to the "user"

snore...

 

[Travis Newbury]

Yes, but I have come across no situations where it would. Can you give
examples of Flash-built sites which are primary money earners?

I already did. Virtually any entertainment site, any news site, any
sports site, and any educational (WBT) site. You pick it they are all
using Flash. And they use flash because that is what the users all
want. They would abandon the site if they removed the flash. Flash
content as well as Flash as a means to host other content is what they
come for. And all the sites make money

Not in my field. What's your specialisation?

My specialty is video and video presentation.

Show us a site that is built entirely in Flash and is also accessible
to screen readers and indexable by search engines, then. Just a URL
will do, thanks.

I did not say a site 100% flash. I am actually against sites like
that (google earlier posts for proof)

That may possibly be true. Just like it's true that most Flash
designers don't have a clue what you can do with HTML, CSS and maybe
some Javascript thrown in to add interest.

I can not disagree with that

So show us something different then. Let's see a website built
entirely in Flash that has a smaller footprint and is more accessible
than it would have been if written using HTML. Your call.

Why? I don't like all flash sites. I like sites that are flash
heavy.

 

[Travis Newbury]

I know I laughed uncontrollably at the popups that came up on *every* page.

There were popups?

 

[Mark Goodge]

I already did.

No, you haven't. You haven't posted any URLs at all so far in this
thread.

Virtually any entertainment site, any news site, any
sports site, and any educational (WBT) site.

No news or sports sites that I use are Flash-based. Some of them use
Flash for some applications, but none of them use it in places where
standard text and graphics are more appropriate.

You pick it they are all
using Flash.

Some of them use Flash. Not all.

And they use flash because that is what the users all
want.

Bollocks. To take one example, the most popular news website in the
world only ues Flash in some very limited aplications (quizzes,
mostly). To remove them would hardly damage the site at all.

They would abandon the site if they removed the flash. Flash
content as well as Flash as a means to host other content is what they
come for. And all the sites make money


My specialty is video and video presentation.

Well, duh. Have you thought about what works best for people who don't
just want to present what they make?

Mark

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

If that is your download rate, then enjoy text sites. It sux to be
you.

No choice at the moment. I am not alone...

snore...

And so a potential sale goes elsewhere while you sleep.

 

[Phil Payne]

Wow! At a download rate that oscillated between 5.1-5.2kb/sec, pretty

much the max on dialup, I got to watch an inane gyrating atom thingy for
2min 15sec! Then it improved to a BLACK screen with a small line of
teeny writing for 40 secs when finally a little boy showed up! Wow again
3 minuets of pure heart-stopping entertainment only to be rewarded with
with this graphic with writing that looks about 8 pixels high on *a
curve* that I cannot change at all.... I guess the dark grey text on
black at the bottom at a generous 10 pixels high, that I also cannot
adjust, is supposed to help! The whole this sits in a static 700 pixels
rectangle...oooh.

I had to boot up the old ThinkPad Transnote - 600MHz Pentium on Talk-
talk broadband. Only took around thirty seconds to get going here.

Couldn't find the no-mouse or audio substitution support.

 

[Harlan Messinger]

Certainly *plenty* of people are getting e-mail by phone. That *is* the
Internet, you know. When you say "browse the Internet", you're really
referring specifically to the Web.

It's painful to access many sites, it's true. But Google is fine. Some
sites have good mobile versions--Yahoo and the Washington Post, for
example. The downloadable version of Google Maps for Windows Mobile,
which pulls live data from the Internet, works really nicely on the
Treo. Wikipedia--with several skins available, I'm surprised one hasn't
been designed specifically for handheld devices, but in any event it
works well in IE on Windows Mobile when I set it to use One Column mode.
So I never have to wait till I get home or to the office to look stuff up.

Since writing this I've learned how to create my own custom CSS on
Wikipedia, and created a sheet of rules inside @media handheld {}
wrappers that override the default styling when I look at Wikipedia
pages in IE on my Treo. Looks great.

 

[Jerry Stuckle]

Ben C wrote: [...]

I can believe you in theory, but I've never actually seen any good OO
programming, and lot of bad OO programming. Where does this training
come from? Who has this experience?

For one thing, I've been doing OO design for around 20 years, 17 of
those as a consultant. I've been on some projects which have good
designs, and managed OO projects. Also, I've taught several OOAD
courses to various organizations.

The experience is in some corporations. I have been brought in as a
consultant when they don't have that experience, to help them along.
Some I train, some already have been trained but no experience.

You're not going to get it out of a library book. This is something you
need to do hands on, with experienced designers.

No disrespect, but this kind of talk isn't winning me over.

I'm not trying to win you over. I'm stating the facts. You can't learn
to play golf from a book, either. And you can't learn it by watching
videos of Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer. You need to get out and do it.
And to do it right, you need classes and private tutoring.

[...]

Nope, the same it true for programs. Otherwise those programs become a
mess of fixes, half-assed patches and other such stuff.

Not true.

Wrong answer. I've seen it too many time.

The other option is to waste a lot of time completely rewriting code
from scratch.

No-one's arguing for spaghetti here. Everyone wants a well-structured
program at the end that does the right thing and is easy to maintain.
But how do you get there?

A proper design. Either structured or OO work will. But the design is
all important.

There are no easy answers. OO and design up-front have plenty of
problems too. The most obvious is committing to the wrong design too
early because at the time of making the design the problem was not
properly understood (however much everyone may have claimed they
understood it).

A good design resolves most problems. And you are *much less* committed
to a design that's on paper than you are if you're written thousands of
lines of code.

But that is also part of project management. Ensuring the problem is
properly understood by all parties. And all parties agree to it.

It's a practice I learned over 20 years ago while working for IBM. And
it works.

In my experience many people believe they are more able to plan ahead
than they actually are. Especially when they are put under pressure to
produce professional-looking designs and plans.

And my experience is people believe they can write code even though they
don't understand the problem.

They can. But they're not writing productive code.

Generalizations like that aren't helpful. If you insist on a doc, or a
design, or a plan, then most people will produce them in order to make
you shut up. They won't necessarily be any use though.

Yes, I insist on a design. And I use that design.

You've obviously never been on a project with > 100 programmers for over
two years. Or even one with a 3-4 programmers for six months to a year.

There is a formal process to managing projects, just like there is for a
lot of things. And it works. But when you've never used this process,
you can come up with all kinds of rationalizations as to why it won't work.


--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
(e-mail address removed)
==================