Making a "quiz" using Javascript

[Antha]

Hi!

I have a small e-commerce site but for everything else webrelated I'm
practically virgin...
I'd like to offer some sort of quiz in my shop so people can
interactively find out which products suits them best. They should be
able to answer some short questions (type: is your skin a. oily b.
sensitive c.dry d.normal) and their score should be added up,
resulting in their best-matching (in this case skin care) program. A
friend of mine said Javascript should be able to do the trick and that
there are loads of free scripts to be found with Google but I haven't
found quite what I'm looking for... Anybody any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[Antha]

Something like that is probably going to require some server-side scripting.

If this is really for your business, I'd strongly recommend that you
find a skilled web-developer to do this for you. This is an investment
in your business and the returns you reap are going to be in direct
correlation to the quality of the investment you make.

I'm not sure that digging free scripts off the internet is going to
result in a professional looking store-front.

You're probably right. The only thing is, it's such a young site
(currently even offline due to hosting issues) I hardly realize a
turnover at all, let alone profit. Making real investments seems a bit
premature.
Maybe it's best to work with e-mail-forms for the time being to reply
on people's enquiries instead of making some unprofessional mumble
jumble with free scripts... Thanks anyway!

 

[Baris-C]

Hi!

I have a small e-commerce site but for everything else webrelated I'm
practically virgin...
I'd like to offer some sort of quiz in my shop so people can
interactively find out which products suits them best. They should be
able to answer some short questions (type: is your skin a. oily b.
sensitive c.dry d.normal) and their score should be added up,
resulting in their best-matching (in this case skin care) program. A
friend of mine said Javascript should be able to do the trick and that
there are loads of free scripts to be found with Google but I haven't
found quite what I'm looking for... Anybody any ideas?

Thanks!

You can't do that with client side javascript, you need server side
scripting.

 

[Michael Wojcik]

You can't do that with client side javascript, you need server side
scripting.

What about the problem requires server-side scripting? The description
says that the user provides input in response to prompts and a result
is computed. Any TC language can compute a (computable) result from
input, and Javascript has provisions for both prompting and taking
input from the user.

 

[Mike Duffy]

What about the problem requires server-side scripting? The description
says that the user provides input in response to prompts and a result
is computed. Any TC language can compute a (computable) result from
input, and Javascript has provisions for both prompting and taking
input from the user.

I agree. But I do need to ask what TC stands for.

 

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

[...] Any TC language can compute a (computable) result from
input, and Javascript has provisions for both prompting and taking
input from the user.

I agree. But I do need to ask what TC stands for.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing-complete>, I presume.


HTH

PointedEars

 

[Michael Wojcik]

[...] Any TC language can compute a (computable) result from
input, and Javascript has provisions for both prompting and taking
input from the user.

I agree. But I do need to ask what TC stands for.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing-complete>, I presume.

Yes. I'm really using the term informally (much as big-O notation for
algorithmic complexity gets thrown around in comp.* groups in ways
that aren't quite kosher), to mean "any language that's roughly
equivalent to other general-purpose programming languages".

In their ideal form, general-purpose programming languages have all
the constructs they need to express the algorithms that a Turing
machine can compute. That's not exactly what "Turing-complete" means,
but it's pretty close. (In practice, real-world implementations of
programming languages are limited by real-world computers, which have
finite storage and execution time, so they're really equivalent to
bounded Turing machines, which are equivalent to push-down automata,
which are not Turing-complete. But we generally ignore that detail.)

But for shorthand purposes we say "a Turing-complete language" to mean
a programming language that lets us loop through states, and choose
the next state based on input or a stored value, and store values, and
select among stored values.

 

[Lasse Reichstein Nielsen]

[Turing complete]

Yes. I'm really using the term informally (much as big-O notation for
algorithmic complexity gets thrown around in comp.* groups in ways
that aren't quite kosher), to mean "any language that's roughly
equivalent to other general-purpose programming languages".

It's good enough for me. I wouldn't argue that it isn't formally true
too.

In their ideal form, general-purpose programming languages have all
the constructs they need to express the algorithms that a Turing
machine can compute.

Indeed. Most language are defined in their ideal form, and only
the implementations are restricted. I don't believe there is a limit
on the amount of memory that Java can use in the language specification,
so the language itself is Turing Complete.

That's not exactly what "Turing-complete" means, but it's pretty
close. (In practice, real-world implementations of programming
languages are limited by real-world computers, which have finite
storage and execution time, so they're really equivalent to bounded
Turing machines, which are equivalent to push-down automata, which
are not Turing-complete. But we generally ignore that detail.)

Pedantry: Bounded turing machines (BTM) are more powerfull than
push-down automata (PDA). BTMs recognize the context sensitive
languages, whereas PDAs recognize the context free languages. An
example of a language recognized by a BTM but not a PDA is
{ ww | w in S* } (where S is the input alphabet).

But for shorthand purposes we say "a Turing-complete language" to mean
a programming language that lets us loop through states, and choose
the next state based on input or a stored value, and store values, and
select among stored values.

I'd accept "Turing complete" for any generic programming language,
and most domain specific languages too.

/L

 

[Michael Wojcik]

Pedantry: Bounded turing machines (BTM) are more powerfull than
push-down automata (PDA). BTMs recognize the context sensitive
languages, whereas PDAs recognize the context free languages. An
example of a language recognized by a BTM but not a PDA is
{ ww | w in S* } (where S is the input alphabet).

Sorry; I meant finite TMs (finite in number of states and length of
tape, regardless of input size) are equivalent to PDAs.

"Bounded" TMs have space that's limited to the size of the input.
There are generalizations; for example, Linear Bounded TMs have space
that's a constant multiple of the input size, and Generalized Bounded
TMs have space that's some function of the input size.

As Lasse correctly points out, BTMs are more powerful than PDAs.
(LBTMs are less powerful than unbounded TMs. I think GBTMs are
equivalent to unbounded TMs, but it's been years since I did
computation theory.)

Real-world implementations of programming languages are equivalent to
finite TMs, since they can have input that's larger than the storage
available to them.