Nicholas Eddy
Application Architect - Electronic Arts
Presentations
Beyond The Browser: Higher Abstractions to Enable Rich, Easy Development
This presentation will look at the use of new technology that enabled developers to create sophisticated web applications with unprecedented control over rendering, the event model and abstraction. Current frameworks smooth out inconsistencies between browsers to allow cross-platform development, but none provide developers with capabilities to develop in higher abstractions. My discussion would focus on how this new tech allows developers to create rich applications with complete control over look-and-feel without ever dealing with elements or browser events directly. This means applications created using these design principles can be written once to run everywhere. In addition, developers can have control over domains that have traditionally been owned by the browser, like scrollbars, mouse and keyboard/focus handling. Developers are able to create completely unrestrained applications when giving this level of control. Designers have more control since applications can be skinned on a deeper level than currently available. UI developers are now able to complete change look-and-feel (change DOM structure freely) without ever consulting an application developer.
This leads to natural role separation in the development process and engenders more stable application level software where business logic can remain consistent while UI level software becomes malleable in new and exciting ways. A classic example of this is the ability to change a scrollbar's look from a solid rectangle (using simple divs) to a glossy, rounded tube (using images) without any modifications to the event code written to handle mouse inputs for that scrollbar.
