Part 1 : Best Practices
In the first part of the book, I present some tried-and-tested guidelines for building Rich Internet applications (RIAs). Applying these guidelines will allow you to build the foundations of a web site structure that’s scalable from a single page with a few lines of code up to many thousands of pages and thousands of lines of code. I show you how to follow best practices in a sensible, pragmatic way that won’t make the tasks of application maintenance and bug fixing daunting—during construction or in the future.
Chapter 1: Building a Solid Foundation
Based on my experiences and what I’ve learned from others, I’ve developed an effective, sensible approach to web development. This approach, along with a handful of smart techniques thrown in the mix, should minimize those head-bashing moments and ensure things run more smoothly right from the get-go all the way through to the launch of your next web site or application.
This chapter teaches you how to build a solid foundation of scalable, maintainable HTML and CSS code for your projects.
Chapter 2 : JavaScript for Rich Internet Applications
In this chapter, the focus is on JavaScript, which we use in our pages to simplify tasks for our end users, provide reactions to their actions, and attempt to make their time on the Web
a gentler and user-friendlier experience. You’re going to build on your existing knowledge of this language throughout this chapter to discover how to structure your code in a scalable, flexible, and maintainable way; use object-oriented programming principles; and overcome cross-browser implementation differences. You’ll then discover techniques to help you build RIAs and, finally, learn how to write automated tests for your code to make it more robust.