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Weekend Links – MooTools Fancy Upload, 60 Second Tech, jSize, CSS Pull Quotes, PHP First Language

By David Walsh on May 3, 2008

MooTools Fancy Upload

Moo developer Harald Kirschner gave Fancy Upload a face-lift for MooTools 1.2. If you haven't seen Fancy Upload before, please check this out!

http://digitarald.de/project/fancyupload/

Sixty Second Tech

I met Cal Evans through my time as a PHP Zone Leader. He's a really bright guy and his newest podcast show aims to share his knowledge with people that aren't so techy.

http://www.sixtysecondtech.com/

jSize 1.0 - A Window Slider/Resizer Wonder for jQuery

This jQuery gem allows for you to use a slider to change the size of columns within the structure of a website. Cool!

http://www.gimiti.com/kltan/wordpress/?p=27

Better Pull Quotes

CSS-Tricks shows you show to avoid duplicating content to create pull quotes by using a little bit of jQuery goodness.

http://css-tricks.com/better-pull-quotes/

Is PHP a Good First Language?

This article outlines why PHP is a good first server-side language to learn. While I love PHP, I think Java is a better first language to learn. It's much more strict, which I think a developer needs to know first -- then be amazed at how PHP is much easier.

http://codeutopia.net/blog/2008/05/01/is-php-a-good-first-language/

Recent Features

By David WalshApril 3, 2013
CSS @supports
Feature detection via JavaScript is a client side best practice and for all the right reasons, but unfortunately that same functionality hasn't been available within CSS. What we end up doing is repeating the same properties multiple times with each browser prefix. Yuck. Another thing we...
By David WalshApril 4, 2011
Convert XML to JSON with JavaScript
If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I've been working on a super top secret mobile application using Appcelerator Titanium. The experience has been great: using JavaScript to create easy to write, easy to test, native mobile apps has been fun. My...

Incredible Demos

By David WalshSeptember 16, 2008
Fancy Navigation with MooTools JavaScript
Navigation menus are traditionally boring, right? Most of the time the navigation menu consists of some imagery with a corresponding mouseover image. Where's the originality? I've created a fancy navigation menu that highlights navigation items and creates a chain effect. The XHTML Just some simple...
By David WalshMay 18, 2011
CSS Gradients
With CSS border-radius, I showed you how CSS can bridge the gap between design and development by adding rounded corners to elements. CSS gradients are another step in that direction. Now that CSS gradients are supported in Internet Explorer 8+, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome...

Discussion

Will
In regards to your statement about PHP vs. Java. I would agree, but for different reasons. I think it’s beneficial to know a non-strictly-web language (unless of course you meant JavaScript?) before learning a web language, I would say it would have to be Java though. I learned Java (well, two college semesters worth) before I taught myself PHP, and it made it much easier.
david
@Will: I went the same route — college Java before teaching myself PHP.
Eric Wendelin
Hmm. That’s a tough one about first languages. My first language was HTML for interpreted and Java for compiled languages. If I was teaching, I would teach shell scripting first because it has some simpler but well defined constructs and I pretty much guarantee that you will use it for a LONG time.
Cal Evans
@David,
Thanks for the kind words and the link. :)

=C=