Well, from my initial days of software development I chose languages like C++, Java and PHP. From past 2.5 years I was working as a professional in JAVA stream and about 4 years working in Object Oriented Languages.

I always had the insect (kidda) of web related technologies and so I chose to move towards it. I already had basic idea of JavaScripts (as people say, it runs on browser!). Well when I did not know about it I use to think, ok it’s just browser stuff and anyways I can make a webapp without it!

Yeah I can make a webapp without it (JavaScript) but it would be like 90’s website where you can just click on lame links!

Listing out some points for JAVA people who think that’s JavaScript is like JAVA.

The kool thing about JavaScript is you can make a whole Enterprise Level application with just one language – JavaScript. Yeah this baby has grown up big, can be used on clients/servers/databases and much more.

JavaScript is a small and a simple language just like JAVA. But you will take time mastering it.

Making a WebApp

Many times people see my made applications (the one like expenses.co.in) they ask me a simple question… “How did you make that .com thing?”

Well I can’t be very descriptive here but I will (in short) be writing the steps involved which will make you start with it.

1. First buy a domain that’s all your choice you want to buy a .com or .net or .in etc.
   • TIP: Well, I prefer that the name should be like which describes the purpose of website.
2. Now you need to make choice over technology (or language) to make the app. You can read my opinion on what technology to choose (php, asp, jsp which one to go for? and why?).
3. While you make your web-app you must invest time over choosing a website template. This is what people see! If you know CSS/HTML/Photoshop, well and good if not you can buy a template or may be use some free web templates (google it).
   
   A site template should have these features
   • It should not be too heavy in terms of size. Reason is simple, it takes time for loading such templates and it will consume more bandwidth of your network. Just imagine your site is 400Kb and 100 ppl visit it in an hour which means consumption of 40Mb of your serve r bandwidth. If you reduce it to say 200Kb you will save 20Mb per hour (or 240Mb per day)
   • It should be cross-browser. Don’t test the template on just one browser. I love Opera, but still I test the app’s over IE, Safari, Mozilla and Chrome as there are 2% people using Opera across the globe
   • If you are planning a webapp to be cross device (like expenses.co.in ) meaning which can run on a mobile, you need to make a mobile template which is even more lighter and compatible with small screen size.
   • Other points include color, page-width, font-size, font-type and table-less design these all are very important.
4. Using the Javascript on your site: If you are using some kind of framework which internally uses some Javascripts Framework try to use it or extend it. If not you should use some kind of Javascript framework like JQuery, DOJO, YUI etc. The reason is it makes easy to manage the application. Read my post Javascript Patterns: HTML5 blended with JQuery to get a tip over this concept.
5. Buy a space over hosting servers
   • You may go for a shared host if your just starting your web-app or when you know the traffic would be low
   • There are other options like dedicated host and Semi-dedicated host. They are comparatively costly but good if your site has a high traffic rate. Try searching about them.
6. Linking the domain and Server: From the Domain Management tool (available with almost all domain registrars) point your nameservers to your hosting server. Many times people buy the domain and server from the same place but I don’t prefer this as I don’t want to give keys and home to same person.
7. Now you must end up with your own .com/.net/.in/.co.uk etc.

PS: There are many hidden steps. I just gave a glimpse of what to do.

Expenses.co.in | Shared Expenses Manager

Well this post of me will interest all those guys who live in sharing just like me. For me I just not share the home in which I live but also the expenses we have in common.

I, Saransh, Nikhil and Vivek all used to share the expenses of our home B218 at Mumbai, not only the expenses which were common to all but there were expenses which were common to only me and Vivek or say me and Nikhil. So how we did the expense calculation? Yeah the old way using pen-notepad being kept on our TV! So deal was whosoever does the expense will write on it, simple? Now then after a month comes the “Hisab” day when all the final calculation is made and believe me it’s not that simple as you think. It’s not dividing by 4 stuff, there are mutual expenses too!
I then started looking for the better option, someone suggested excels! Oww c’mon I need to open my laptop to add the expense and btw it’s not that transparent and clear.

It was the click I had in my mind, why not to make an app? An app which I can run from my Laptop or my Desktop-PC or may be from my mobile.  So the ideas started floating, it should be light weight, cross-browser, it should send email reports, very simple and what not.

So I made an app which is simple, cross-browser, cross-platform, light-weight bla bla bla. What it does? It just simplifies all those tedious calculations and tells you in simple language how much you need to give and to take and from whom? Want detail of how the calculation the app made? The app gives you the full break of report generated and yeah you can mail the report to all your sharing-mates.

Give it a try! It’s free, simple and yes it helps you keep your shared expenses clear. Visit expenses.co.in to start using the app.

I would really thank Saransh, Nikhil, Vivek, Natasha, Vibhuti, Pranjal, Devina, TCS-NSDL team for the evaluation and interest in app. It helped a lot in building it!

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It’s been 7-8 years for me browsing the web and every week, I visit hundreds of website and so I created hundreds of accounts across Internet!

• Every time I visit a new site, it says “Sign Up” | “Register” | “Create an account” (what? Am not touching the keyboard… damn!)
• Ok, now I registered myself now what? It’s asking to confirm the email!!! (~@#$&#~.. abuses)
• I confirm it and pheeew! finally am authorized to comment or access the features…
• Few days later I visit the site again but wait it’s not accepting my username/password? (Where’s the forget password link…)

I got irritated and I started ignoring the sites who asked me to make a new username/password thing… It’s enough to remember my mail and facebook password… am not a database!

Let me tell you the pain of website-owner/admin…

• If you are not identified as a unique user how they will tell who’s doing what on site…
• There are more bots on Internet than actual human’s (that’s y u need to type those captcha images and verify the email)

And yes, there was someone (OpenID and OAuth) listening and acting…

What’s OpenID anyways? in a simple language you create an account once and the same account is used by various sites. If you are logged in this means you are logged in to all the linked sites.

Websites these days are rapidly adopting the OpenID/OAuth and users too should move on to it. If you are Facebook, Gmail/Google, Yahoo registered users you can link your account to the sites which have this feature.

Following the same in my upcoming work I am implementing the OpenID/OAuth Login system. Here is I made a sample application… work.dilliwal.com/openLogin

openLogin made by me using the php-openid lib and codeigniter as the framework

glimpse of mumbai

“I tried to read your blog but its kinda technical” 

So, here I go for those who think I write too technical for them to understand… 

Its being more than one year in Mumbai and I had sweet and sour moments. To share with you, I will write some of them which realize you that you are in mumbai! 

• In the morning 6 you see people on street not for morning walk but with their office bags.
• You took a pause in a bus or train or anywhere and someone says “pude chala!”  (trans: move ahead)
• You tried to hire an auto and one says “no gas”, other says “nahi jayega” (trans: will not go) and finally you realize you should walk instead.
• You ask a mumbai-guy about some location he will answer you “just at the walking distance…” you end up walking miles and still someone guides you “just at the walking distance…”
• While on way you encounter two vehicles collided… silence remains… no farting around, no arguments and they just move by…
• You come to a bus-stand and it seems no one was there… a moment later you stretch your neck a bit right and see a very long queue waiting before you…
• You manage to get inside the bus/train but what was that… some people behind (who were actually shouting to get inside quickly) didn’t come.. so what?… magically your mobile-phone/wallet is missing.
• It was a nice day you are coming early from office @ evening 7… somehow you manage to get in the train/bus but all of the sudden it started heavy rain (as if it never happened)… you kept standing and people continued coming in the same bus/train… now u started feeling the power-massage (free of cost)… you getting choked as there was no oxygen(seems) but still people continued coming in… (this scenario is depicted as “gardi”)
• You go to a restaurant and in menu most of dishes have name “pav”(bread), example pav-bhaji, samosa-pav, vada-pav, bhajiya-pav, omlete-pav etc.

So, now you know more about web and the javascript thing but it just get messy when you embed javascript callbacks in the HTML form and woooah! it works but really not easy to maintain.

Requirements: make a link which on clicking does some JS stuff!

Doing it the old-fashioned way…

After studying the JS and HTML we came with the following code…

HTML :-

<a href="javascript: void();"
onclick="call_function('Abhishek',23)">Do Something</a>

JavaScript:-

function call_function(name, age){
	if(age>=13 && age<=19){
		age_desc = 'a teenager';
	}else if(age>19){
		age_desc = 'an adult';
	}else{
		age_desc = 'a kid';
	}
	message = name + " is " + age_desc;
	alert(message);
}

This is my Experience that the code above is real pain when it comes to debugging or maintaining. Here’s my way of doing the same thing in a bit cleaner way using JQuery and HTML5.

Doing it in a clean way…

new HTML:-

<a href="#" class="action_link" data-name="abhishek" data-age="23">Do Something</a>

and the new JavaScript:-

$(function()){
	$("a.action_link").click(function(){
		call_function($(this).attr("data-name"),
			$(this).attr("data-age")));
	});
}

Explanation: In second method we don’t call any javascript through the HTML and for the params required by the javascript function we use HTML5′s custom attributes data-*. This method makes our HTML cleaner by removing all the javascripts.

Reasons why the second method is better…

• Javascript is totally separated from HTML.
• All the JS event binding is done separately. (JQuery)
• HTML is now cleaner; All the params are now in data attributes (HTML5). This is useful in cases when we are bringing the data from a database as its more readable

This is my another comparison post, now comparing between two big PHP frameworks cakephp and codeigniter

Again, the points I would be keeping here are of my own personal choice and experience. so here I go,

Personally I searched too much on various MVC frameworks available in PHP and learned them. I then chose cakephp and codeigniter for the final round. I am now taking codeIgniter as my base framework and here’s the reason why…

• cakephp was far too abstract, as everything was done magically(console commands). I wanted in-depth knowledge as whats going on inside as am being a core php developer.
• cakephp various benchmarking told that it was slow when compared to codeIgniter
• cakephp had various restrictions over naming convention.
• codeIgniter could be understood easily with all clean programming.

Recently I was looking to the google trend and I compared the codeIgniter and cakephp search trends and found something like this…

Trend analysis (google.com/trends) of codeigniter and cakephp

The blue is hitting close to red rapidly and this makes us understand what people are searching more and following!

So you always had questions like…

• What language to use php, java/jsp/servlet or asp for web-app development?
• Which is better asp/jsp/php?
• Java Developer: Why to use php anyways? Its not OO!
• php Developer: Why to make things so complicated!

This may fire a debate but before it does I just want to tell you that this is just my opinion… A wise man somewhere-somehow said..

Listen to everyone but just do what you wanna do!

Now, it goes this way.. I was a college student thought why not to make one site I heard of making that stuff in php.. Now the question was why not Java (say it jsp, servlet, struts, jsf and what not… all are basically from same family and that is JAVA) or may be the Microsoft thing (asp, .net, aspx, iis etc. all microsoft stuff).

If I had chosen php saying “buddy this is open source” what about java.. haa? here I am giving some of the points which made me choose php over the other server side technologies…

• PHP is open-source, yes Java is but Microsoft isn’t (So, for me asp is out here at first point)
• PHP is light to server unfortunately Java is not (Java’s application servers are too heavy for my apps).
• PHP could be compiled just to have optimized output just like Java and ASP but on the other hand it does not require compilation (being a scripting language) and all long server restarts which Java server may require.
• Java offers me MVC based frameworks like struts and jsf but wait PHP now offers even better frameworks like cakePHP, codeIgniter etc.
• Java is an Obeject Oriented Language meaning am always playing in classes and objects, so what php (5+) now offers the same.
• Java had so many utility libraries just download the jar and use it.. so is the case with php
• PHP shared servers are easy to find and are light to pocket, this is not the case with Java.

Conclusion by me..

If you wanna make a web-app just small as my homepage or just huge as facebook you can go for PHP

so where does JAVA fits? for that I will put some more points…

• If your application is too big and is to be maintained by several people you may follow some kind of strict OO methodology and design patterns you may go with php but here JAVA is a better option.
• If your application is less web and more serverside, say you want to make a bank-application it deals more with transactions, accounts, bulk operations etc., these kind of applications are better if made in JAVA technologies. Generally a N-tier system is made where the web side is just for taking your request (like you wanna send some money to ur buddy u place a request) the main part is transactions, bulk operations (several accounts are given an interest of say 5%). These operations are generally not done within a client-server request rather should be done by the server running applications (EJB’s and Java Pojo’s do this work).
• If your client is ready to invest more money go for Java. ( )

So, If you making an application which process less for web and more server side work (transactions or bulk operations) go with java…

all are good at their places just you need to know what you want to attain.