The Web as Modules
Justin Perkins
Refresh Austin
What is a Module?
- Dictionary: A portion of a program that carries out a specific function and may be used alone or combined with other modules of the same program.
- Reusable
- Specialized
- Stand-alone
What is a Web Module?
- Web application that serves a specific need or purpose
- Serves a community
- Reusable in other web applications
- Has an API and/or RSS feed(s)
Some Examples Please.
- Amazon
- flickr
- upcoming.org
- del.icio.us
- last.fm
- Google Maps
- Craig's List
- Anything with an API or RSS feed
A Real Example
Nothing New
- Modular data is not a new concept
- Drag and drop JavaScript files (upcoming.org does this)
- Flash can be used (flickr does this)
- <iframe> has been another technique
- Screen scraping
Make it Accessible, Usable and Transparent
- Javascript, Flash and IFrames limit your audience
- Screen scraping costs more bandwidth
- Importing content through server-side code allows full control of content/presentation
- Transparent to the end user.
- Allows our website to reach as many visitors as possible.
- Consolidate the data the user is looking for
- Easy to implement
APIs
- Generic means to access application data
- Creates a community
- Gives you total control over presentation
- Disadvantage: Implementation can be daunting
Forget APIs, We've Got RSS
- Most (if not all) websites offer RSS feeds
- RSS is simple and easy to parse
- RSS is sometimes referred to as a read-only API
- If you can handle arrays, you can handle RSS
Refresh Austin Motto Code
For PHP, use MagpieRSS
<?php
$group_url = "http://groups.google.com/group/Refresh-Austin/feed/rss_v2_0_msgs.xml";
$group_rss = fetch_rss($group_url);
$group_motto = $group_rss->channel['description'];
?>
<blockquote><p><?php echo $group_motto; ?></p></blockquote>