12-08-2012, 01:46 PM
Hi Joe,
Things get really confusing with web technologies. Believe it or, JavaScript is completely different to Java! It's really unfortunate that they sound so similar, but they are quite different. JavaScript is a scripting language that web browsers understand, and was originally used to generate pop-ups and basic interactivity on a web-page. Java, on the other hand, is a lot more complex. The idea is that code is produced that can run on any platform - not just desktop computers, but mobile phones, embedded computers, Blue-Ray players... The executable code is the same, but every different platform has to run a "virtual machine", which takes the Java programme and translates it into machine code that the host CPU can understand. In a way, it's an interesting attempt at cross-platform standardisation. Some websites use Java, but these seem to be less common these days because you can do so much more with the basic web tools (HTML and CSS), combined with JavaScript.
Flash is yet another extension. These days it's mostly used for YouTube/iPlayer streaming, but it has been used in the past to build the basics of a web page. Like the Java virtual machine, it's one more bit of software that you have to keep up to date on your machine, and yet another potential security risk. The latest version of HTML has support for video and audio streaming, so hopefully we'll see less need for Flash as time goes by.
I've done a lot with PICs, although I freely admit that there was a hell of a learning curve! I really like them - there is something very "pure" about the language, and you can be a total control freak because you know what every single 1 and 0 is doing at any one point in time. I haven't played with the high end devices - partly because I haven't needed the extra power, partly because programming in C becomes necessary. I'd be happy to talk anyone through the process of getting started - it's one of the things I do in the day job...
Cheers,
Mark
Things get really confusing with web technologies. Believe it or, JavaScript is completely different to Java! It's really unfortunate that they sound so similar, but they are quite different. JavaScript is a scripting language that web browsers understand, and was originally used to generate pop-ups and basic interactivity on a web-page. Java, on the other hand, is a lot more complex. The idea is that code is produced that can run on any platform - not just desktop computers, but mobile phones, embedded computers, Blue-Ray players... The executable code is the same, but every different platform has to run a "virtual machine", which takes the Java programme and translates it into machine code that the host CPU can understand. In a way, it's an interesting attempt at cross-platform standardisation. Some websites use Java, but these seem to be less common these days because you can do so much more with the basic web tools (HTML and CSS), combined with JavaScript.
Flash is yet another extension. These days it's mostly used for YouTube/iPlayer streaming, but it has been used in the past to build the basics of a web page. Like the Java virtual machine, it's one more bit of software that you have to keep up to date on your machine, and yet another potential security risk. The latest version of HTML has support for video and audio streaming, so hopefully we'll see less need for Flash as time goes by.
I've done a lot with PICs, although I freely admit that there was a hell of a learning curve! I really like them - there is something very "pure" about the language, and you can be a total control freak because you know what every single 1 and 0 is doing at any one point in time. I haven't played with the high end devices - partly because I haven't needed the extra power, partly because programming in C becomes necessary. I'd be happy to talk anyone through the process of getting started - it's one of the things I do in the day job...
Cheers,
Mark
