Slashdot Mirror
HTML5 App For Panasonic TVs Rejected - JQuery Is a "Hack"
An anonymous reader writes "I have been working on an HTML5 app for Panasonic VIERA TVs, specifically a client for the Plex Media Server. After paying $129 for the developer program, version 1.0 was submitted for inclusion in their VIERA Connect marketplace several weeks ago. After a few requested tweaks, they inquired about how the client communicated with the Plex Server. As many/most web developers do, I used jQuery and its $.ajax call (which is just a wrapper for XMLHttpRequest()). They insisted this was not standard Javascript, and after several communications with them, they replied back with "A workaround like this is considered a hack.". I'm stunned that anyone familiar with HTML would consider jQuery a hack. I've been patient in attempting to explain how jQuery works, but I am getting nowhere. Any thoughts on how I can better explain jQuery to an app reviewer? Yes, I know I can write my app without any Javascript library, but I am really hoping avoid that."
jQuery is a hack too?
I learned two things today.
Kill the Beta!!!!! Free Mod Points!!!!
http://youmightnotneedjquery.c... ;)
I wonder if /. Is trying to put out a story that will attract actual answers, given that 90% of all the comments in the community today have been about the bloat of beta.slashdot.org instead of the topic presented in the summary.
As for the actual topic:
What are the reasons, other than time and it's associated costs, for not wanting to do without a javascript binary, just so you can use JQuery? It's been a trend I have been seeing lately with embedded devices (like TVs) being treated like they were desktop computers with gobs and gobs of resources to blow, and where deploying a large multipurpose binary for a single (or small number of) function(s) is commonplace.
Throwing a big multipurpose library in there can pose a significant security risk (from the company's PoV anyway) because the library can do much more than just handle the small number of things you want it to, and some of those things can be undesirable.
Other than the costs to time, what are your reasons for wanting to use a multipurpose javascript engine for such a narrow scope?
On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design.
Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.
If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.
I propose that we boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta
Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
Reddit isn't going to work. I like Hackaday.. But really, where is the best alternative? Can't use Slashdot much longer with this Beta.
Submit it to the Panasonic app store.
Fuck Beta twice for more modpoints!!
It's like they realize that it's some sort of punishment, too. First, they inflicted it on the ACs, now they're redirecting logged in users. I payed them cold hard cash (which I'm regretting now) and as a subscriber they haven't started redirecting me, yet. When they do, I'm out.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
I've been a Slashdot user since 2007. My username is JoshuaZ ID# 1134087. I strongly dislike the beta version. The large default font makes less on a page at any given time. The comment handling is inferior and is harder to follow. It makes it much harder to just see upvoted comments instead subjecting us to the entire thread. I don't want a choice between "all" and insightful, informative or funny. I want an option to just see the more upvoted comments with the other comments still there with their subject lines so I can then decide based on that if they are worth looking into.
The userpage interfact and display is also lacking. The new version of the achievement display is strictly inferior since it doesn't show when things happened or give any information about the achievements instead giving cutesy graphics that tell nothing about what an achievement is for. Even knowing what achievements are common, I had to use the inspect element feature on my browser to figure out which is which. Comments in the user page also don't show how much they have been upvoted or downvoted nor do they give their description of how they've been modded. There's also no way to just go directly from a comment on the userpage to the comment on the article page, but instead the link takes one directly to the top of the article. This means that if one wants to find the context of a comment one needs to go to the main article and then search for the comment itself. This is inconvenient.
Overall, beta has many minor inconveniences. Any of these by itself would be minor but the totality is highly unpleasant. All of these should be fixed.
Now that I've had even more experience with beta I'd have other fun things to add to that email. I'm not optimistic that any of this feedback is going to be listened to.
What is being hacked? What exploit is required to make jQuery.js operate? How does it modify the javascript language to work?
jQuery.js is just a library of script routines designed to make a javascript programmer's life easier, like every other library out there, whether it's for C++, ActionScript, C# or assembler. It's not a binary... it is a collection of javascript functions.
Calling it a hack seems a bit ignorant of what hacks are. I've written hacks... patched XBox XDK libraries so I could get my Media X Menu to access extra hard drives in the system... interrupt routines loaded from DATA statements on my old C=64 that allowed me to display more sprites on screen than the hardware was supposed to display, or to do cool things with the borders. I've written multi-tasking kernels with assembler interspersed with the C code so I could directly access or manipulate hardware in embedded systems. Those are hacks.
At worst, you might call jQuery.js a kluge... but even then, jQuery.js works pretty well and doesn't require you to jump through hoops when making small changes (which kluges tend to do). ...so it's a library. A handy collection of useful routines developers can leverage so they do not have to write all that code again. Nothing more.
JQuery is a hack. A useful one, but still a hack. You should be accountable for all your production code, and there's really nothing jQuery does that you can't do yourself with only a little more effort. http://youmightnotneedjquery.c... #incaseyoumissedit
Spent All My Mod Points
The Beta of Slashdot is horrible.
Sadly, I'm going to be moving on from Slashdot, but I don't know of anywhere on the Net has such good discussions with such relatively intelligent people. The stories on Slashdot often suck, but the moderation moderation, I think, is what has kept it such a great place to have discussions. Is there any other site that has similar moderation?
I don't respond to AC's.
You had the unfortunate luck of having your story picked up during the middle of the slashdot beta shitfest, so most of the comments here will be about that. My condolences. (Also: the new beta sucks.)
Explain that jquery is not a hack or a workaround. It is a framework that is itself written in -- ta da! -- 100% valid javascript. Tell them it is nothing more than a collection of well-written, consistent, standards-based, heavily-reviewed and -tested code, and all it does is contain some pre-written libraries to make it easier to do common tasks.
It is sponsored by many large companies, including Wordpress, BlackBerry, Intel, Mozilla, and Adobe, to pick just the most recognizable names from that page.
According to this, it is used by Google, Facebook, AOL, ESPN, and whitehouse.gov. This 20-month old page also has a big list: WordPress.com, Pinterest, Reddit, MSN.com, WordPress.org, Amazon, Yandex, Microsoft.com, GO.com, Ask.com, ESPN, Craigslist, About.com, Go Daddy, Stack Overflow, Huffington Post, Instagram, Slideshare, Fox News, The Guardian, Etsy, LiveJournal, and Weather.com
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
If I am forced out of Classic, I will leave and never look back.
Fuck beta.
That's what Slashdot is for now.
Comments about how beta sucks, repeating "FUCK BETA" and... Fuck Beta.
I see no point discussing about anything else until they kill that abomination or just let us to continue using the classic interface.
Also, fuck beta.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Not that this makes either Panasonic or Apple 'better' in any way; but what strikes me as insane is that Panasonic would feel that they are in the position to be all fiddly and demanding about 'apps' submitted for their 'smart TV' platform.
Apple, as obnoxious as their control freakery has always been, undeniably have a walled garden that people would fight like dogs to get their applications into. Their position, in terms of platform ownership, is unbelievably enviable. They can be dicks all they like; because what are you going to do about it?
Panasonic? One of the largely-interchangeable makers of perfectly adequate but not thrilling TVs, pretty much every last one of which has a shitty 'smart TV' platform, all braindead in somewhat different and incompatible ways? What kind of leverage do they think they have?
Reading the actual email they sent, it sounds to me like they provide a (javascript) API for doing what "VieraApp" is instead doing with a direct ajax call (and jQuery vs XMLHttpRequest is not the issue; it's not using their wrapper that is the issue).
Implying the APP STORE on the TELEVISION....PLATFORM! isn't bloat enough?
Sod that. Just point them at their own web site, where jQuery is included in every page, and tell them they've been hacked.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
Inline it (jQuery).
When they ask how it communicates, tell them how, not what functions/callbacks you use in your code.
Ex. The server communicates using the standard Plex web API (or whatever it's called), documented _here_. The RCP calls are made using the standard XMLHttpRequest, with wrappers to ensure compatibility with the evolving web browser landscape. yada yada yada.
I'm sure it's a PITA, but I get the feeling the submitter said too much - explaining how jQuery internals work is going to seem like an over complicated nightmare. If they specifically ask about that weird looking "$.ajax" stuff, just tell them it is a simple wrapper that compensates for the subtle differences in XMLHttpRequest implementations. If the code finally gets to someone that can read it, they'll probably be quite familiar with jQuery and quite happy you are using it than some custom cobbled together hack :-)
I would have modded you flamebait since you are using a reference that contradicts your statement in the first line on the site.- "jQuery and its cousins are great, and by all means use them if it makes it easier to develop your application."http://youmightnotneedjquery.c... #incaseyoumissedit
If a large population likes it the way it is, that is valid feedback. It means don't change. Keeping things the way they are is a perfectly good, and frequently the best design decision.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
quoting myself
You can also get independent RSS feeds from each subreddit. sweet!
But... the future refused to change.
Back then we THOUGHT we knew.
Now we KNOW we know.
It's a Zen thing. Like FUCK BETA.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I'm not a designer and they aren't paying me to try to do design. The only issue I brought up which was primarily a pictorial issue was the achievements display which has two such obvious solutions that they shouldn't need to be stated: 1) having the achievement information appear when you mouse over it 2) just use freaking text. Incidentally, the use of extra graphics over text is a really strange thing given that we live in an era of mobile devices.
It doesn't require detailed feedback to say that one should use a smaller default font. And asking that you have an option when you click on a comment from a userpage to actually go to the comment is so basic that I shouldn't need any special issue. Thank you for pointing out the typo in "interfact." if they aren't listening to people because of typos in feedback they aren't going to be listening to much at all.
Do you write these letters to all the sites you visit?
No. But I do write a letter when it is a website that I like and to which I actively contribute and where they've *asked for my feedback*.
What is the native language of a browser?
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
But jquery has been in industry wide use for years and is no "a hack".
Check out the code, it's amazing that it works at all. That should come as no surprise to you as it should be pretty obvious by now that Resig doesn't even have a superficial understanding of javascript. (As evidence, in addition to jQuery, I would also like to submit jStat and any of his books.)
Yeah, jQuery is a hack -- and an ugly, inconsistent, and unstable one at that! Only in the software industry could a library written for people who don't know the language by someone who knows even less about the language become so successful.
Good for Panasonic. They made the right call here.
Required reading for internet skeptics
What is the native language of a browser?
As far as I've been able to tell, Portuguese.
Check out the code, it's amazing that it works at all.
Are you sure you aren't trying to read the minified version?
From what I've seen of Beta, there are no comment moderation scores, and no way of viewing responses to your comments other than drilling down to them.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
If a large population likes it the way it is, that is valid feedback. It means don't change. Keeping things the way they are is a perfectly good, and frequently the best design decision.
Depends on the site, FUCK BETA! For community forums, FUCK BETA IN THE ASS! the community should definitely have a say, FUCK, ASS! in any redesign or feature change, BETA ASS!
From what I've seen of Beta, there are no comment moderation scores, and no way of viewing responses to your comments other than drilling down to them.
Also, no way to quote parent comments, and you have to put your own comment subject in.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
It's kind of clean and pretty...
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
JQuery compared to Slashdot Beta:
The difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit.
--- Bigger bits, softer blocks, tighter ASCII.
Reddit, much like digg, sucked from the get-go, and has never stopped sucking. I'd sooner get my news from 4chan.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
The beta doesn't add any useful new features. All it does is remove them and severely fucks up the best part of this site: the commenting and moderation system. If the commenting system goes out the window, why would I come here? The stories are always several days or a week old, the editors are terrible at their job, and all of the actual articles are on other sites I could browse instead.
What the hell, Dice?
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
jQuery is a hack too?
Vanilla.js. Have a look over their jQuery/Vanilla-JS comparison examples and consider if you really want jQuery.
At a glance:
Vanilla JS is a fast, lightweight, cross-platform framework for building incredible, powerful JavaScript applications.
...
Vanilla JS makes everything an object, which is very convenient for OO JS applications.
Native support for HTML5 and other cutting-edge technologies makes me keep coming back to Vanilla JS, time after time.
Vanilla JS is the lowest-overhead, most comprehensive framework I've ever used.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Like a lot of the new UI changes lately, (First rev of KDE4, Win8, Gnome3, Unity) it makes the things I do often more difficult or imposable, and makes nothing I do often easier. "It is a beautiful new hammer, and we removed the head to streamline it."
This is what annoys me even more than the bad design - they actually solicited our feedback, and we took the time to give it, then they completely ignored it.
Hopefully they will listen to the crickets after classic is no longer an option...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
http://beta.slashdot.org/submi...
use the non-minified version.
when you submit stuff that gets vetted by some moderation into online javascript appstores-within-apps-or-devices then it is STANDARD PRACTICE to submit non-minified code for readability.
the theory is that they can see that you're not going to do anything to hack the tv, spotify or whatever. this is standard on all that I've submitted apps into.
and no, they don't actually read the code and see what it does.
so use the non-minified version.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.