Rohandas Recipes

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1 Describe the difference between an XML Sitemap and a HTML Sitemap. List the benefits and disadvantages of using each.

A sitemap is essentially an index of your webpages. The following is a breif overview of both XML and HTML

XML Benefits

  • It’s partciauly useful for large websites with a high number of webpages
  • It assists search enginges, such as google, lookup your index with ease
  • t’s wirrten in a standardised format which so all webpages are regonsied and accessible by web crawlers

XML Disadvantages

  • Due to it’s complex format, it’s dose not provide any useful human interaction
  • Creating and maintaing XML files would need a certain level of technical knowledg
  • It dose not improve your rankings, only assists with improved indexing and crawling

HTML Benefits

  • Unlike complex XML stitmaps, HTML sitemaps simply link your webpages together in an easy to read form
  • HTML can improve your SEO rankings if certain pages are correctly linked
  • Assists users to navigate and find content easilty with it’s simplistic format of hyperlinks

HTML Disadvantages

  • It could potenially be a redundant feature on smaller websites if the webpages are alreay well organised
  • HTML sites are less efficient for search engines as no metadata is provided
  • HTML sitemap requires regular maintenance to avoid links can becoming outdated
Q2 Evaluate three IDE’s (Integrated development environments) and provide a brief summary on the positive and negative aspects of each. Also, in your own words include how it would suit an entry level trainee code developer.

Microsft Visual Studio Code

Is an open source and free to use app, that is lightweight on system resources and can be quickly installed. It has an active community where regualr upates are applied. It also supports an extenvise range of extensions to assist with various programming langages. However, after the intial sandbox installation, it can take time to configure the app for your specfic requirments. It also has limitations on it’s advavnce features compared to other IDE’s, and may not meet the needs of complex large projects. Overall however, I think it’s very well sutied for an entry level code developer due it’s intuitive layout, easy to navigate menus and its easy to read text format.

Eclipse

Is also an open source and free to use app, it already has Java lanague support installed by default which avoids any pre-configration. It also has built-in tool such as debugging and testing. However for large scale projects, preformance can be a little slow and the user interface is more customised to a well trained web delvoper. Therefore Eclispe may not be the best choice for a trainee, as it’s not as intuitive as Visual Studio for exmaple.

Adobe Dreamweaver

Is a subscription based app, so a fee for usage would apply. It can handle a wide range of language support and has cross platform support on both Windows and Mac OS. It also has the advantage of intergration from other Adobe products such as Photoshop, making a more effiecnt streamlined workflow. However as previoulsy mentioned, there is high cost involed for licensing. Also it is resoucre intesive, so high spec hardware would be needed. Also the product has a higher focus on the front-end design, making back-end programming tasks more challaning. This could potentinly be a good produect for a traniee code developer, due to its user-friendly interface. However at the same time it could also be overwhelming due the large volume of different tools and features available.
Q3 Provide a brief history on web browser development and the issues encountered by web developers, specifically, the adherence to web standards.

We need to revisit the early 90’s to refleclt on the birth of web browsers, and refrence Tim Berners-Lee who created the first HTML version in 1991. This then led to the creataion of an organistion called W3C in 1994. This set the precedent for web standardisation as many new browsers were coming to market such as Netscape and Opera. However it’s important to point out that at this early stage the W3C standards were only a recommnatdation and it was not enforced. It was the developers choice if they wanted their websites as W3C-compliant. Moving forward to the late 90’s and a group of professinal web devoplers and desingers came together to form the Web Standards Project (WaSp). They collbrated with W3C to help better regulate web standards, as W3C was mostly made of voulnteers, and was struggling to make any real impact. As a result many compaines ignored or citizsed their standards.

It wasnt until the early 2000’s and the release of Microsoft’s IE5 on Mac OS that the standards really started to coform where Opera’s support for CSS and HTLM was in sync. In 2003 a highly notable impact occurred when CSS Zen Garden by Dave Shea was created. This was dawning of morden day web standarads we see today. By 2003, XML was starting to pave its way as the future of web desing, and W3C drew a line under HTML and started to focus on XHTML. This prompted another group like minded devolpers to pick up on what W3C left behind and create the WHATWG which continued improving HTML even futher as web applications grew. As a result of this HTML5 was designed which really brings us up to modern day progamming whillst also incporarting CCS.
Q4 What are website testing methodologies? Your answer MUST cover browser compatibility, and website functionality.

We can break this down into 6 different areas as follows

  • 1. Compatibility Testing – By checking a websites functionality in different browsers, such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari and also testing it on different OS platforms such as Mac OS, Windows and Linux
  • 2. Usability Testing – This testing focuses on the user experience. You would be looking for key features such as the ease of website navigation and how it looks visually
  • 3. Functional Testing – This method verifies the functionalities of the website is working as expected. Such as entering data into webforms and links to the other webpages
  • 4. Interface Testing – This method checks that any external or 3rd party interactions are working as expected, such as a payment gateway
  • 5. Security Testing – Ensuring your website is protected from any potential hacking into databases or servers. Making sure the data transfers over approved authentication methods, such as HTTPS
  • 6. UAT Testing – This would likely be your final test where you would release a beta version of your website and get a handful of volunteers to test the full functionality of your website
Q5 What are the endorsed requirements of accessibility for all NT Government webpages?

All NT Government webpages have endorsed the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). They are working towards making all content meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA compliance.
Q6 How do you think it’s best to organise all the assets used for a specific webpage? Think locally on your computer AND within the root folder of the website.
  • Firstly we would start off with our named “Project Folder” and this would be referenced as the “root”
  • HTML files – You can have as many as needed, 100’s if necessary, however you would only need to create 1 “index.html” which would usually reference your homepage
  • CSS Folder – All of your .CSS files would be placed here and used as your external stylesheets
  • Images Folder – Here you would place your image files such as .JPG and .PNG
  • JavaScript Folder – Here you can place your JavaScript files such as .JS