In this article you will learn about primitive data types, variables, and operators in Object-Oriented JavaScript.

So many factors can affect the performance of a Web page—the distance between server and client, the size of the elements on the page, how the browser loads these elements, available bandwidth. Finding those bottlenecks and identifying the culprits is no easy task. But identifying the causes can yield some significant improvements.
In this article, I'll show you how to spot and remedy some common causes of poor performance. I'll also introduce you to Visual Round Trip Analyzer (VRTA), a tool that can distinguish among the various factors that cause performance problems and present them as a graphical map. Then I'll show you how to perform your analysis using VRTA. But before we begin, find out how much you already know by taking the speed quiz called "How Do You Improve Page Loading?" that is included in this article.

This article outlines the 13 reasons why Java programmers should learn Flex and BlazeDS. It talks about why Flex with BlazeDS is one of the best choices for developing rich Internet applications (RIAs)—from highly interactive websites to enterprise applications with Java back ends. Most importantly, it shows the high return on investment (ROI) that this combination provides, both for developers and for enterprises.

User experience design, usability and the human side of technology

If you've been following the news in the web and/or RIA industry at all lately you've undoubtedly come across two little letters, U and X. UX of course, is the abbreviation for the big trend in application development right now known as User Experience. You've worked hard to become a great developer. You've learned the best practices to write bulletproof code, you've even mastered a crazy framework. Now it's time to go to the next level, you need to create an exceptional experience that matches your solid code.

In this article I cover some helpful hints that may not be immediately apparent when you start down the Flex development road. The first step is to understand the class library and how it manifests itself in the Macromedia Flex Markup Language (MXML). After that, I explain how you can dynamically create user interfaces (UI). At the end of this article, I will take a moment to stand on my soapbox and encourage you to think outside the box in terms of UI design—in hopes of improving your application performance at the same time.

Accessibility has become a hot topic as increased awareness and growing requirements demand that applications take into account the needs of all potential users. Accessibility covers not only the Web application, but document, desktop application and hardware, and so on. In the Web application domain, making static Web pages accessible is relatively easy. But for Web 2.0 technology, dynamic content and fancy visual effects can make accessibility testing very difficult. This article introduces the WAI-ARIA standard, which is designed to make future Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) widgets accessible. The article also covers accessibility principles in Web 2.0 design and provides several code samples to get you started.

Often the hardest part of changing technologies is language syntax differences. This new article provides Java developers with a transition guide to Actionscript which forms the foundation of Flex.

jQuery makes writing a good JavaScript-based Web application easy and straightforward, but there are a few extra steps required to turn your good Web application into a great Web app. This article details some of the steps to give your Web application the final layer of polish.

Agile methods aim to overcome usability barriers in traditional development, but pose new threats to user experience quality. By modifying Agile approaches, however, many companies have realized the benefits without the pain. Depending on how they're handled, Rapid Application Development (RAD) processes such as Agile and Scrum can enhance or threaten user experience quality.