Phil Pearl Personal Site

PHILPEARL

WEB DEVELOPER

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For a Voice XML version of the site call 360-301-8064

After programming various devices and formats for years, in 2000 I focused on designing and coding web sites that load content on demand into <iFrame>s. Then I adopted the "Web 2.0" style of building Single Page Applications ( SPAs ) and using AJAX to background-load data and page updates, along with hiding and showing information. This avoids the slow whole page reloads that cause users to abandon sites.

I use cross browser site design and coding methods that are adaptable to different devices and that grew out of my work with the language translation group at Microsoft Research. Web sites translated between, say, English and Slovenian, have page elements with varying lengths for the different languages, so ways of displaying multiple languages must be employed.

This led to grid-based, nested <div> coding methods that fluidly display content on different size screens, and avoid scrolling back and forth to read lines of text that would've otherwise extended beyond the viewport edges - try resizing the window displaying this page, and view it on a Smart Phone. And this is achieved with a single cross-browser code base.

Click images to see larger screenshots ( below ) of
sites and pages that I've designed and developed

Company Date

Author of the children's book "If The Shoe Fits . . ."{ Author of the children's book "World of Ice Cream"{ 2022
Author of the children's book "Cyber Defenders"{
Author of the children's book "The Isle of Mull"{ Author of novel "New Horizons"{ 2021
Author of the children's book "The Sqirrels Tale"{
Author of novel "Fake News"{ 2020
Author of the chikdren's book "The Magic Calendar"{ 2019
Author of novel "Cyber Insecurity"{ 2018
Microsoft Cloud + Enterprise Team{ 2018
Author of novel "Killing Time"{ 2017
Wells Fargo{ 2017
RGDance.co.uk{ 2016
Amazon Web 2.0 Book, New Security Chapter{ 2015 - 2016
Microsoft Research{ 2015
Amazon published Web 2.0 Book{ 2013 - 2014
Wells Fargo{ 2011 - 2012
Microsoft Assistive Technology Group{ 2011
Microsoft IE Test Group{ 2010
MediRec.org{ 2009 - 2010
LJGArt.com{
Microsoft Research{ 2008 - 2009
Paciderm{
DISYS{ 2007 - 2008
Web2AJAX{ 2007
Intermountain Health Care{ 2007
Pharmax{ 2006 - 2007
ATQSystems{ 2002 - 2006
ISV{
iNetz / Bureau of Land Management{1998 - 2002
Modis{
Berger{ 2001
Interface / FBI / various other{1990s
Interface{
Bartel Software{
Norton Christiansen{1980s
AMF Scientific Drilling Controls{ AMF Scientific Drilling Controls{ Sperry Sun{1970s Litton Industries{

Locations Worked Abu Dhabi Columbia Dubai Egypt England Greece Iran Malaysia Mexico Saudi Arabia Scotland Singapore U.S.A.

Designing Testing and Debugging

There is no substitute for working from the earliest moment in the medium that the final product will operate in, especially when designing and prototyping web sites that will need to operate in multiple different browsers.

For example, a design idea that may seem viable on a whiteboard, may not work in some of the target browsers. This can result in a different design having to be adopted when cross-browser testing takes place and fails.

And physical whiteboards are too transitory and imprecise to be truly useful and may actually be counterproductive, as one persons interpretation of what was on a board may differ from the authors, especially after the passage of a few hours, days, or weeks. Also, they cannot be shared across remote locations.

So it's far better to to use the Agile design methodolgy on a computer to fix bugs and design problems, frequently and early when a minimum of changes need to be made to correct faulty assumptions. Consequently, from the very beginning of a project I prototype in HTML and JavaScript, and test and debug in all the main browsers ( IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera ).

Current Technologies Used

(D)HTML 4.01 and 5 / XHTML
JavaScript
AJAX
CSS
PHP
SQL
Testing, and Debugging
Databases ( e.g. MS SQL Server, DB2, Oracle, MySQL )
Hand coding using NoteTab editor with built-in version control

Soft Skills

Determining users needs and interfacing between internal company departments and customers, and proposal and technical writing

Cross-browser Development

Firefox ( Windows & Linux )
Chrome
IE 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Edge
Safari ( on Windows )
Opera

Server-side

Source : W3Techs.com - Nov. 2015

Client-side

Source : W3Techs.com - Nov. 2015

Data Source : netmarketshare.com - June 2016

Previous Technologies Used
( Mouse-over for additional info )
Pascal
Some Java
IVR
Modula 2
Oilfield
VBScript
Some ASP
Delphi
WAI-ARIA ( Web Accessibility Initiative - Accessible Rich Internet Applications )

Third-party JavaScript Components Used for In-House Library

Auto-complete text dropdown - actb.js
Image fade in / out - fader.js
Graphing - graph.js
Tree Control ( expandable ) - TreeView.js
Rounded Corners - CurvyCorners.js
Calendar - DevX Calendar
Drag / drop - QuirksMode_Drag_Drop.js
Table Sort & Scroll / Fixed Head- Jaimon Mathew
AJAX - Various
Mapping & Geocoding - Microsoft / Bing Maps

And these components allow a single code base to be used with all the browsers, with no need for large third-party libraries that bloat web pages so much with their "core" files. For example, in a comparison done with JQuery on an actual site, my in-house library occupied about 60Kb - 70Kb of code for the same functionality as JQuery required 600Kb - 700Kb.

Source: LibScore.com Dec. 2014

Design Skills

My focus is on the User Interface ( UI ) running in client browsers in a cross-browser environment, and I use JavaScript to program HTML web pages that provide the desired User Experience ( UX ). I use a subset of JavaScript that works across all the common browsers, Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera, and I layout pages with CSS positioning.

I use the capabilities of the flexible, hybrid JavaScript language to produce easy-to-use UI / UX designs, in conjunction with Graphic Designers for the front-end look and feel or desired corporate appearance, and DataBase Architects for the back-end server-side interactions. See the example of a simple widget / page that I wrote in a day from the image to the left, and click here to see the actual widget I coded.

As Douglas Crockford the JavaScript guru and author says, "JavaScript is fundamentally about objects". But I don't focus on particular programming methods - Object Oriented Programming ( OOP ), Model View Controller ( MVC ), etc. - that don't themselves make web sites User Friendly. Instead I focus on how pages work and interact with users.

I design web sites manually, just as as I hand-code all my work without IDEs, and I don't use third party libraries such as JQuery, Bootstrap, Angular, Backbone, YUI, or CoffeeScript, as they bloat sites enormously with their need for "core" files before any functions can even be declared. Also see the CoffeeScript article for an explanation of why using that isn't such a good idea.

And if programming the back-end myself, I use PHP pages on the server, called with AJAX from the front-end, for example to run SQL queries on databases, asynchronously in the background. And the same technique is used for mashups at remote web sites, file transfers, etc. I don't use Java on either servers or browsers because of the security, legal, and operational issues with it, that can be avoided with other languages.

Provided .jpg Image file

I'm interested in technical writing and web development positions ( either contract or permanent ), preferably in the Pacific Northwest where I live, that will combine the best of Web 2.0 design methods with hands-on, cross-browser front-end design and coding, and content writing. These may be either on-site or remote.

And what I mean by Web 2.0 design methods, is using JavaScript and AJAX to implement "master-page" web sites that need few if any whole page reloads to refresh content. AKA Single Page Applications ( SPA ). The Web 2.0 model separates functionality into client-side browser-based tasks ( typically about 3/4 of the code of database-backed sites ), and server-side tasks that are called asynchronously in the background with AJAX, such as database SQL queries that absolutely require visits to servers across the internet.

Instead of focusing on arbitrary architectural patterns for designing and programming web sites, such as Model-View-Controller ( MVC ), Object Oriented Programming ( OOP ), or whatever the "catch-phrase du jour" happens to be, I try to ensure that sites are easy to use, adaptable to different screen sizes, and responsive to user inputs such as menu selections. And I'm not concerned about whether JavaScript is object oriented, procedural, functional, or a mixture - it's designing and building an easy to use and intuitive User Interface that's important to me.

To accomplish this in the most universally employed way, on the client I use HTML and CSS to build the structure of web pages / sites, along with JavaScript and AJAX to provide interactivity, and for server-side tasks I use PHP.

I think in terms of cross-browser design and coding, and I've developed my own compact library of stand-alone functions that conform to this design model, rather than using bloated megabyte-size third-party libraries or frameworks. I code according to the W3C standards for HTML 4, XHTML, and HTML 5, and I use CSS positioning to lay out designs.

And I perform light graphical operations such as cutting, cropping, and pasting screen shots and images, and ideally I'd work with a graphic artist / designer to develop sites that meet the requirements for both appearance and functionality. I also write manuals for the software that I produce, and I've written a book published by Amazon, titled "A Practical Guide to Developing Web 2.0 Rich Internet Applications".

So, if you feel that the technologies described here might help your project, let me know!

Dilbert