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Software_Application_Interfaces.Rpres
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Software_Application_Interfaces.Rpres
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Application Interfaces
========================================================
author: Brian High & Elliot Norwood
date: `r format(Sys.Date(), format="%B %d, %Y")`
transition: fade
incremental: true
Research Computing and Data Management
-------------------------------------------------------
[http://github.com/brianhigh/research-computing](http://github.com/brianhigh/research-computing)
<small style="font-size:.5em">
This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>.<br />
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/4.0/88x31.png" /></a>
</small>
Application Interfaces
========================================================
- Visual
* Windows, Files and Folders, Graphics.
* Most common modern interface.
- Textual
* Command line
* Often more powerful and faster than the visual interface, but less intuitive.
Visual (Graphical) Interfaces
========================================================
- Graphical User Interface (GUI)
* Most common contemporary way to interface with computers.
* Uses visual / graphical representations to interact with files and applications.
* eg. Files & folders, "windows", icons, "Apps", buttons.
- Web
* Web Browsers (eg. IE, Safari, Firefox, Chrome).
* Connects to a remote web server to display information.
GUI
========================================================
- Visual navigation, point-n-click (tap), drag-n-drop, gestures.
* Physical actions should corrospond to computer behavior.
- Most useful for common or visual tasks (e.g. photo editing).
- More intuitive interface for most computer users.
>
Web Interfaces
========================================================
- Server provides application to common client app (browser).
- Most useful for network-centric, multi-user, distributed apps.
- Can be used to transfer a remote file to local machine (downloads).
Web Technologies
========================================================
- Markup
* Categorize, organize, and modify content.
- Styles
* The design side of a web interface.
- Scripts
* Allows more complex interaction than basic HTML.
- Frameworks
- Data Exchange
Markup
========================================================
- "HyperText Markup Language" (HTML)
* The basic language of the web.
* Uses "Elements and Tags" to organize content.
* Markup is not visible to the end user.
* Tags / elements can have default effects (eg. b for bold) or be used strictly for organization (eg. header)
* Can also define custom tags / elements, for the purposes of styling or scripts.
Styles
========================================================
- "Cascading Style Sheets" (CSS)
* The design side of a website
* Design should be separate from content
* Allows for layout (margins, sizes of elements), colors (font and background, images), changing fonts, and more.
* Can quickly change the look of a site without changing content by switching stylesheets.
Scripts
========================================================
Server-side web-scripting languages and platforms:
- CGI (Old school, usually Perl)
- PHP (Most common)
- ASP (Microsoft)
- JSP (Java)
- Python (Django, Pyramid Frameworks)
Client-side
- JavaScript (do not confuse with Java)
- Flash
>
Web Application Frameworks
========================================================
Allow users to easily add and modify content, without having to know the underlying web technologies.
- Content Management System (CMS)
* Drupal, Wordpress, Django
- Learning Management System (LMS)
* Canvas
Data Exchange
========================================================
- HTTP
* Client sends a request, server returns a response.
- XML
* Standard markup language that can be used by tools (eg. RSS, XHTML, SOAP) to deliver data.
- JSON
* An alternative to XML, transmits data in attribute-value pairs.
* Ajax uses JSON to request new data after a page has loaded by sending data to server dynamically.
Textual Interfaces
========================================================
- Command Line Interface (CLI)
* All text based. Some basic graphics can be simulated with text.
* Requires exact commands including spelling and case.
- Application Program Interface (API)
* Provides the "building blocks" to develop a program.
* Can allow third party utilities to "hook into" existing applications.
CLI
========================================================
- Text prompts & commands (or menus)
* Flags: short hand option
* Options: Specifies addition actions for your command
* Arguments: Specifies information you want the command to act on (eg. a file name)
- Uses:
* Data manipulation
* Very fast interface due to lack of graphics (good for low bandwidth remote connections)
* Can be much faster / easier to use than graphical if you know the commands
Windows CLI
========================================================
- DOS - "Disk Operating System"
- CMD.EXE
- PowerShell
Bash
========================================================
- "Bourne Again Shell"
- Unix systems (Mac OSX) and Linux
- Windows: Cygwin, GitBash
>
Other (Application)
========================================================
Scientific and statistics apps use CLI
- Stata
- R
- MATLAB
API
========================================================
- "Application Programming Interface" - using code libraries
- Most useful for automation and back-end data transfer
- Develop your own apps / utilities using data from another source
- Example: Google Maps API
>