Title
i) Baseball Statistics Viewer

Author
ii) Kwok Yu (no collaborators)

Abstract

iii) This is a web application to be used for viewing baseball statistics.
I will be using AJAX for the front-end, and Java for the backend. The
backend will do little more than provide XML and XSL for the client to use
via Javascript. The purpose of the application will be to feel more like a
desktop application than a traditional web application, in the spirit of
the recent Google applications.

What

iv) The application will display baseball statistical data to the user,
formatted as XHTML tables and SVG charts. The data will be sortable, and
the user will be able to drill-down for more info on each
player/team/statistic. Hopefully, I can make the SVG charts interactive
also. The application will have a desktop feel to it in that the page will
not have to be reloaded everytime more data is requested. Most of the
processing will be handled by the client via Javascript.

Why

v) Ever since google came out with their Gmail, Suggest, and Maps
applications, it is clear that web applications can be made to feel more
responsive and interactive via Javascript. Data can be requested without
interrupting the user's experience; this would be especially useful if you
were drilling-down from team to player to year since you wouldn't have to
deal with being sent to another page and have to navigate back. Also, a
lot of bandwidth will be saved by transferring minimalistic XML (1-letter
element names, etc.) rather than fully-formatted XHTML (this will add up
with large data sets), since the XSL transformations will be done on the
client. If you wanted to sort a particular way, the client could just send
different parameters to the stylesheet rather than requesting the data
again from the server.

How

vi) The backend for my framework will be Java. The server will be
responsible for providing XML and XSL at the client's request. The heavy
lifting will be done by the client via Javascript. The XML will be stored
in several IFRAMEs on the client (so that the "Back" and "Forward" buttons
work). When new data is needed, the source location of the appropriate
IFRAME will be changed and Javascript in the IFRAME page will call
Javascript in the parent page to display the data. The XML will be parsed
through XMLHttpRequest and processed using XSLTProcessor, and output in
XHTML and SVG.

I will have to familiarize myself with Javascript and the HTML DOM. I will
also have to research browser compatability issues since Javascript varies
with each browser (I know that Gmail doesn't work will all browsers).

Questions
vii) I'm sure I'll have questions when I start working on it!!!