Long ago, before the PC had gained acceptance in the computing community, I was engaged in developing a well funded futures trading software platform using the Unix system which interacted with data stored (as I recall) on an Informix platform.  The workings of the program were in C language, and the most convenient method of writing the code was a program called Vi, which came as part of the Unix package.  It was, I thought at the time, a prodigiously inconvenient and non-intuitive piece of software.  Very soon thereafter, PCs gained acceptance within the organization, and we were able to port the C code over to the PC, adopt another more convenient tool for programming, called Personal Editor (PE) which had a much more friendly interface.  Although the C programs were written on the PC, they were compiled and run on a mainframe and we happily bid a fond farewell to the quirky Unix system.

In parallel to this migration, Linux came of age, and the Vi editor was replaced by Vim (Vi improved).  Unix and Linux acquired a GUI capability, and the developers and programmers grew in their expectations and level of sophistication.  I was recently re-introduced to the Vim editor, which has a graphics component.  And the quirky commands with which I grew so frustrated years ago, I quickly came to appreciate.

And I have spent the last several weeks experimenting and out-fitting my Vim editor with a set of new and powerful tools which have made my life a lot easier.

At Paladin, we do a lot of database programming to which access is usually gained through the web (either internet, or intra net).  Modern practice and convention now suggests that even what was previously the province of ‘desktop’ data-enabled applications are now run using industrial strength database management systems ( such as Oracle, Sql Server, MySQL, or Informix) communicated with and from through a browser (Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox, etc.)  This has occurred in no small part because of the reluctance of the IT professionals to cede to standards of internet and data processing and delivery to one company whose name begins with ‘M’.

So the state of the art today allows 6 or 7 different types of Browsers to request and receive information from dozens of mainstream industrial-strength database managers.  This configuration has given rise to a Tower of Babel in which the processing and parsing of data through these channels is typically handled by a variety of languages – each with different grammar, purposes, characteristics and strengths.  As a matter of fact, in any web based data application, it would not be at all unusual for as many as a dozen languages/technologies to be required.

For example:

1. All communications with the users’ screen is done through HTML, or HTML 5.
2. The screen appearance can be modified and enhanced using CSS
3. Variable information sent to the screen comes from the database and is called using PHP, or some similar language
4. Once the data arrives at the desktop, it is parsed and sorted using Javascript
5. Jquery encapsulates that data so it appears similar, no matter what browser the user is using
6. Depending on what data arrives, the screen can be changed using AJAX
7. XML and XSLT technology can allow runtime applications to dictate output and appearance
8. Database languages, either Ansi SQL or Javascript may be used to interact with the database proper.

For every one of the above languages, Vim provides support in syntax files, indenting formats, pairing of parentheses, braces, brackets, and control expressions.  There are plugins available in many of the languages which will test for grammatical errors and unclosed expressions.  There is support for many other languages, too: C, C++, Ruby, Python, and others in addition to its power macro and scripting languages.

There is command support within the editor for taking a file from a buffer (many files can be edited concurrently) and sending it to a browser to see if the results are as you expected immediately.  The software allows you to create your own dictionaries (context sensitive, of course), shortcut keys, abbreviations, and a whole host of other very productive stuff.  The product is quirky, to be sure, but it has the aroma of genius.

And here’s a list of Vim resources:

• The Vim Reference Manual
• Vim source and down;load download and repository of many plugins
• Vim Vim Help Files
• Vim Vim Introduction and Tutorial
• Graphical vi-vim Cheat Sheet and Tutorial

Far and away the most important of these meta tags is the <Title> tag.  Left click on your web page and select ‘View Page Source’  from the popup menu.  This will open a copy of the source code for that page in your browser window.  Near the top of the page will (or should) be the Title tag.  Google and other search engines attach a large degree of importance to the contents of this tag, and assume that it summarized the purpose of the page.  It is considered good form for the context of the Title to be consistent with the context of the text elsewhere on the page.  If those two contexts do NOT agree, you have a problem, because Google will deduct points from its appraisal of your page, and demote your page to the lower regions of their rankings for those subjects you are trying to promote.  An even more egregious error occurs when a page has no title.  This is the mark of an unprofessional developer.

Titles should be limited to 10 words at maximum.  And one should bear in mind that the search engines attach more importance to words at the beginning of a Title tag, as well as at the top of the page of text.

The Title tag should contain the name of the firm, and the keywords describing the items you are trying to promote on that page.  In addition, if your business is local in nature it would be wise to include the locale as part of the Title tag.  Don’t waste words like ‘the’ or ‘and’ or generic adverbs or prepositions in Title tags, because robots are trained to ignore them, and because they take up room that can be better employed.

Next in importance is the meta Description tag.  The text in this tag is the description that appears in the Google search results just below the clickable title of the page, which appears in the search results.  Obviously, the text in the meta description tag should be consistent with the text in the main body of the page.  If it is NOT consistent, see above: another deduction in Google’s appraisal of your offering.  Think of this tag as your opportunity to make a small tasteful commercial about your product.  It’s OK to be a little provocative, and give the reader a reason to buy/investigate further.  Meta description text should be limited to 160 characters (the limit Google will read).

Meta Keywords, are now of just marginal importance.  In the past, this tag was a catch-all summary of the keywords in the article/page.  As a result, developers would stuff this tag with repetitions of keywords and phrases that they thought users would search for.  But in recent years, search engines have gotten more sophisticated, and actually the text on the page itself is indexed.  So meta keywords has been relegated to a redundant opportunity for ambiguity.

The meta Robots tag tells the spiders whether or not to follow and index that page.  The default condition is to index and follow.