Well, this is sure to stir up some buzz in the Rubyverse...
Mod_Rails Teaser
March 20, 2008 @ 12:09 AM by nap · 0 comments
DDJ Code Talk Launches
March 14, 2008 @ 08:27 PM by nap · 2 comments
The legendary Dr Dobb's Journal just announced the launch of their new blog and forum system, DDJ Code Talk. I was extremely honored when Jon asked me to contribute, as DDJ has long been one of my favorite industry pubs. Them peoples is hardcore.
In the coming months I'll be contributing articles about Ruby, web application development, and lightweight languages. Head on over to check out my first article for them, a quick survey of Alternative Ruby Web Frameworks. There are a few other Ruby geeks hiding in their trees too, and a broad range of topics, including Python, Java, .NET, D (!), databases and web service architecture and design. Thanks for reading!
NHRuby: Django/Rails
March 09, 2008 @ 04:45 PM by nap · 0 comments
If you're in the ME/NH/MA area on Tuesday, make sure to stop by the NH Ruby SIG; Brian Turnbull will be presenting an in-depth talk comparing the philosophies of Rails and Django. I've never done any Python work at all myself, so I'm really looking forward to this dissection.
If you're not in the area, you're still in luck. We're trying something new this month, and will be broadcasting the event live via WebEx. Big thanks to Tim Golden and our sponsor RMC Research for hooking this up!
(NOTE: we usually meet on the third Tuesday of the month, but our host had some scheduling problems this time around; we'll be returning to the normal schedule in April)
Git Ur Radiant Extensions
March 05, 2008 @ 04:11 PM by nap · 3 comments
I published a new Radiant extension yesterday: Database Form. It provides a new page type and tags for constructing contact and request info forms and will save user responses to a database table. Those responses can then be exported for use in another application (CRM, etc). See the README for usage and examples. It was extracted from some client work that we'll be deploying soon.
If this sounds good, you can download or clone it from GitHub. While you're there, spend a few minutes poking around; GitHub is pretty dang cool. They've definitely succeeded in making Git repository hosting stupid simple. Just click a button to create a project, follow a few commands on your local system to import your sources, and you're off and running. You can then view the repo history, browse the source, see diffs, download a tarball (for easy extension installation in your pre-existing Radiant project), and fork it if you want to add your own features. That's where things get sweet, of course: Fork the project, make some changes, and send me a pull request so we can merge them into the master branch. All this is possible without GitHub, but it sure does a swell job of streamlining things and abstracting the suck away.
It also exposes the links between developers and their project contributions in a pretty cool way. See the DataMapper project's "network" page to see what I'm talking about. Ryan Tomayko has pointed out that this sort of interaction starts to smell an awful lot like a MySpace for developers, where lines in the social graph are drawn based on OSS project work. Wow, that's a cool thought, ain't it?
Principle of Least Surprise
March 04, 2008 @ 01:44 PM by nap · 0 comments
One of the things I love about Ruby is that it tends to follow the principle of least surprise; things just work the way you would expect them to, with precious few exceptions (cough cough inject cough). Horray for intuitiveness.
On the other hand, I've become so spoiled by The Principle that willful violations stand out like the sober guy at the all-inclusive beach resort. I know I'm being a nitpicky ass here, but this Rails bug^H^H^H ticket makes me kinda ill. Funny, because in my previous life as a Java/PHP developer, I wouldn't have even batted an eyelash at it.