Rails 1.1

    Ruby on Rails framework update release 1.1 is here.

Refer http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/articles/2006/03/28/rails-1-1-rjs-active-record-respond_to-integration-tests-and-500-other-things

The biggest upgrade in Rails history has finally arrived. Rails 1.1 boasts more than 500 fixes, tweaks, and features from more than 100 contributors. Most of the updates just make everyday life a little smoother, a little rounder, and a little more joyful.

But of course we also have an impressive line of blockbuster features that will make you an even happier programmer. Especially if you’re into Ajax, web services, and strong domain models — and who isn’t these funky days?

The star of our one-one show is RJS: JavaScript written in Ruby. It’s the perfect antidote for your JavaScript blues. The way to get all Ajaxified without leaving the comfort of your beloved Ruby. It’s the brainchild of JavaScript and Ruby mastermind Sam Stephenson and an ode to the dynamic nature of Ruby.

Ruby has a very easy, humane language structure. So the support for writing javascript in ruby language is cool. Try it out yourself.

Code Kata

Sometime back I had read about code kata from the blog of Dave, the well-known author of the book "The Pragmatic Programmer Book" & its series. He introduces a set of practice exercises needed to improve our coding skill in any language or even our thinking about a problem in a business domain. They stretch your thinking and coding abilities. Here is an excerpt from his blog.

What’s a Code Kata?

As a group, software developers don’t practice enough. Most of our learning takes place on the job, which means that most of our mistakes get made there as well. Other creative professions practice: artists carry a sketchpad, musicians play technical pieces, poets constantly rewrite works. In karate, where the aim is to learn to spar or fight, most of a student’s time is spent learning and refining basic moves. The more formal of these exercises are called kata.

To help developers get the same benefits from practicing, we’re putting together a series of code kata: simple, artificial exercises which let us experiment and learn without the pressure of a production environment. Our suggestions for doing the kata are:

• find a place and time where you won’t be interrupted


• focus on the essential elements of the kata


• remember to look for feedback for every major decision


• if it helps, keep a journal of your progress


• have discussion groups with other developers, but try to have completed the kata first

There are no right or wrong answers in these kata: the benefit comes from the process, not from the result.

Follow the original blog at http://blogs.pragprog.com/cgi-bin/pragdave.cgi/Practices/Kata. So far he has added around 21 code kata.

If you want to discuss kata, there’s a mailing list here, and a wiki here. However, remember that the point of the kata is not arriving at a correct answer. The point is the stuff you learn along the way.

This is not just reading, so spare some time to spend & reap benefits! Also share any of your personal Code Kata with others.

Minimal Servlet Container

Recently I wrote a demo java program which controls USB devices present in a system, by accepting options as command-line arguments (i.e. runs only in command prompt). I thought of writing a GUI, so the user can easily control it. The immediate option came to my mind, is to use a java swing client. But I am not really comfortable in swing/awt; also I had only limited time to finish it. I don’t want to spend time in aligning fields in UI, rather I thought of developing web-based interface, which I am most comfortable with. 

Okay, but now I have to deploy my war file in the client place to show a demo!

Will they have a tomcat installed in there machine?  How much instructions I have to provide them, so they can self-deploy the application? What I they have problem in deploying?

BarCamp @ Chennai

Are u a said to be an technology enthusiasist, wanna share things with the world.. or wanna learn from similar people like you? Attend BarCamp, happening at chennai on April 8th & 9th.



http://barcamp.org/BarCampChennai

Why named BarCamp? FUBAR is a common military name, often in many demo programs, the immediate class name any body will use, is foo or bar or foobar. That may be the reason for the name BarCamp. if you ask me if there is any FooCamp then? Yes, it has been, but it is expanded to Friends Of O'Reilly, not the one we dicussed above. It was said that O'Reilly invites limited number of geeks to yearly unconference at his place, for FooCamp, but the invite is limited. Some of them wanted to attend but not able to, because they haven't got an invite. Those people started themselves an unconference named BarCamp.

JavaScript & DOM

Any web developer must have knowledge of this. In earlier days html are hand-written and site had more java-script decorators. Slowly they were disregarded, the gimmickry effects are considered to be not-so useful, and mostly distracting the user. A plain site with clean navigation flow is considered more useful. Even for data-validation, the java-script which runs at the client is considered risk. So they moved them to server, and preferred server-side validations to client-side validations. Servlets & JSP reduced the developer to directly interact with core html, and often helped to generate dynamic html, and do server-side validations with controller components

A good understanding of DOM model is very much required for any web developer. With Web2.0, an over used term, often meaning to give power to the user, by providing interactive user interface; JavaScript is playing a role again.

JavaScript is most supported client side script, by the browsers. Even though JSP’s support various scripting language under the BSF model, JS is most commonly supported by all.

Where is JavaScript now -- Version 1.5

Upcoming JavaScript 2.0

http://www.quirksmode.org/js/support.html

FireFox1.5 supports JavaScript version 5, but still IE 7 beta just supports JavaScript 1.3, with many browsers in the market, we have to be careful to choose correct version of JS, to reach wider users.

DOM2 is recent specification released, by w3c, hopefully supported by common browsers soon. Best is to stick with DOM0 or DOM level1, based on the functionality you require.