Ruby/Rails
I recently started to play around with Ruby and Rails. I have to say that from a programming perspective it reminds me a lot of Groovy/Grails (which I really enjoy programming in). For a while I have been wondering why more development shops have not been giving this technology serious consideration. It is not the most performant solution, but the time to get a product up and running is significantly shorter. The appeal for developers is the instant gratification. Instead of spending all of your time wiring the application together you spend it developing your application.
Though you can scale out these technologies there is a cost involved......which is the amount of throughput you get. Ruby itself can scale, but Rails has limitations which have been well documented with Twitter. That is why environments such as Merb have come to the forefront. Groovy/Grails is in a similar situation as Ruby/Merb. What appears to be happening is that the Java shops are sticking with Java because they usually need to scale, and the solutions that need faster implementations at the cost of some performance and scaleability have been going towards Microsoft solutions. With that being said Microsoft has made a lot of strides in the performance/scaleability arena and it will be interesting to see what direction they head next.
When Java first came out it was a dog performance-wise. Now it\'s performance matches that of C++. I wonder if Ruby or Groovy will do the same thing.
2008-10-20 01:57:41
Rich Web Interfaces
About a month ago I had a chance to see a presentation on Flex. I have to say that before this, I was dubious about the technology being that it was Flash based. Now don\'t get me wrong, Flash is a great technology for creating interactive web pages. The problem has been that most flash developers have had a very visual bias to their software designs which meant that the performance of their complex applications was usually poor and that they favored slick designs over usable interfaces.
Because of this and the lack of (at least to my knowledge) good interaction between flash and Javascript I usually would consider one of the frameworks, such as EXT as a good way to get a rich user experience in a browser. I worked on a project at CNN that did just that. The solution worked well but did have some drawbacks. First, if you were not VERY careful with how you wrote your Javascript while writing a rich application you begin to run into a series of cross browser compatibility issues. Now arguably a platform such as Googles Web Toolkit can help to mitigate this. The problem is that GWT does not give you as much functionality, and as soon as you go beyond what GWT offers by extending it the cross browser problems begin. Getting back to the EXT, it is the richest Javascript framework, but also is difficult to learn, has some licensing considerations and can be difficult to test if you want to run automated tests against it.
That is where flex comes in. I am by no means an expert in it, and would need to investigate the technology further before using it on my own projects. With that being said it seems to have picked up from where Lazlo had left off. It takes advantage of web services, is performant if your client has the latest version of flash and is much more of a write once, run anywhere type of environment. When you couple that with being able to take advantage of Flash\'s \"goodness\" it looks like it provides a really nice way to gain a very rich user experience.
With that being said there are some unknowns, at least to me. These include, how good are the automated testing harnesses for it, what happens if Adobe decides to change the licensing terms of it, and what about Silverlight? Silverlight is definitely a competitor for this product, but right now it has some limitations that are preventing it from being a serious contender. These include, that lack of saturation in the market, what appears to be not as broad of support on all platforms (such as linux) and what appears to be a limited set of differentiators between this product and Flash. The only big one that I can see off the bat has to do with it\'s support of Windows media versus Flash that requires you to use Flash for video support. From a cost perspective, Windows Media is cheaper. It also allows you to stream video, versus Flash which only allows you to do progressive downloads. But with that being said they also took some things out that you got in the player that would be nice to see. The biggest thing is the controls for the video. With the Windows Media Player plugin you get really good, fine grained controls with streaming video that allow you to do things such as mark video which was very handy. Silverlight doesn\'t support that.
With all of this being said, I recently saw a Mac/Flash fan-boy relabel himself as a Silverlight expert, something I never thought I would see. So if that can happen then Silverlight may have a chance to really go somewhere. Either way it will be interesting to see where the technologies go.
2008-10-16 11:39:37
The Importance Of A Good Internet Cafe
While working up in Alphalaska on my latest assignment I realized how constricting it can be to have an internet filter at work. With the difficulty in getting files to and from my work computer I have found myself searching for a good wi-fi hotspot to get to the information I needed. Up on Windward Parkway you have places like Tacone, Starbucks etc., but my best find was a place called Roam which happens to be next door to my work location.Beyond the friendly staff (Jose in particular is great), they have an interesting concept of having both a working cafe and conference rooms that you can rent out by the hour or on a membership basis. What you end up with is a comfortable environment that is nice, with TV\'s, WI-FI and great food. Though Alphalaska is not my first choice from a location standpoint, I really like the concept and definitely think that these guys do a great job. I normally don\'t like to do a plug for a place on my personal blog, but after stopping in close to every work day for the past month I have to say that they definitely have my recommendation and I will miss those visits when I go on to my next gig. 2008-09-22 15:26:18'Flex Looks Really Cool!
So I went to this month\'s AJUG meeting which was on Flex. Being that there is a lot of buzz about Flex I wanted to see what it was about. Giving full disclosure I have to say that for a long time I have been biased against flash interfaces due to the talent that surrounded it. For a long time this community seemed to be centered around graphic designers that don\'t know how to code and who favor sexy interfaces over usable interfaces. On top of that I had played with Lazlo and had seen how slow a substantial flash application could be.
With the latest version of Flash and now flex that seems to be changing. In fact Adobe almost turned flex into the next version of Javascript. So with flex you get a write once, run anywhere technology (in Javascript we know what happens there) and some really cool effects with a lot less code. The big wildcard will be JavaFX and the mobile platforms which Java had dominated. The trend is clear, the interface for web apps is getting rich, the question is, which one will end up on top.
2008-08-21 16:02:25'
Of Used Car Salesmen, Technical Recruiters and Hiring Mangers
After having been out actively searching for new gigs in the Atlanta job market I decided to go with a financial services company for a while.......as I was getting ready to settle in for this job I decided that a two week break was in order to gather my thoughts and get a few things done as prep work for this new assignment.
Living in the Virginia Highlands in Atlanta has a lot of perks.....but when companies decide to locate in Alpharegretta.....it is annoying.....But hey, they were willing to offset my fuel costs with the rate.......the only problem was that was not gong to put 60 miles a day on my TT. So off I went to get a daily driver.
I spent close to two days searching high and low.....Initially looking for something in the $5,000 range....but everything was rough with stained carpets, dented bumpers and faded logos.....ok, how about $10,000. The cars got nicer, but at that point were kind of bland......then I stumbled on the solution....I like European cars, but wanted something that was going to be reliable for no more than $15,000.....Volvo! Now granted the VW\'s are reliable if you want to put a lot of money into repairs and the same it true for a used Audi A4, but there is something that doesn\'t do it for me with the styling and the reliability ratings are not great...and I couldn\'t get a BMW 3 series unless it was over 6 years old which begins to kill reliability versus my threshold for repair costs.
My searched narrowed down to a blue 2004 S60.... I went in to make the deal at 9:00 am and didn\'t leave until 4:00pm. The funny thing was that at the end of this ordeal I felt like I did after speaking to many of the recruiters I had been working with during my job search. Now don\'t get me wrong, there are some out there who try to build long term relationships, and who actually try to do more with you than to simply place you like a piece of meat on the corporate grill, but then there are the others.
So I\'m sitting there in the dealership, waiting for the salesman to go back to his sales manager for the 4th time and thinking to myself, the only difference here is that instead of having a recruiter tell me about how I will have career advancement in one position, or how they client really liked me, but wanted to cut the rate even though I was submitted at a higher (and reasonable beginning rate) which they did revise their offer up to in the end......I was now hearing pitches on why I should buy paint sealant (a total rip off), a tire replacement package that costs more than a mac mini, and fighting to get a second remote (a $400 item) in the deal.
Then my mind wandered off to the offer that I accepted......which I initially was going to turn down, until the hiring manager went out of his way to sell me on the position. But as I was driving off the lot in a car with no warranty I heard a small whine in the transmission.....I started to think to myself, does this car have a major problem? Did I just buy a lemon?
Now fast forward to my first week with the new company.....I go to the website for the Atlanta Ruby Users group.....I am greeted by a message telling me that the corporate security policy prevents access to social networking sites......the same holds true for access to Yahoo mail and Gmail.......and I start to think....did I make a good move?
All that I do know is that between Marlene and myself we have a small fleet of cars with the 98 Grand Prix, 01 TT and the 04 S60 and with my obsessive nature when it comes to auto detailing and maintenance I definitely will stay busy. With the rest.....Stay tuned!
2008-08-05 23:57:18'
