When you think about it, we’re living now in extremely time precisely world. A couple of years ago a term “time estimation” was a little bit abstract. Wasn’t a big deal to went wrong with time estimation at the level of days or weeks. Today we have different time granulation. In project estimation we are not operating on days or weeks, but in hours, what is more “every hour matters” because simple speaking - our client paying for it. So in this case, if we have so extremely tiny field for make mistake, we have to have totally different tools for time measuring. Nowadays everyone using timetrackers, different project management applications etc. I’m using Basecamp and TargetProcess now, but problem is in other thing. People haven’t motivation to track their time or simply for a work. On other hand, all these PM software usuallly have employee time monitoring, but it’s only for PMs not for them actually, so single programmer can’t see if he is now sufficiently effective opposite to others. To change this and for fun, I’ve made through a weekend very simple and funny “twitter like” app called Paymocontest. What it is ? It’s based on Paymo timetracker which we are using here and which is really really nice. So we’re using Paymo timetracker tool installed on desktop, then we have paymocontest app which allows you to add/remove/find/follow people you’re working with and track what they are doing or how much time they spent on some project. Moreover we have some bonuses: stars, clouds, and other figures to people with the longest day/week working time, or with the most completed tasks, day entries. Of course is not a complicated software which gave you the way to working better, and it’s not a reference GTD implementation. But it’s very funny and nice place to challenge your motivation to work. If you wanna try, go just to paymocontest.pl. Have fun

Another good news for someone who really likes Adobe Flex/AIR and Smalltalk environments. Last time I wrote here about Glare project, and now there is an excellent example to build simple Adobe Air app with Smalltalk backend. I have only a one wish, if Glare will be available on other smalltalk platforms for example Squeak not only commercial VisualWorks, that’s gonna be something called “dreams come true”.

Here is an example to do something like on picture above.

Some time ago i have written about seaside and squeak on my polish blog - here. reason for that was because people do not always realized that smalltalk didn’t die at the same time as dinosaurs. Anyway, i’m lucky and working not only with one technology so was very happy to find something called Glare. What it is ? This is simple speaking a project that integrate smalltalk (visualworks in that case) and adobe flex. Sounds brilliant at the first look, but when i thought about it, was really confused. Why ? Smalltalk for example in Squeak or VisualWorks implementation is for development the same thing like ipod for music listening. It’s just incredible well thought. Everything is in one place, and we have IDE which is really truly intregrated. This IDE is not like NetBeans for Rails for example -  there are not a big difference to develop with simple editor or complicated IDE. But here IDE is one of the biggest advantage of using Suqeak for example. So now, when you think about it, we have two different style of thinking about web development:

1. Adobe Flex & AS3 - brilliant RIA framework with AS3, which is not the best language ever and comparing to smalltalk really complicated (+ use with puremvc, caingorm etc.)
2. Smalltalk (VisualWorks & Squeak) - brilliant language with DSL, Metaprogramming and IDE which gives us improvement kick.

Last time I hadn’t much time to writing here but it will change now hopefully. First of all we are generally working with PureMVC in our projects. Sometimes I’m wondering if that’s not overkill but in most situations it gives us really productive framework. Anyway my company mate had last time presentation about it on Adobe Flex polish group :adobers.org . Before meeting we collect some materials for people who want to start with PureMVC now so I will past it below, have fun !

Source: ShoutWaves

• http://puremvc.org , PureMVC project

• https://admin.na3.acrobat.com/_a204547676/p41582221/ , Cliff Hall presentation “Introduction to PureMVC”
• http://lab.kapit.fr/display/puremvcconsole/PureMVC+Console , PureMVC console - debugger
• http://www.dehats.com/drupal/?q=node/7 , FCG - Flex Code Generator

There are also few interesting articles about difference between architecture frameworks (PureMVC, Cairngorm, Swizz, Mate, etc):

• http://www.summa-tech.com/blog/2009/01/14/selecting-the-right-flex-application-frameworks, Selecting the Right Flex Application Framework
• http://www.insideria.com/2008/12/frameworkquest-2008-introducti.html, FrameworkQuest 2008
• http://www.dehats.com/drupal/?q=node/26 , From Cairngorm to PureMVC : a quick comparison
• https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a200985228/p12266504/, Flex frameworks

PureMVC tutorials:

• http://www.websector.de/blog/2007/12/25/10-tips-for-working-with-puremvc/ , 10 tips for working with PureMVC
• http://9mmedia.com/blog/?p=10 , How to Setup Your First PureMVC Application
• http://www.actionscriptdeveloper.co.uk/puremvc-tutorial-flex-puremvc-jabber-and-xiff-3-introduction/ , PureMVC Tutorial - Flex, PureMVC, Jabber and XIFF 3:  Introduction
• http://www.adobe.com/newsletters/edge/december2008/articles/article6/, An introduction to PureMVC for Adobe Flash and Flex
• http://hubflanger.com/building-a-flash-site-using-puremvc/ , Building a Flash site using PureMVC

I usually don’t like to copy other’s articles here, but this one is really helpful and made by my friend so enjoy :).

Source: Shoutwaves blog

Some time ago I had a lot of problems with starting new projects. Common tasks had to be made. That’s why I’ve build flashdevelop as3 template with pureMVC, preloader, startup manager (loading fonts, css before everything).

To install template in FlashDevelop ( it was tested on FD b9 ) you need to:

1. Download template 131 ActionScript 3 - AS3 Shoutwaves Project with Preloader.rar
2. Extract it and copy extracted folder to: “C:\Program Files\FlashDevelop\Templates\ProjectTemplates”
3. Run flashdevelop, Project -> New Project
4. Choose 131 ActionScript 3 - AS3 Shoutwaves Project with Preloader
5. Write name, location, package ( without this your project will not work )

Please use it, it’s free for everybody.
Hope will be useful !

Hello ! It was a big break from posting here, but many things changing now in our company so I have many things to handle and not really much time to writing here, but now it will be change ! Last time we’re working on few projects on Google App Engine which is on other hand really good technology. But of course like always there are some problems when you decided to start using it. First is a framework choice.. of course google has own called “webapp” but yes… it’s great for simple apps in my opinion, but for real applications I want to use power of Django insteed of Google framework. If we’re talking about GAE and Django integration here is a really good presentation about it:

There are important issue - very useful subproject called Google App Engine Helper for Django, you can find more information here. In back to the proper Django framework, I’ve found two days ago interesting “tips” to improve render_to_response method, which sometimes looks too complicated. So here it is:

• render_to_response how do to do it better (in polish)
• Shortcuts render_to_response

Ohh, one more thing, if someone from Poland is here, probably will be happy because now last time brand new polish django project site has been released !
 

Hi everyone! Just few days ago a new cool plugin for Firefox has been presented. His name is ubiquity. Remember that name, becouse it’s very helpfull and powerfull tool. It’s still in early version (0.1) but you can find out yourself how usefull it can be even right now. Here you can find a link to Mozilla Labs where it was introduced and below you can watch a short video containing simple scenario of how to use it. I want tell you anything more. Watch it, install it and enjoy it!

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Yesterday on this site a new interesting cheatsheet for cake was published. It contains a set of cake build-in validation rules with some short examples of how to use it. It’s useful, looks nice and it should hang near every CakePHP developers desk!

Last time I found interesting tool called Balsamiq Mockups. It is a Flash based mock-up toolset for rapid prototyping UI designs. I’ve been using many different applications for gui prototyping but this one is really cool and useful. It is simple, powerful and flexible, this is exactly what gui prototyping tools should be. Of course there are many more complex and “enterprise” (my favorite word) applications, like Axure - which I’m still using or very excting Adobe Thermo. But again, sometimes we need someting very simple and handy like Balsamiq Mochups. So go to their web site or try it now here. There are also demonstration sreencast.

“Aurora is a concept video presenting one possible future user experience for the Web, created by Adaptive Path as part of the Mozilla Labs concept browser series. Aurora explores new ways people could interact with the Web in the future based on projected technological trends and real-world scenarios.” This is really interesting, maybe nearly future, something better than milions microbliging sites on other hand still the same or similar.

Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

One of the most exciting thing in Ruby and Ruby frameworks like Rails and Merb is Behavior Driven Development framework - RSpec. Generally BDD provides new quality in testing and documenting our code. RSpec is a brilliant example of Ruby possibilities, I mean DSL ( Domain Specific Language ). But like I said last time DSLs aren’t only Ruby but also (or maybe more) Smalltalk. We know that “Smalltalk can do nothing but build domain specific languages”, so it’s natural that we should have something like RSpec in our Smalltalk world, and we have ! It called SSpec. Of course you probably say that we have SUnit which is satisfactory, and you’re right. What is more SUnit is excellent and like everything in my favorit Squeak outstanding integrated with it. But it’s still TDD, and what we need here is BDD - next generation of testing family. So if you want to try it, go to the www.squeaksource.com/SSpec/ and download it, helpfuly will be also SSpec documentation which you can download here:

http://daveastels.com/files/sspec_manual.pdf
http://daveastels.com/files/sSpec_QuickRef.pdf

SSpec is maybe not so active and popular like RSpec but really interesting, so if you want to try BDD testing in your Smalltalk project you should use it