Last time there was an another great article about Smalltalk called Back to the future for Smalltalk. Looks like a smalltalk back to the game It’s maybe the same history like a Ruby, today Ruby is really popular because DHH created Rails. But in Smalltalk we have Seaside which is also outstanding. Im generally a Ruby programmer, now im working with Squeak. I just wanna try how productive could I be with Seaside. Today I was a little worry about generally Squeak performance because there are many tests where people said “Ohh no ohh no, its so slow in this hello world test”. But after that I realized how long i was working with Ruby and Rails, and i’ve never had problems with performance at all. What is more Smalltalk is even faster than Ruby. So for me more important is how productive these frameworks are (and both are so efficient) than thousand extremelny weird speed tests. In one test someone said that Java is so cool, it’s so fancy and generally great because it’s faster than Ruby and Smalltalk. But I don’t care about performance if i must write thousands lines of Java code which displays simple “hello world”, I can do the same in one line here.

Here is a short video about comparison Rails and Seaside (rather developing style). Another demonstrates that Seaside is a sever and an IDE in one. But what is the most important I watched Giles Bowkett really interesting presentation about Rails and Seaside and here is it:
Seaside and Rails (The 2007 Goto) from giles goat boy on Vimeo.

ROXIK temporaries.

In back to the RIA world, last time I found interesting AS3 3D Library called AS3 ROXIK Sharikura 3D Library. I was watching examples and the most interesting thing is performance. Watch this demo and observe that there is a many objects, everything works fluently but … you can add another objects and the animation is still not jerky. Unfortunately library now is not released yet but Sharikura said that his plan is to release it as an Open Source :)  - sounds great. He’s still working on it and what is more, this is his private project so it can takes a little time. Im waiting for it ! Generally there is a list of some examples, really cool enjoy !

Like I said Seaside is really outstanding framework created by Avi Bryant. Outstanding is also Squeak (Smalltalk implementation) which you can directly using within Seaside. Both things are really great so I want to share with you with some interesting materials.

Last time I found on webdevradio interview with Randal Schwartz (now Seaside evangelist). He gave his talk about Seaside future and other things like Squeak and GemStone. Here is a podcast:

 Get MP3 (49 MB | 72:35 min)

Generally if you want to start with Smalltalk here is great site with free books about it Free Smalltalk Books. But my favorite is Squeak so if you want to play with it, your first book should be this: Squeak By Example. Useful is also Squeak Wiki or Sqeak news. Last time was also Smalltalk Solutions 2008 conference which you can find interesting materials like GLASS(GemStone, Linux, Apache, Seaside, and Smalltalk) or Randal Schwartz’s talk “Persistence for Seaside“.

Finally there is an another interesting blog about techniques for using GemStone/S and Seaside called GemStoneSoup.

So again, if you haven’t yet tried Seaside or Squeak you should do it now

What is Singularity?

“Singularity is a global web conference that links geographically-dispersed local communities in a common experience via the Internet.”

It’s really exciting because we don’t always have time to traveling. But I love conferences!  meeting new people, learning new things, and being exposed to new ideas. So internet gives us solution and Singularity Conference is that solution You can read more here.

In July, they’re getting ready to launch the new Singularity web site that Aral Balkan has been building in Python with Django and Google App Engine. So it’s time to signup there now ! Also read about speakers at http://singularity08.com/.

Juggernaut

This is a really interesting plugin for your Ruby On Rails apps, like they said:

“aims to revolutionize your Rails app by letting the server initiate a connection and push data to the client. In other words your app can have a real time connection to the server with the advantage of instant updates.”

The plugin Juggernaut initiates a flash xmlsocket between server and browser allowing real time communication between the two. The open socket connection allows the server to ‘push’ base64 encoded javascript to the browser which is subsequently decoded and evaluated.

So generally something like Comet for Rails

If you haven’t tried yet Adobe TV you should do it now, there are many interesting videos from RIA and Adobe world Here is an example list of some interesting videos from there:

• Building Adobe AIR Applications with Flash CS3 (Lee Brimelow)

• Building a Video Application with Flex Builder (Duane Nickull)

• Third-Party HTML Services with Flex and AIR (Ryan Stewart)

• Get Up to Speed on Flex Messaging Service (James Ward)

• Create a Pulse Effect in Flex (Chet Haase)

• Chet Haase presents Top Drawer (Part 1)

Like I said AsWing is a really good option in RIA applications development, but there is another solution if you don’t like AsWing, called SPAS (Swing Package for ActionScript).

The Swing Package for ActionScript 3.0 (SPAS 3.0) provides a set of “lightweight” classes for making graphic user interfaces (GUI) on the Flash Plateform.

The SPAS 3.0 is fully compatible with both Flash 9 and Flex 2 applications.
It will be the starting point to extend Rich Internet Application to all applications wich are developed using Adobe’s Flash authoring products.

The SPAS 3.0 supply Flex 2 developers a real and efficient “java-like” set of GUI classes to wrap RIAs much better if they had to work with the native Flash Platform components.

Here is a sample application and some examples of using SPAS 3.0 . You can even find there a quick comparison of these plaftorms: AsWing A3 vs SPAS 3.0. Looks really nice

I’ve just read this post about comparing Cairngorm and PureMVC frameworks ( from design GUI side). Author said: “So is PureMVC better then? This is a question, that cannot be answered by this post alone. The UI patterns is just one part of both frameworks, albeit an important one. One could argue, that you get more out-of-the-box with PureMVC, the mediators being a builtin concept of the framework. The mediators and the communication from and to mediators through notifications, have been nicely worked into the PureMVC framework.”. Yes but I already think that PureMVC is much much better than Cairngorm. Why ? I’m working with both, and Cairngorm is for me terrible mess. Everything’s broken in MVC pattern, its so complicated in use and in teach. What is more they probably never heard about DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself), everything must be included thousand times, generally in my point of vision Cairngorm is crap ! PureMVC is relatively simple, DRY, easy to learn (good architecture 101 tutorial and best practicies document) and PureMVC is faster !
So generally i’m still wondering how people using Cairngorm can be productive. Last time i gave you here Silvafug presentation so I’m now using only PureMVC and if you will try it once you’ll never back to Cairngorm, have fun

Like I said last time, cloud computing and generally cloud architecture is a future in my, and not only my opinion. On last RailsConf 2008 Ezra Zygmuntowicz gave his talk about Vertebra - next generation Cloud Computing Platform built with Erlang/Ruby and centered around Ejabberd and XMPP. Very cool stuff, here is a PDF of the slides from presentation: Vertebra.pdf. Theory -  “Vertebra can be used for automating the cloud as well as for distributed real time application development. The whole idea of Vertebra is to democratize the cloud, abstracting the cloud interface API’s and allowing folks to utilize multiple cloud providers based on a number of cost/benefit factors. It also has large potential for enterprise integration projects.” What is more Ezra said that he’s got approval to release all of Vertebra as open source with a GPL license, of course they will also offer paid support for it as well as hosted Jabber/Erlang infrastructure as a service. So generally great news to someone wants to start with cloud architecture

Today, after few weeks of Flex absent and after installation of Firefox 3, I wanted to debug one of my flex projects. First, there was an error “Flex Builder cannot locate the required debugger version of Flash Player. You might need to install the debugger version of Flash Player 9 or reinstall.” It’s rather normal situation after installation of the new browser, so I went to Adobe site and downloaded newest version. After installation there were no errors, but debug window in Flex Builder showed that Flex App was <terminated>. It seems that I’m not the only one who have this problem. Check this link to see the ticket for this bug. Untill it will be repaired, the only solution is to use other browser or to stay on Firefox 2.

There are two really interesting tools (or maybe a business solutions) I want to share with you. I was working with both and i’m simple impressed.

First one called Dabble DB.

It is a web-based application that lets you work with data on your own terms. Instead of downloading an application, you upload your data and then build your own database application. Import Data,  Extend it or change it as you go. Restructure and redefine how you organize your data on a whim. Its made by Avi Bryant and working on SeaSide framework !! (also listen Avi conversation about SeaSide and Dabble DB) You can find video presentation there which will tell you why its so good

Second one (maybe not so staggering and powerfull but also good) called Viviti

It’s a website builder in which you can easy create structure, content and design of your website. And it really good works, has nice usability and everything you need. Viviti is integrated with many social portals like flickr, youtube etc.. So just try it if you want to do it now i have some invitations on my account so tell me only.