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Here is a recap of the top Ruby-related links for the month of June. The month of June saw a lot of articles, interviews, and video from RailsConf 2008. The big excitement from RailsConf was news of MagLev, a ruby implementation built on top of a Smalltalk VM. Other big news items to in the Ruby sphere was several security concerns. Links for The Rubyist are provided by A Rubyist Railstastic Adventure, a tumblelog.

Scaling and Security

• Fear and Loathing at RailsConf
• My Mixed Feelings about Ruby
• Rails 10x more productive, Scala 2x. Really?
• Rails can’t scale alone
• Apple security team finds code execution holes in Ruby
• Multiple Ruby security vulnerabilities
• The Big Ruby Vulnerabilities
• Did Rails Sink Twitter?

RailsConf and RubyConf

• Enlightenments from RailsConf 2008
• The Mega RailsConf 2008 Round Up
• 37signals RailsConf 2008 Interviews
• RailsConf 2008 – Saturday Evening Summary
• RailsConf 2008 – Friday Evening Summary
• MagLev
• MagLev – Ruby that scales
• MountainWest RubyConf 2008

News and Announcements

• The Rails Documentation App
• Acts As Community – Rubyist Unite
• New Free Book: Ruby on Rails 2.1
• Google's OpenSocial with Ruby on Rails
• Ruby TMTOWTDI, Episode 1
• De-smalling the Built-in Shoes Manual

Tools and Tutorials

• Bulk insertion of data with ActiveRecord
• Rails – Simple Asynchronous Processing
• Using jQuery with Ruby on Rails
• Glimmer – Using Ruby to Build SWT User Interfaces
• DataMapper – Ruby Object Relational Mapper
• Building a Ruby on Rails application in a week
• Setting up a Rails 2.0 Project without a Database
• PoolParty! An Open Source tool for managing EC2 clusters
• Pool Party Gem For EC2 Computing

Opinion

• Java developers should learn Ruby
• 10 must-have Rails plugins
• The evolution of a Ruby programmer
• Coding in java after a two year affair with ruby
• Johnson – Johnson wraps JavaScript in a loving Ruby embrace.
• Creating a new rails app shouldn't be boring

Jobs

• Ruby Now – The Ruby / Rails Job site
• How not to apply for a job
• How to get a rails job

Technorati Tags: ruby, rails, railsconf, maglev, rubyist, scaling, tutorials

I have just too many Windows desktop laying around. I use the default Windows’ Remote Desktop Connectivity (RDC) client to connect to anyone of them. For the most part this works great, I even use the OS X version of RDC to connect to a Windows machine. One issue that I have had with RDC is that it allows me to log off from the machine but not shutdown the desktop.

To shutdown or restart a desktop which you are connected to via RDC you can use the shutdown command. From the command prompt, execute the following command.

shutdown -s -f

The -s option indicates that you want to shutdown. The -f option forces your request. You can also use an -r option to restart.

You can also hit Ctrl+Alt+End to pop up the Windows Security dialog box for the remote desktop. You can shutdown the remote RDC desktop from the Windows Security dialog. This is the same dialog that will open with you hit Ctrl+Alt+End.

Technorati Tags: windows, mac, rdc, rdp, shutdown

I recently picked up JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford. Douglas is a senior JavaScript architect at Yahoo! whose work with JavaScript has inspired JSON. In JavaScript: The Good Parts, he presents the best features of JavaScript that have made it ubiquitous while omitting those imperfections that have given the language its bad rap. The good parts include loose typing, object literals, object model, prototype inheritance, and closures. The bad parts are the global variables, DOM, browser incompatibility, lack of block scope, eval, lack of real arrays, and to many falsy values (0, NaN, “”, false, null, undefined).

Perhaps adhering to that famous proverb that says if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, JavaScript: The Good Parts is a slim book and a quick read. JavaScript: The Good Parts is one tenth the size of JavaScript: The Definitive Guide. Even with its small shelf space footprint this good has plenty of good parts, such as the following…

Most programming languages contain good parts and bad parts. I discovered that I could be better programmer by using only the good parts and avoiding the bad parts.

How can you build something good out of bad parts?

JavaScript is a block of marble, and I chip away the features that are not beautiful until the language’s true nature reveals itself.

It turns out that strong typing does not eliminate the need for careful testing. And I have found in my work that the sorts of errors that strong type checking finds are no the errors I worry about.

Obsolete comments are worse than no comments.

Generally, the craft of programming is the factoring of a set of requirements into a set of functions and data structures.

Software is usually expected to be modified over the course of its productive life. The process of converting one correct program into a different correct program is extremely challenging.

It turns out that style matters in programming for the same reason that it matters in writing. It makes for better reading.

Features have a specification cost, a design cost, and a development cost. There is a testing cost and a reliability cost. … Features have a documentation cost. Every feature adds pages to the manual increasing training costs.

Features that offer value to a minority of users impose a cost on all users.

Douglas Crockford has numerous technical presentations for learning JavaScript and written Twelve Elements of JavaScript Style.

Technorati Tags: javascript, crockford, yahoo, yui, review

I many 10-5 developers not working directly with ajaxified web 2.0 applications I was not able to go to the Google I/O conference. I don’t feel so bad not going since Google has just released video recordings of over 70+ technical presentations from Google I/0. Most of the technical presentations are pushing Google’s APIs such as Android, Google App Engine, GWT, and Open Social.

As an aid for myself, and maybe other GWT developers, I have organized the pertinent GWT presentations as follows…

Surprisingly Rockin’ JavaScript and DOM Programming in GWT
You may already know about GWT’s nifty JavaScript Native Interface (JSNI), which allows you to define native Java methods with handwritten JavaScript. In GWT 1.5, there’s an even more powerful way to program close to the metal. You can now model arbitrary JavaScript types directly as Java classes (specifically, as subclasses of GWT’s JavaScriptObject class), yet there is no overhead in size or speed. You can code against any JavaScript object as if it were a regular old Java object. So, what does that buy you?

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I many 10-5 developers not working directly with ajaxified web 2.0 applications I was not able to go to the Google I/O conference. I don’t feel so bad not going since Google has just released video recordings of over 70+ technical presentations from Google I/0. Most of the technical presentations are pushing Google’s APIs such as Android, Google App Engine, GWT, and Open Social.

As an aid for myself, and maybe other Open Social developers, I have organized the pertinent Open Social presentations as follows…

Meet the OpenSocial Containers
Representatives from current OpenSocial containers give an overview of their implementations, policies, and what’s unique about their container. They also share some of the fruits of their labors including high level stats. Team members from upcoming containers review their planned launches, policies, and timelines.

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I many 10-5 developers not working directly with ajaxified web 2.0 applications I was not able to go to the Google I/O conference. I don’t feel so bad not going since Google has just released video recordings of over 70+ technical presentations from Google I/0. Most of the technical presentations are pushing Google’s APIs such as Android, Google App Engine, GWT, and Open Social.

As an aid for myself, and maybe other Android developers, I have organized the pertinent Android presentations as follows…

An Introduction to Android
Android is the Open Handset Alliance’s mobile software platform. Come learn about Android and our vision for more open, powerful, and useful mobile devices.

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