Exploring Internet Technologies
Tiobe Software does a monthly index of the top programming languages. Ruby is listed as the 10th most popular language. Java, as you might expect, is ranked first (although its market share has been steadily declining over time). It’s an interesting overview. Check it out.
Note: (2018/01/13) It’s years later, and Ruby is currently in 11th place.
I’ve been using git pretty heavily lately. The commands are a little wonky to learn, but once you’ve mastered a core set, distributed software revision control becomes a snap. I’m particularly impressed with how smoothly git manages branches and synchronization. I remember how painful that was in Subversion (and CVS).
Started to get all of the KeenerTech.com presentations online via SlideShare, but they seem to be down for the count. All major functionality (uploads, etc.) seems to be down except for, fortunately, support for embedded presentations. You’d think they’d have some sort of contingency plan in effect or some kind of staff notification feature.
I recently had to add some fonts to my Mac so I could use them in Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Word. It turns out that it’s really easy. Click here to find out how.
This is a great round-up from Josh Catone on the Mashable site. It covers 15 great sites that people are using to make real money online.
Oracle is in the process of acquiring Sun, where three core team members of the JRuby development team work. Charles Nutter and company have jumped ship to join EngineYard, a prominent hosting company and a major supporter of the Ruby community. In fact, they’re one of the sponsors of our local RubyNation Conference. There’s more information about this on Slashdot.org.
This blog entry by Ned Batchelder is basically the best article I’ve seen on branching and merging using Subversion.
Note: (2018/01/13) Er, it’s a good article. But I’ve since moved on to git, a technology that makes branching and merging much, much easier. Friends don’t let friends do Subversion anymore.
Based on recommendations from several of my fellow web professionals, including Naveen Vemula and Allan Bunch, I’ve chosen WebFaction.com for my Rails web hosting needs. I have 4 web sites that will be moved to Rails over the next few months, including KeenerTech.com.
This blistering article in the April issue of Fast Company exposes the management problems, lack of vision and business ineptitude that have transformed AOL from a high-flying Internet company and world-class brand-name into a slow-motion train wreck. The article is also strikingly negative about Randy Falco’s reign of error as the CEO of the organization.
Note: (2018/01/13) From my own experience at AOL, I think AOL is a technology company that never realized it was a technology company, with a tradition of hiring CEOs who never understood the Internet.
I’ve started working with Metro 1.1, the new, high-performance web services stack from Sun. Metro packages up Sun’s reference implementation of JAX-WS (Java API for XML Web Services), JAXB for bindings and WSIT (Web Services Interoperability Technologies) into one comprehensive package. I’m sure I’ll be posting more about my experiences later.