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HREF Considered Harmful   25 Sep 04
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(Source: Avi Bryant) I came across Avi Bryant's blog. Tons of interesting stuff, especially about Seaside. http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/avi/blogView

Ruby 1.6.x/1.7.x to Ruby 1.8   25 Sep 04
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Simon Standgaard posted these two links for the curious Ruby coders to ruby-talk. www.rubygarden.org/ruby?ProgrammingRubyTwo www.rubygarden.org/ruby?MovingFrom_1_6_To_1_8

Using SVG in Borges   25 Sep 04
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Interesting blog-entry on naseby + ruby + stuff. link

[Squeak-ev] Deutsches 3.7g zum testen   25 Sep 04
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Markus Denker posted this to the Squeak-ev list
 Ich habe mal ein erstes deutsches 3.7g zusammengestellt:

 http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~denker/Squeak3.7gDeutsch.zip

 Das ist einfach das letzte 3.7g Full Image + deutsche uebersetzungen.
 Die englischen Fenster habe ich geloescht, die engl. Demo-Projekte sind
 aber noch drin.

 Was wir brauchen ist

 -> Eine deutscher Willkommen-text
 -> ein paar deutsche Demo Projekte
 -> am besten ein deutsches tutorial...

 Bi den Einfuehrungs-texten sollten wir uns nicht an den englischen orientieren,
 die sind naemlich eher sinnlos, denke ich.

Smalltalk isKindOfLike: Yogurt   25 Sep 04
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(Source: Stefan, comp.lang.smalltalk) Smalltalk is like an Apache hellicopter. Java is like a B52 bomber with pretty heavy duty jet engines.

Smalltalk is very well thought out, extremely well engineered, very flexible, and generally gives quite good performance in a multitude of situations. It’s very adaptable to many different situations, and has lots of tricks up it’s sleeve. Driving it is a bit of a paradigm shift from driving your average plane, it has some new fancy controls, but once you get the hang of it, it can be totally amazing and really fun. Even if you don’t totally know what you’re doing you can still get yourself out of a jam. Given that you’ve got a good pilot you can launch off to a quick start and really do some very heavy and impressive damage in a very short time. It also tends to perform quite impressively if you’ve got a few of them around, and easier to coordinate an army of them.

Java is pretty difficult to drive, and once you get it going in a certain direction it’s pretty hard to get it going somewhere else. It has a few turbo buttons on it so that if you really know when and where to use it, it can fly pretty well. You can surely get it going really fast if you fly it high enough and then point it straight into the ground. It’s generally not very flexible and often a real pain to deal with, but overall once you’ve got a flightplan fixed in stone you can fly it reasonably well and run it reasonably efficiently. If you are meticulous in your planning and implementation, it can really deliver the goods. If you make some mistakes, things can go very wrong that may become almost impossible to correct. Don’t count on any big changes, quick maneuvers, or any sort of fancy tricks that just might save the day, and leave yourself a good bit of time for planning and implementation before you expect to be able to deliver the goods. If you come accross any surprise attacks or come up against an Apache hellicopter, you could be doomed.

Managing Complexity: Keeping a Large Java Project on Track   25 Sep 04
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(Source O’Reilly) Using Ruby for hourly builds. www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2003/09/10/dashboard.html

ERP5: A Next-Generation, Open-Source ERP Architecture   25 Sep 04
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(Source: IEEE Computer Society) When someone says enterprise resource planning (ERP), most IT professionals think of the expensive, complex, and difficult-to-implement commercial products that were the rage a few years ago. Although many large corporations did reap tremendous cost savings from the implementation of such systems, an average implementation cost counted in the millions of dollars; this has prevented ERP systems from spreading to small and medium-sized businesses. After ERP deployment, its "blackbox" nature prevents from understanding and eventually improving the business processes it implements, leaving some important business decisions to the software publisher rather than to the corporate manager, preventing scientific researchers from getting involved in management innovation.

This situation provides much of the motivation for our architecture, ERP5, which offers several advantages for business. All ERP5 tools are open source, so are free and have openly available source code that a business can change to suit its processes. ERP5 incorporates, from scratch, advanced concepts such as object-oriented databases, a content management system, synchronization, variations, workflows, and a method to model and implement business processes. ERP5 is also a Web site where researchers can share innovation on management techniques and their implementation through software.

In 2001, two companies initiated the ERP5 project: Nexedi, a Zope service provider in France (Zope is a well-known open-source application server), and Coramy, a European apparel manufacturer. They aimed to develop a set of ERP software components for small and medium-sized companies. In addition to source code, the project also produced educational material and a clearly defined theoretical model. To fit the needs of smaller companies, they also designed ERP5 for distribution across distant sites with slow and unreliable Internet connections.

link

Can You Learn YAML in Five Minutes?   25 Sep 04
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Source: _why, yaml.freepan.org) YAML is extremely simple to learn. The basics are extraordinarily simple. You may even find that you have unintentionally used YAML syntax when building lists or simple file formats.

It also helps if you have experience with any agile language (such as Ruby, Python, Perl or PHP). YAML was designed to suit these languages well and borrows a few basic ideas from them.

And look at the clock before you start. Jot the time down and we'll see how fast you are. [http://yaml.freepan.org/index.cgi?YamlInFiveMinutes]

[ANN] Springz 1.0   25 Sep 04
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The Springz library allows you to attach two objects together (in 2D space) with a spring, and simulate how they pull/push each other.

Boring when used between two objects, it becomes interesting when you attach thousands of springs with different strenghts and distances between hundreds of nodes, and let the simulation determine the best configuration of those nodes. (I wrote this library specifically to create a social network diagram from a large amount of data. I had written it first in Javascript + SVG, and it was working, but too slowly: 3 hours to render the first frame, and 12+ hours for each frame after that.)

Despite the very visual nature of this application, this library doesn't know jack about graphics; it just knows how to push/pull theoretical objects around in theoretical 2D space. Making this visible to the user is up to you. (My application reads in XML data and then outputs a few frames of SVG pre-rendered animation.)

The documentation for the Springz class lists the key features at the top of it. You can read this laboriously-written documentation, and download the file itself, from: here (click on Springz.rb under the Files listing).

If you happen to have the Adobe SVG plugin (freely avail for Win/Mac/Linux/Solaris) installed, you can see the JS version of this library in action at -- click the green rectangle to start the simulation, and then drag objects around and/or click the orange button to scatter them about.

ObjectGraph: a Ruby class inheritance hierarchy graph   25 Sep 04
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(Source: Mehr, Assaph, ruby-ML) A simple script that generates a graph of the ruby class hierarchy. The script relies on graphviz for generation of the PNG and HTML map files. Take a look at the basic Ruby class hierarchy on the project web site: link

[ANN] Ruby/.NET bridge R3   25 Sep 04
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(Benjamin Schroeder posted this to ruby-talk) I’d like to announce Release 3 of our Ruby/.NET bridge, which lets you use Ruby and .NET objects together in your programs. (Releases 1 and 2 were available on the RAA and RubyForge, but this is the first one we’re announcing widely.) link. Make sure you check out the 5 minute tutorial. It’s impressive.

RubyConf 2003 Presentations Posted   25 Sep 04
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(Source: Ryan Davis) In absolute record time (5 days compared to 3 months), rubyconf 2003 presentation materials have been posted. www.zenspider.com/Languages/Ruby/RubyConf2003.html

I’m still waiting for some more, so check back periodically to see updates.

Compiere R2.5.1e   25 Sep 04
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Compiere released its newest Production Release 2.5.1e.

Significant functionality was added:

  • Credit Management & Dunning
  • Improved Discount Management
  • Payment-Invoice Allocation improvements (incl. Auto Match)
  • Ship/Receive in multiple UOMs
  • Service Level Agreements
  • GL Distribution
  • Prepayment Order Improvements
  • Financial Report writer improvements

Technical Improvements:

  • Support of Oracle 10g
  • Improved Database Connection management
  • Performance improvements

Significant reduction of open bugs.

DE: Squeak Artikel C't   25 Sep 04
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In der C’t 7/2004 erschien ein Artikel ueber Squeak. Programmieren lernen mit Squeak: Von kleinen und grossen Erfindern. pdf

Using the right hammer ..   25 Sep 04
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(Source: Robert Martin (UncleBob) in the pragprog-list) As a contractor you must do the best job you can for your client. This includes picking the best language for the situation. I agree that there are situations in which Ruby might be the best technical solution, but the worst political solution. In that case, you cannot use Ruby — you must use a technically inferior, but politically preferable language. There are other situations — more and more of them — in which Ruby is politically acceptable, and technically superior.

Sony details PlayStation Portable's chips   25 Sep 04
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(Source: The Register)

The PSP chipset comprises a number of components: the CPU, a media processor, a 3D graphics engine, a security processor and a power manager. The PSP’s MIPS R4000-based CPU will run at up to 333MHz, Sony chip designer Masanobu Okabe revealed at the Hot Chips conference in Stanford University, California. Its frontside bus runs at up to 166MHz, with both frequencies controlled by processor load. It contains a vector processing engine. link

RITE (Ruby 2) at Rubyconf 2003   25 Sep 04
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Matz has presented RITE at rubyconf 2003. www.rubygarden.org/ruby?Rite

matz called his talk: "How Ruby sucks".

Squeak is a toy - so ?   25 Sep 04
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(source: email from Martin Drautzburg to stx-users ML; Oct, 22, 2003)
 > PPS:
 > I remember working for a company, where it took the make utility3/4 of
 > an hour to figure out *what* to compile, and the compilers a day to
 > compile- it was a C++ project b.t.w. which was canceled and replaced by
 > a Smalltalk program after they spent 50man-years on a non-working
 > program - so much for non-toy languages !

Yeah and I just spent 3 days in an inhouse J2EE workshop held by one of our chief architects. We spent most of our time fighting with the tools. Changed setting over and over. The goal of the workshop was to demonstrate how to insert a row into an oracle table. At the end of the 2 days the table was still empty. Another non-toy language.

I have written two small apps (apx 5000 LOC) one in squak and one in stx. It was a dream. Got up in the morning and fixed two or three bugs before breakfast. You can only do this with a real cool environment.

SAP costs too much - customers   25 Sep 04
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(Source: Register) Every now and then, an analyst firm gathers up its collective courage and issues an ROI study which contradicts everything a vendor’s marketing department would have you believe.

So hats off to Nucleus Research for firing a salvo at SAP for causing customers to shell out millions on software with little more than added worker productivity in return. link

Test Version of FreeRIDE with RRB Refactoring Support   25 Sep 04
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(Source: Curt Hibbs) I just put up a test version of FreeRIDE that includes RRB Refactoring support and I would like to ask your help in testing it.

For windows user’s there is a complete pre-built binary (it can coexist with your current FreeRIDE installation), and for non-windows users there are instructions for adding RRB refactoring support to your existing FreeRIDE installation.

You can find full details at: freeride.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl?RefactoringSupport

 

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