beTech :: Evolve Already

This Wednesday, February 20th, Eric Pugh will present on OpenID (using RoR specifically), a decentralized single-sign-on system now used by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and the rest of the world. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenID for all the juicy tidbits/history/etc.

Fascinated by the “craft” of software development, Eric Pugh is the owner of OpenSource Connections, a member of the Apache Software Foundation, and a committer on many projects including DBUnit, Maven, and Jakarta Commons.

When/Where:
* Wednesday, February 20th
* 2:00pm-3:30pm
* electronic classroom in the Science and Engineering
Library, Clark Hall. (http://www.virginia.edu/webmap/ACentralGrounds.html)

Also, Eric would like to get the beTech community involved with the planning and organization of the next beCamp and bring us up to speed with the progress that has been made on beCamp Squared…, beCamp Redux…, beCamp Part Deux…

Hope to see you there!
–Doug

NOTE: For Post Meeting Notes, Read The Follow-up Meeting Post and Any Comments to This Post

I’d like to ask for input on an idea I’ve had for some time now. Would there be significant interest in a new community that included both ITC’s Local Support Partner (LSP) program, as well as the input and expertise from the beTech community? The community could be called the “LSP Developer Community.” It could perhaps piggyback on the existing infrastructure already in place with the current LSP program, but expand on it, with the help of beTech.

In other words, this would not take the place of beTech. BeTech could live on as-is. Instead, could the LSP program be expanded upon to include content that sort of sits in between beTech and the LSP developer content?

Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, so JavaScript has to be one of the most conflicted languages out there. It’s ubiquitous and easy to pick up yet mysterious and hard to master at the same time. Everything is an object, sorta? Lamda functions? Prototype? Closure? Object literal notation? Different browser implementations? Come on, puh-leaze!

Yet you’re compelled to master JavaScript since it’s now considered a real language with scores of libraries and even a CPAN/Pear-style repository. It powers awe-inspiring Web sites applications from Amazon to NetVibes to Zimbra. Why it even can be found lurking beneath the surface of various desktop widgets, iPhone apps, and even mainstream applications such as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Great, we’ve made our case.

Super. You’re on board the JavaScript train, you’ve already picked up Javascript: The Definitive Guide (via Safari Books), read a chapter every day, and slept with it under your pillow for the past three weeks. But you’re still bewildered and, gee, you have a stiff neck. Brilliant!

Well today is your lucky day. Watch the following series of videos and your JavaScripting life will change. One of the masters of the language, Douglas Crockford (senior JavaScript Architect at Yahoo! and father of JSON), explains in ample detail the inner workings of this marvelous language and how it got to be so wacky in the first place (many thanks to Microsoft and Netscape). He gets into the nitty and the gritty of programming JavaScript and also presents many of the common, uniquely JS show-stoppers along with their effective work-arounds. I found the series enlightening and I think you will too. Enjoy:

• The JavaScript Programming Language Part 1/4 (see video on right)
• The JavaScript Programming Language Part 2/4
• The JavaScript Programming Language Part 3/4
• The JavaScript Programming Language Part 4/4
• Theory of the DOM Part 1/3
• Theory of the DOM Part 2/3
• Theory of the DOM Part 3/3
• Advanced JavaScript Part 1/3
• Advanced JavaScript Part 2/3
• Advanced JavaScript Part 3/3

By the way, Crockford’s accompanying slides are worth the download, especially in the Advance JavaScript series where the video munges up some of the text.

Comparing files in Dreamweaver (DW) is so useful that it’s a wonder it isn’t already built in. Whether it be for comparing a locally saved file to one on a shared Web server or comparing recently downloaded source code updates to existing application files, finding files differences with the help of a suitable application is far more productive than “eyeballing” the differences. The good news is that while that functionality is not native to Dreamweaver it is rather painless to hand off the work to a third-party application.

On my Mac I was able to configure DW to use TextWrangler (a “must-have” text editor for Mac OS X) with ease. I can’t vouch for the Linux and Windows alternatives, but a little Googling did bring up these free applications:

• KDiff (Linux, Mac, Windows)
• WinMerge (Windows)

Once you’ve downloaded and installed your compare application, open your DW Preferences > File Compare category, and enter the location of the application (default TextWrangler location: “Macintosh HD:usr:bin:twdiff“). The full instructions are at Adobe’s Livedocs site.

Henceforth, comparing local or remote files is as easy as selecting them, right-clicking to bring up the context menu, and then choosing Compare Local Files, Compare with Remote, or Compare Remote Files (depending on the files you selected). The compare application typically shows three panes: one that identifies the location and nature of the differences (seen here at the bottom) and the two other panes that highlight the code differences. Pretty neat, huh?

Of course, if we were all good little programmers, we’d be using a proper revision control system such as Subversion and relying on the integrated diff/compare features. Someday. But until then, if you’re maintaining any sort of simple file backups you can still compare those files from the comfort of your Dreamweaver’s Files screen.

YSlow for Firebug is the latest must-have extension for Web developers working the bleeding edge. It’s primary purpose it to analyze your pages and tell you why they’re so slow (get it?: [Yahoo||whY]Slow), but it also has some other handy tricks up its sleeve. In one cool little tool, you get:

• a performance report card (based on the Yahoo! 13 Simple Rules for Speeding Up Your Web Site)
• an HTTP/HTML summary
• a list of components in the page
• other tools including JSLint

(Those with a keen eye may notice that YSlow is an extension for Firebug—which is itself a bad-ass Firefox extension.)

One of the biggest beTech audiences to date showed up to hear ITC Unix Group’s Hamp Carruth and Steve Losen share their University Web server war stories. It was a fun session chock full of entertaining ‘misguided user stories’ and tips for making Web sites more secure. Now, thanks to Scott Crittenden’s deft audio engineering, you can relive this magical moment in glorious MP3 stereo (44MB).

And for those that want to follow along, here are some of the links mentioned:

• NetBadge
• MyGroups
• Proxy

A mighty big thanks goes out to Hamp and Steve for sharing their time with us. If there’s interest, perhaps we can have them come out to chat about their services on an annual or bi-annual basis. Whaddya think?

This Wednesday, June 20, Hamp Carruth and his posse will host a rather informal, open session on the wide-ranging topic of the University’s Web servers. Come on out and hear from the Sage of Servers (official title: Computer Systems Chief Engineer) how the UVa Web server service blossomed into what it is today and how that growth guided some of the idiosyncrasies we experience. Furthermore, find out what the future of ITC’s Web services hold for the average users and all you advanced developers out there.

Hamp and his colleagues will also impart their knowledge and experience on SUPHP (and share how it can make your PHP applications more secure), MyGroups, NetBadge, and much, much more. If you have questions about the nature of the University’s Web server environment, this is the session you need to attend!