All blog posts tagged with ruby
One of the Biggest Lessons I've Learned in IT
Something struck me today: over the years, I've been involved in a lot of different projects for a lot of different companies (even some just person projects). The #1 lesson I've learned is this - never exclude a particular technology from your choice of solutions merely because you don't like it (o…
Grails and Ruby on Rails OO - Kind of Odd
After having worked in Ruby on Rails and Grails for a bit now, something occurred to me that's a little odd about their designs. In this particular observation, both the frameworks end up with the same net effect (but achieve it in different ways). The issue in question is how to declare different m…
Grails More Impressions - Scripts
For my next reflection on impressions with Grails, I'm going to look at scripts (in the context of little utility scripts to simplify common complex tasks).
For this entry, I will compare Grails' "gant" scripts with Ruby "rake" scripts.
First up, namespacing is very different between the two. Gant u…
Proposed Project - Java on Rails
I've become a little disillustion with all the various agile frameworks out there.
At first, I had high hopes for Ruby on Rails, but after working on it for a year and a half, I decided that Ruby is a terrible language, and Rails is an aweful framework built on top of a terrible language.
Naturally,…
JVM Ruby vs. ECMA Ruby
I've seen a few projects rearing up to try to port Ruby to JavaScript (such as HotRuby). This is all entertaining and everything, but here's a few problems as I see it:
- You are still limited to JavaScript's security model
- You are still limited to JavaScript's single-thread architecture
- JavaScript i…
Browser Scripting
A while back I started a little project to enable scripting in a browser in languages other than JavaScript. Let's be honest - JavaScript is horrible. The project was inspired by several others I came across, and like those projects I opted for a Java Applet which would facilitate communication betw…
Can a Programming Language Be Called Slow?
Often I read on blogs and such of how one cannot call a given programming language slow - that's it's the individual implementation of the language or a runtime which is to blame. Here is an example of such a post.
I disagree.
If we look at core language specifications, it become abundantly clear th…
Throwing Down the Gauntlet
I'm throwing down the gauntlet to other language/app developers. For my place of work, I developed a Java Applet for uploading multiple files to a server. Sure, you can do this with other technologies to a certain degree (selecting multiple files at once in Web 2.0 isn't really possible, is it?) but…
Grails First Impressions – GORM vs. ActiveRecord
This blog entry is about my thoughts and observations while I'm starting to learn Grails. At the onset, the primary thing I've concerned myself with is the domain layer (what Ruby on Rails calls “models”). For the purposes of my impressions, I'm going to compare Grails' GORM with Ruby on Rails' Acti…
Understanding by Doing
Considering my fondness for language bashing (particularly, when it comes to such little programming gems as Perl, Python, Ruby, Objective-C, Modula-2, Ada, Haskel, CAML to name a few that I think are terrible) I decided that if I'm going to have an opinion of a language, I'd better be able to back …
Productive vs. Effective
Many years ago, when I still lived in South Africa, I worked for a manager who once tried to explain to us programmer folk the difference between being productive and being effective. At the time I thought he was blowing wind out his rear, but after a few more years of maturing, and being exposed to…
Speed: Ruby vs. Groovy
I'd like to set the record straight on an issue I've seen mentioned on the Internet. I've seen the Ruby fan-boys parading about (again) claiming that Ruby is faster than Groovy, and therefore RoR is better than Grails.
I've written a simple suite of benchmarks pitting many languages against each oth…
Ruby Enumerations
It's no secret that Ruby's lack of an enumeration type is a real pain in the ass. I needed better control over parameters than simply value-checking (so much for "less code", eh fan-boys?)
Using Ruby's peculiar OO model, I was able to create a class which acts similar to Java's enum type.
# # This i…
Writing an RSpec for XML-RPC
In conjunction with my previous post on writing an XML-RPC webservice under Ruby on Rails using Ruby's built-in XML-RPC library, I obviously had to be able to write some tests (in my case RSpecs) against my controllers. Having scoured forums and Google, the only samples given were for Action Web Ser…
Why "Mixins" are MORONIC
I am sick and bloody tired of Ruby fanboys throwing "mixins" as the be-all and end-all of productivity, and the single greatest weapon that Ruby has over Java.
Here's a thought - one of the bragging points of Ruby is that it's a "true OO" language compared to Java in that EEEEVERYTHING is an object …
Why I Admire PHP
I finally decided today that even if I may not like PHP, I certainly admire it. It's etched out a very good business for itself, and continues to flourish, despite calls of it's demise at the hands of Ruby (much like the calls of demise of Java).
One of the things I admire about it is that it doesn'…
XML-RPC under Ruby on Rails
On a current project, I needed to develop a series of web services for a custom single-signon (unified login) for a bunch of different websites to share. The project needed to be in Ruby on Rails, since that is what is available to the servers, and needed to use a protocol which PHP, Java and Ruby c…
Ruby Strongtyping
Just had to share this one - Ruby fan-boys brag about how "productive" dynamic typing is (completely ignoring the level of unpredictability it raises in your code's usage). Well, it seems I'm not the only one who saw this as a problem instead of benefit. Enter the Ruby Strongtyping package.
Maybe wi…
Why Does Everyone Think Java Is Dead?
One of my biggest pet peeves is when self-proclaimed geniuses (I'm looking at you Guido van Rossum and Yukihiro Matsumoto) bash Java for what they perceive as shortcomings (whilst boasting about how wonderful their own languages are). As if that wasn't bad enough, this invariably leads to claims of …
When "Agile", "Dynamic" and "Typeless" Become a Hindrance.
In recent years, I've seen the apparent rising popularity of "Agile" programming, powered by "dynamic" languages such as "Ruby". While these things seem warm and fluffy at first, in the long term with large projects, they really can become a difficult beast to control.
Let's take "Ruby on Rails" …
Visit my Friends and Family
If you've enjoyed my site, please take a moment to visit my friends and family, many of whom have some interesting insights, and entertaining thoughts and ideas.
- Crause Family - the family website
- Peter Crause - my father
- Justin Crause - my brother
- Cencina Photomagic - great photographer
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