What is new ?

jQuery 1.3 supports Live Events. This means that events now can be bound to all currend and future (just created) HTML elements.

Live Events example

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    $("p").live("click", function(){
      $(this).after("<p>Another paragraph!</p>");
    });

HTML injection methods like append, prepend, before, and after has been overhauled. You can use this methonds like before, but you will see that they are much faster, about 6 times faster! Also hide() and show() methods are faster about 2.5 times. Wow speed is great reason to use this improved javascript library.

There is new jQuery.Event object that is available in your event functions. Big change is there is no browser sniffing, this is not change you will see right now but is will help to jQuery last longer and without bugs.

How jQuery creators explained browser sniffing:

Browser sniffing is a technique in which you make assumptions about how a piece of code will work in the future. Generally this means making an assumption that a specific browser bug will always be there - which frequently leads to code breaking when browsers make changes and fix bugs.

There is a lot of changes, i don’t want to show all of them, i just want to tickle you. More about new jQuery 1.3 library you can find on it’s web page.

For details about this functions you can check documentation.

To use this library developers just need to add Financial.dll to project. All functions are static and they are written under System.Numeric namespace. All of them are written in F# language, so there is two library versions, one staticly links F# and there is no F# dependency, but if you have F# is is better to use assembly smaller version.

Get this financial functions library here.

Small Basic

Later people who wanted to learn programming, they start with C language, this days i heard that people choose to learn c# or Java as they firs programming language. It is brave but it can be to damn difficult. Some people gave up, because they think out they can’t be good programmers, and that programming is so hard to learn, but trust me it’s not.

Some people thing that beginners should start with KPL, Python and Ruby. Some said Alice and Scratch.

Small Basic

Vijaye Raji from Seattle, Microsoft software developer created new programming language, It’s name is Small Basic. Vijaye thinks this language will help beginners to get started with programming.

Small Basic is inspired with Basic programing language, and it is based on Microsoft .NET platform. Development environment is very modern, powered with features like Intellisense™ or Instant sensitive help.

Lets see the code !

Change the desktop wallpaper from Flickr, every minute

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While ("True")
  pic = Flickr.GetRandomPicture("fall leaves")
  Desktop.SetWallPaper(pic)
 
  Program.Delay(60 * 1000)
EndWhile

Makes a BlackBoard that allows you to scribble on a window

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GraphicsWindow.BackgroundColor = "Black"
GraphicsWindow.PenColor = "White"
GraphicsWindow.MouseDown = OnMouseDown
GraphicsWindow.MouseMove = OnMouseMove
 
Sub OnMouseDown
  prevX = GraphicsWindow.MouseX
  prevY = GraphicsWindow.MouseY
EndSub
 
Sub OnMouseMove
  x = GraphicsWindow.MouseX
  y = GraphicsWindow.MouseY
  If (Mouse.IsLeftButtonDown) then
    GraphicsWindow.DrawLine(prevX, prevY, x, y)
  endif
  prevX = x
  prevY = y
EndSub

You can download Small Basic, or view Getting Started guide.

The Project Pier is ActiveCollab successor. ActiveCollab was free for download, but when they decided to go commercial, Project Pier team take ActiveCollab’s code and now they work on its development. In core this is still old ActiveCollab, but it is quite good.

The Project Pier features:

• ProjectPier is solution you install on your own host, and you have absolutely control.
• ProjectPier is created to provide easy to use solution
• It organize dev projects into projects, milestones, Tasklist, Task and Files
• Search project by tags
• E-mail notifications for new Milestones, Messages, Tasklists, Tasks and Files.
• Unlimited number of projects, tasklist and Project members
• You can add your sponsors, stockholders into project so tehy can track project development too
• It is free and open sourced solution

In my opinion ProjetPier missing bug tracking feature. With bug tracking PP could be complete collaboration tool I need. I am very satisfied with Pier after all, e-mail notification, files and milestones are very helpful features. Milestones can force your team to finish work at the time, and when they break deadline, milestone will inform team that they are late.

Attach file to project and every team member can watch, or download it. Also team messaging is important part, but online chat would be great add on feature.

At the end i must say that ActiveCollab is very quality and great collaboration tool, with lot of features and if you need quality and you want to pay for it, this can be nice choice. I hardly suggest you to try it. The ProjectPier stays good free solution for small teams which are not so prompted about collaboration tool.

Project Pier Screenshots:

StackOverflow

I think that Stack Overflow is full with quick solutions and helpful answers, and if you need answer dev community will help you.

Stack Overflow member rate questions, and answers, that means quality will go on the top, questions are sorted by hotness, just like at the DIGG or similar services. This is web 2.0 website and it is very collaboratively. Users have own reputation, community scores them and they are very motivated to help.

Active users who ask question, and gives answer which community consider helpful can gain badges. Badges can be bestow by many criteria like:

• If user left 10 comment he is Commentator
• If user deleted own post with 3 or more upvotes he is Disciplined
• If Question is voted up more than 100 times it is Great Question
• If answered your own question with at least 3 up votes you are Fast Learner
• much more …

You can track questions and answers via RSS. I liked opportunity to take feed RSS by tags, that means you can read only PHP, or jQuery question in RSS reader, splendid. This web site is still in Beta, so you can help them to improve this service, by giving ideas and feedback. Visit Stack Overflow.

What kind of hosting do you need ? You need hosting with revision control systems support. If you using Mercurial, then you need host with Mercurial installed on it, if you using Subversion you need hosting with it.

Assembla

For every workspace you will pick some package:

• Subversion Hosting with Integrated Tickets
• Trac and Subversion Hosting
• Git Hosting with Integrated Tickets
• Mercurial with Trac
• Team Collaboration and much more …

They have more packages and software for collaboration, i didn’t test all of them.

Assembla scrum

As you can see every workspace, have Trac or tickets included. Trac is issue tracking system for software development projects. They set up everything, you can use it instantly. Every workspace have it’s own access URL. Only with account name, and password you can access to repository.

On client side, you and tour team members need to install third-party clients for revision control systems you are using. For instance: for Mercurial you can install TortoiseHg, or if you using Subversion you can use TortoiseSVN.

Now your projects have revision control included, and your team can use some useful collaboration software at the Assembla.

Why do you need to use this kind of tools ?

• To track code changes for every team member
• To track code changes trough every revision
• Look differences in code since last revision
• To avoid code overlapping when two coders work on same file
• When they work on same file, just merge changes
• To roll back all code in any revision if needed
• To share code changes with your team members
• When upload on server this tools send only changed files
• this tools creates project developing history

Revision Control System

In client - server model, server holds latest software version, and it’s history. Client connect to server and read latest changes. Whole team work on this copy, and later send changes to server. Well known are : Concurrent Versions System (CVS) and Subversion (also known as svn), both are in open source.

Distributed systems works different, every developer have his own local repository, and he works on it. Developers send changes to server, which holds latest software version and history. Also every developers repository save history and code changes. Distributed systems can have many central repositories. Even if developers work on same file on they local repositories this sistems in most cases can be smart to merge changes together. Known distributed systems are: Git — Designed by Linus Torvalds and Mercurial. This software systems are also open source.

Some client server systems adding distributed features like Subversion which will add local commit in future. It is going to be hard to separate distributed and centralized (client - server) systems.

Read more about Revision Control software at the Wikipedia.

NetBeans 6.5 Beta

NetBeans is open source, free and you can download NetBeans pack you need. If you developing only php then you don’t need Java or Ruby pack. But if sometimes you want to extend NetBeans, you don’t need to download new package, just extend it with plugins. I might extend my NetBeans with UML pack, because i want to create UML diagrams when analyzing projects.

What i liked the most?
NetBeans have support for Version Control and developer collaboration. You don’t want that your team member overlap someone else codes, do you? You can choose between CVS, Subversion, or Mercurial subversion control systems, i using CVS. You can connect on CVS with pserver, ext, local and fork authentication protocols.

Line based diff viewer wil show you new, changed and removed code lines. You can compare two files, file from repository and your local file side by side.

You can see local history, and roll back into older file version any time if needed. All changes are saved into file history while you developing.

I need to try Developer collaboration plugin. It offer NetBeans project sharing over network in real time. And all parties can debug, and make remote changes on project if project owner allow them. Also all project members can chat over this plugin. I think this is very powerful, and this will be main reason to use this IDE in future, and leave Zend behind.

NetBeans 6.1 didn’t have full PHP support is was Early Access for PHP, but in 6.5 version they have full PHP support. Now we can debug php application in NetBeans IDE.

To debug PHP application in NetBeans we need:

• NetBeans 6.5 Beta with PHP pack
• PHP 5 engine
• Apache Server 2.2
• PHP debuger XDebug 2.0 or later

I must admit that for debugging code in Zend we don’t need to install additional software, but this coud be the main reason why is Zend slower one.

Conclusion:
NetBeans offers: php debugging, subversion control system support, local file history, FTP upload files when runs php app, developer collaboration support, it is free, and it’s open source.

You can add plugins such as UML pack, or Tomcat Server into NetBEans IDE. I think many developer will choose NetBeans IDE for developing, team collaboration and subversion control. I will.

The 37signals announced new open source JavaScript rich text editor based on WYSIWYG JavaScript framework called WysiHat. This is very early developer release, and it provides extensible foundation to design your own design for text editor. Witth few lines of code, we can run the WysiHat editor. The 37signas let us the customize it by our need, so this is for developers who want to develop own rich editor, and WysiHat can be groundwork.

They will continue to develop this WysiHat, and they call developers to check out the project and give the feedback to them.

Read 37signals announcement about WysiHat.

Pro Developer Logo proposal

My friend Marjan Vrhovac, graphic designer created logos for Pro Developer web site. They look clean and professional, just as i wish. I like it!