It’s amazing to me how much these platforms push “hello, world” examples that are simply not realistic web applications. After trying these short examples, developers turn around and start trying to implement a complete application, and this simple example balloons into a mess of code, and that’s without any real functionality yet in the application. A co-worker of mine is a fan of saying “[These frameworks] make the simple things trivial, and the hard things impossible”.

Historically, I’ve been known to say “If you are doing web-development in Java, use Wicket“; this was based on the fact that to my experience Wicket took the most advantages from the strongly-typed, and strongly IDE-supported, Java language, as opposed to trying to hide them behind anemic and broken templating languages that have horrid editors and basically trade one problem for another.

Recently, however, I spent some time doing some significant development with the Play Framework. I have to say that I think the Play Framework has eclipsed my Wicket fever. That’s not to say that I don’t still think Wicket is very powerful, but I have been particularly impressed with the feedback loop provided by Play. It has, without a doubt, the most direct code-test-cycle I have seen in any platform for Java (it approaches the instant feedback of Rails), and also has the distinct advantage of being stateless out-of-the-box (something Wicket is definitely not).

Play manages this feedback loop problem in a rather novel way – embedded in the framework is the Eclipse compiler for Java (ECJ). This means that when you’re coding for the play framework, you’re not sending it your class files, but rather your source files. This allows Play to recompile code in a running instance on the fly – I literally only restarted my application a handful of times while I was coding over the course of several days. It also integrates seamlessly with IDEs, and ships with an embedded HTTP runtime (no deployment is necessary during development).

There are a number of other benefits Play can provide by working with source files instead of class files. Much like Rails ability to add functionality to your application at runtime, Play can (and does) pre-process certain Java classes to add functionality.

I was further heartened to see that the next release of Play is meant to fully support Scala, which would allow for other modern language features to be used with this highly interactive framework.

It’s hard to describe all of the neat features Play provides in a few hundred words, but I would highly recommend you check it out – they have a 10 minute screencast they sells it better than I can. While I’m still convinced Java (as a language) will be surpassed for an overwhelming majority of the web-development as the language continues to stagnate, this is a compelling framework for the Java platform as a whole, even if Java isn’t your language of choice.

Starting with the upcoming version 9.0, IntelliJ IDEA will be offered in two editions: Community Edition and Ultimate Edition. The Community Edition focuses on Java SE technologies, Groovy and Scala development. It’s free of charge and open-sourced under the Apache 2.0 license. The Ultimate edition with full Java EE technology stack remains our standard commercial offering. See the feature comparison matrix for the differences.

Very cool news! The impact in competition for other IDEs (namely Eclipse and NetBeans) remains to be seen, but this certainly brings another aggressive (and already well-liked competitor) to a broader market.

“For a limited time only – you can beta-test WordPress 2.9 from the comfort of your own installation!”

In the “another reason I like WordPress better for blogging” category, the folks over at WordPress.com have published a detailed article on how WordPress users can get involved in the beta-testing of WordPress 2.9 – the next major release. Included in the options for aspiring beta-testers is a plug-in that will automatically upgrade your site to the new version, and will keep you on the up-and-up.

To make is as easy as possible for you to get a beta testing install up and running we have put together a small WordPress plugin which makes it really easy to convert a test install of the latest release version of WordPress into a beta test install of the next up and coming release.  The plugin is called WordPress Beta Tester and is available to download from WordPress Extend or can be installed using the built-in plugin installer.  Please make sure you to only install this plugin on a test site, as we don’t recommend running beta versions on your normal live sites in case anything goes wrong.  You can read more about the plugin in “Making it easy to be a WordPress Tester”

I don’t want to suggest that Drupal doesn’t work for transparency in their development, or that they don’t encourage community participation; but certainly, they don’t package it up as nicely as the WordPress folks have right here. While I won’t be upgrading RealJenius.com until final drops (I did consider pulling a Picard maneuver and upgrading now), it’s nice to know that the option is there. The release schedule for 2.9 has been revisited in this entry as well.

We are aiming to release the first beta version of 2.9 around the end of October, once we have put the finishing touches on the new features, and then we switch to full on beta testing mode and your help and feedback will be very much appreciated.  During the beta program will push out new builds for automated upgrades regularly and once we feel that a suitable level of stability has been achieves we will release a release candidate, and we hope to be able to make the final release 2.9 build available in either late November or early December.

However, I think Eclipse, as a product, still has a way to go.There are a number of products I use everyday that frequently require or recommend updates and upgrades. Some good examples include:

• Mozilla Firefox
• Android and Android Applications
• WordPress
• Windows
• Mac OS X
• Songbird
• Eclipse

…and, of course, the list goes on. All of these apps have different ways to handle notifying and installing these upgrades.

Of course, both Windows and Mac OS X have built in update mechanisms, the former being the ever-controversial “Windows Update” tool, and the latter being Mac’s Apple Software Update (which has also recently been pissing people off). Firefox and Songbird use their own update mechanism that’s part of the Gecko platform. Most Mac users are also probably aware of Sparkle (or at least have seen it in action), as many Mac software distributions (like TextWrangler) use it as their update mechanism.

Your mileage may vary with the different implementations; some are more informative than others, and some are more reliable than others. But one thing can generally be said: each of these mechanisms tie in with documentation explaining what was updated, corrected, or otherwise tweaked. Some tools, like Sparkle, embed the update information in the notification dialog. Other tools, like the Firefox notifier, provide a link to the content that takes you to a rich and user-friendly webpage.

Firefox has thorough documentation online

Today when I came in to the office I decided to perform an update check in Eclipse, and was presented with a number of plug-ins that had newer replacements. At the time, I didn’t grab a screenshot, but here is an example from a brand-new download of 3.5, which has been since supplanted by 3.5.1:

So, is this a good thing?

Unfortunately, this doesn’t show off the obscure list of plug-ins my installation did earlier today, but there is still plenty I can pick on. So, what’s wrong with this picture?

• I have no information on what is being changed or improved in this update.
• The ‘Details’ section is suspiciously empty.
• The version number is unnecessarily cryptic for end users.
• The ‘More’ button simply gives me the description, copyright, and license for the plugin/feature being shown, which in this case is basically empty boxes.
• The version number is cryptic for an end user.

Now, as an Eclipse-enthusiast, I have no problem deciphering what is going on here (particularly not since I had to contrive this picture for the blog entry), however as an end-user product, this could use some work. More information could be provided, condensing what was actually improved or fixed in this release (any information at all would be nice).

I understand that Eclipse is a platform first, and a product second, however I think this is one area that could use improvement.

Danny Carey has a rare technical accuracy in his playing, but he is able to combine it with his singular artistic flair to create remarkable tapestries of sound. Tool songs are initially accessible to listeners in search of a driving rock sound, but continue to breathe and grow as the complex rhythms unravel over time.

I’m always amazed to pick up an album like Undertow (from 1993) and to this day still hear new  poly-rhythms in the beat and other minor adjustments for the first time. And it only takes listening to a song like Jambi, where the guitar, vocals, and drums are all on entirely different time signatures to be able to understand how capable he really is.

Recently, Danny Carey came into Kansas City for the 25th anniversary of KC Drum Explorers. He gave some tutorials, played along to some particularly drum-intensive Tool songs, and also had some great company: Terry Bozzio (another brilliant drumer) and Aloke Dutta (a wizard of the tabla, and mentor and teacher to both Carey and Bozzio).

I have no idea how I missed hearing of this event; it was mere minutes from my house (in a high-school auditorium in suburban Overland Park of all places), but thankfully YouTube has come to the rescue to make me feel like something other than a total failure.

I’ve dug up some videos of the event, and included them here (thank you evo462, jdub816, and andrewl85). Enjoy!

Rosetta Stoned:

Jambi:

The Pot:

Aenima (Partial):

Carey, Bozzio, and Dutta Together -- Part 1:

Part 2:

Of high-level note:

• Ruby 1.8.7 is the new Baseline – This promises a number of library changes and backports from 1.9. To see the 1.8.7 changes you can look here.
• Ruby 1.9 Compatibility Improvements - As mentioned in the blog entry, Ruby 1.9 is a moving target, however they are moving a lot closer to having major libraries working as desired. Some high-visibility features (like Fibers) are still on the pending list, however.
  
• New YAML Parser - Ola Bini re-visited the YAML parser in Ruby recently (he has blogged about the creation of the new parser and how he ported it). The new parser, Yecht, is said to be completely compatible with Syck (the Ruby parser), warts and all.
• Java Method Dispatch Improvements - One of the major promised features of 1.4 for quite a while has been improvements to the Java integration; they have been wanting to formalize this portion of the language for sometime. This involves calling Java methods, calling overloaded Java methods, the coersion of types (Java string <–> Ruby string), etc. Charles Nutter has posted a very detailed, developer-centric breakdown of the plans in this integration on the Developer mailing list (which goes beyond what’s available in the blog entry). Certainly an interesting read.
• Java Class Generation via JRuby - JRuby will finally be able to construct runtime-available Java classes on the Java classpath. This will be available on-demand only, however that could be quite handy in a number of difficult integration scenarios.

This set of features is exciting to me, particularly for the Java integration features. The current Java integration functions, but can be somewhat tempermental, and can end with surprising results at times (I have learned this the hard way via hand-coding Swing and SWT apps).

Additionally, one of the killer features of Scala, in my opinion, is its ability to interact seamlessly with Java libraries at compile-time (create a class in Scala, and code against it in Java). While the semantics defined for JRuby are more runtime-centric for now, it does provide an ability to construct something that can be fed into Java APIs at runtime that expect certain “inferred” contracts to exist (such as the Jersey example they used in the original post).

One of the new features we’re really proud of in the Android 1.6 release is Quick Search Box for Android. This is our new system-wide search framework, which makes it possible for users to quickly and easily find what they’re looking for, both on their devices and on the web. It suggests content on your device as you type, like apps, contacts, browser history, and music. It also offers results from the web search suggestions, local business listings, and other info from Google, such as stock quotes, weather, and flight status. All of this is available right from the home screen, by tapping on Quick Search Box (QSB).

This post is largely targeted towards application developers (which now have the 1.6 SDK) who should be seriously considering about integrating their app into the quick search box.

It seems fitting that the Google mobile OS would have a ubiquitous search mechanism like the text bar in Google Chrome, and for that matter, like most people use Google.com.

One additional note – if you are like me, you may have previously heard there were concerns that the faithful G1 early-adopters may not get Android 1.6 in all of it’s donut-y glory because the G1 couldn’t handle it. Thankfully, it appears that may not be the case anymore.

This weekend, Scott Cook (founder of Intuit) posted on the Mint.com site about the recent acquisition. He covered a lot of the topics where I showed concern.

As you know, Intuit has entered into an agreement to buy Mint. Over the past few days, I’ve read your posts and comments. I understand your concerns about what will happen to Mint in the future.

So let me set the record straight: Mint.com isn’t changing. It is remaining free. Following the close of the acquisition, Aaron Patzer and the Mint team will remain in charge of Mint.com to continue both its principles and its fast pace of progress.

We’re not planning to change Mint.com and make it like Quicken. Quite the opposite. Aaron and team will also run Quicken and Quicken.com to ensure this doesn’t happen. Plus they will benefit from this larger pool of resources. I want Mint thinking to infuse Quicken.

On a personal level, Mint’s leaders have earned the chance to re-invent all of personal finance on the broadest canvas possible. I will give them that chance. Will you?

I appreciate what he is trying to do here. He’s trying to respond to some of the scare posts (like my own) and ensure people that this merger is not the end of a good product.

However, the proof is in the pudding. The reality is that the competition is still gone, and time and again when corporations with competing products merge, the two resulting products are consolidated into an inferior offering (not intentionally of course).

So will I give them a chance? Absolutely; I have no reason to stop investing my time in an excellent free product. But either way, I still say the burden of proof will be on them. What kind of pudding are they going to make?

YARRR

What’s new on deck
http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/drops/S-3.6M2-200909170100/eclipse-news-M2.html

Take a swig of grog while downloading yer bundles from the ol’ repo
http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/updates/3.6milestones

Steer toward Eclipse
http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/drops/S-3.6M2-200909170100/index.php

No dubloons needed to download Equinox
http://download.eclipse.org/equinox/drops/S-3.6M2-200909170100/index.php

Yarrr!
Kim

Enjoy!

• Google Analytics – Thorough statistics regarding site usage and benchmarking against public sites Tracks nationality, IP, user agents, click-throughs, and more.
• FeedBurner - Tracks the usage of your site’s RSS feeds, and click-throughs on those feeds.
• Wordpress-Stats – Tracks statistics centric to your wordpress installation. This is particularly valuable for seeing the content on the site in relation to each other (which particular articles are more popular).
• Bit.Ly – Shortened URLs for social sites that track received clicks. One of the things I’ve started to like about this is the track-backs it provides to the actual conversations that mention the link.
• Google Webmaster Tools – Tracks search rankings for your site. Probably the most narrow-focused of the tools on this list, but the only one that actually gives insight into the actual GoogleBot indexing process.

What’s fascinating about all of this is that none of these tools provide a complete picture. Admittedly, Google Analytics gets the closest, however it’s information is high-level enough that the aggregation can hide some fascinating details. Great for overall statistics, however.

Meanwhile, tools like Bit.Ly and FeedBurner let you see the usage of and navigation to your content outside the normal purview of your site.

Overall, the point is that the value of a particular statistic is all about perspective. Different tools see different things, so it’s all about the slice of metrics you’re looking at, and how you are looking at it.

Additionally, as part of the rewrite, I did finally decided to invest in configuring sitemap tools so that Realjenius.com would have a sitemap.xml. It’s been interesting to see the influence it had on how Google in particular indexed my site – not sure if it’s made a positive difference yet or not – I don’t have enough new unique content under the sitemap to be sure.

Time will certainly tell.