peace on the web, too

If anybody from CodeGear is lost on this page, take a look at this article: The ideal IDE. Excellent list of ideas to have in an IDE.

This one is my favorite:

Code searching:

• A very fast way to get from the current function you are in to any caller or to any function the function is calling (and class definitions, …)
• Ability to instantly search for a specific artifact (kind of like google / windows live search). As I type it in, I see the filtered results. This is NOT the find feature.

I think the new CodeGear IDE for Ruby and Rails has something similar. But it is integrated into the IDE like small helper windows. What would be neat is some keyboard shortcuts to quickly navigate the callers/callees.

Trying to catch-up with the sessions from JAOO Conference 2007, which I would have very much liked to attend but finally didn’t, I found very good write-ups from Søren Spelling Lund aka publicvoid.dk. Use this link for his conference reports: publicvoid.dk - Conference.

I liked the details he reports and also the personal thoughts on the matter. Also, as usual in this kind of conferences, details come to light from one speaker or another. He quotes from the Oren Eini and Hamilton Verissimo presentation on MonoRail:

It is easy to fall into the pit of success because MonoRail leads you in the direction of good design. Microsoft is working on something similar for the future and it should be about to be released in beta.

Now that is reaaaally interesting. And more:

It’s encouraging to me that Microsoft is working on something similar because that will garner the widespread support needed to grow a third part business around a web framework based on the MonoRail principles.

Very good news. Having watched for more than a year now the adventures of Ruby on Rails and his cousins like MonoRail, it can only be very interesting to see the take on a web framework based on the same principles from a big company like Microsoft (maybe CodeGear too? someday? pleaaaase?).

It seems clear that at least some of Rails ideas, it’s spirit for the least, are and will be used in a lot of projects and frameworks. Even the venerable desktop programming will profit from these principles, like the clean separation of layers, UI driven by the controller code, code generation, automation and not to forget the tests and specs in code.

PS This is my first post using Windows Live Writer, it works just fine, maybe it will encourage me to post more often;)

In this presentation Jani and Kristofer show our philosophy, our ideas on instant feedback, data visualization and user experience approach.

I think this phrase (on the 21st page) summs it up pretty well:

“The next level (of electronic patient records):
I don’t want any input, I only want output.”

Enjoy:

(Presentation link)

Note: I work for PC PAL. You can also check out GrowthXP.com and our components on GrowthCharts.info.

Finally, some action from the Delphi side, related mostly to Vista and the Web.
CodeGear (ex-Borland Developer Tools Group) announces today their new products for 2007:

• Delphi 2007 for Win32
• Delphi for PHP

But the most exiting news is burried in the press release. First:

Delphi for Win32 enables development of Vista supported applications
from the familiar Win32 environment, easy creation of web applications
that support AJAX, and streamlined enterprise database connectivity.

Then:

New
VCL for the Web lets you quickly and visually build interactive and
responsive web pages and applications that support AJAX techniques. VCL
for the Web embeds the low level technologies in visual objects so you
don’t need to know HTML, JavaScript, CSS, or HTTP, abstracting you from
such details so you can focus directly on code and user interface.

And it continues on the Delphi for PHP page:

The powerful
PHP editor and debugger increase coding speed and efficiency, while the
integrated VCL for PHP 5 component class library lets you quickly and
visually create PHP web applications and integrate PHP open source
components.

The old/new Delphi VCL (Visual Components Library) for desktop applications (from Delphi, Kylix, C++Builder), now arrives to the web development world (from Delphi, PHP and maybe Ruby?).

Now that is NEWS! If it really works, this could be really big.

powered by performancing firefox

2005 Jolt Product Excellence & Productivity Awards has nominated Google Maps API 2005 (Google) in the Database Engines and Data Tools section.

This is very interesting, especially seeing the competition. Google Maps API competing in the same section as MySQL, SQL Server and other database engines! I find it a little bit weird. Very good for Google, but what do these applications have in common? The storage? This API must belong to the “Data Tools” part, other way I don’t understand very much of this.

Today I want to share with you my recent weird software experiences. It’s not about bugs or crashes or anything. It is about things that should work and they just don’t.

Recently I downloaded the latest Adobe Acrobat Reader 7. It is beautiful, the speed is awesome, specially for the web (which was a pain in the ass before). So I went home and tried to do the same. As in installing the Acrobat Reader 7.

The download went fine. Instead of having a “AcrobatReader_setup.exe” I had a download manager. Weird. OK, they know better! I launched the “Download manager”. And then I had this dialog window, with a download progress bar and some buttons/options (minimize to tray, download only when idle etc).
So I say to myself: “Oh, yes, now I get it. They are kind to us and protecting us, and taking care of us”. Adobe will look out and don’t stand in your way. Cool.

After a couple of seconds (I have a 1 meg DSL line) nothing happened. OK, they know better, let’s put it in the tray, it’ll woke up soon. And I forgot about it for an half an hour or so. And then I clicked it to see the progression. Empty progress bar, the useless and silly buttons … Weird.

After a couple of hours digging the web to find the solution, a light came upon me and said to me: “try in Internet Explorer!” Maybe it was me using my beloved Firefox. So I opened the IE and typed the URL etc. And IE asks me: “Do you want to go online now?”. A thunder comes from nowhere and hits me right there! Quick: open IE menu, File, Offline, uncheck offline option, open Adobe Download manager … and relax … it starts downloading …

Man, I was almost crying … the Adobe Acrobat Reader Download Manager was waiting for IE to go online … wwwwwwwwrrrrraaaaaaggghhhhhhhhhh (= cry of anger).

I said to myself, what a pitty, a beautiful and usefull software hidden behind a useless manager.
And forgot about it.

And today, another example hits me: this time no harm done. It’s only silly.
I have setup in my Norton Antivirus to go check my system at a certain hour a certain day. Sunday we changed from summer time to winter time. And Norton it seems to use the Windows’ task scheduler. Which is fine. BUT NOT WHEN I TOLD IT TO OPEN AT LUNCH TIME AND IT OPENS AN HOUR SOONER! Because, you see, the system has updated it’s internal time, now 1pm = noon. But the scheduler application have not! So 1pm before the hour change has become noon in the scheduler too!
If I add a task at 1pm, why on Earth would I want it to be done at noon after the 1st November ???

PS Wow, I feel much better now, peaceful and relaxed.

What do you really need when not doing development (or maybe even for that)?

1. A computer (a keyboard, a mouse, a CD/DVD player) with an Internet connection.
2. A browser with an integrated web server.
3. Ahhh … that’s all, folks.

FAQs:
Q: How about … applications?
A: Well, what do you mean? Don’t you have internet?

Q: How about mail?
A: yahoo, gmail, hotmail … whatever you want, Sir.

Q: How about Office applications?
A: I don’t understand your question. You mean wikis? We have. Or do you mean “editing documents, Excel sheets & stuff”? Well, you can have HTML online editing, repositories, private or not etc.
Or you can check stuff like writely.com.

Q: How about updates?
A: You mean for the browser? Oh, it will be automatic, we’ll do it for you when you restart your computer.

Q: And how about media (photos, music, films)?
A: We are still thinking about it. We have two choices for now: 1 - odeo, vlc, bbc or other online content providers will do it for you or 2 - you will have to use your home cd/dvd/divx player you bought for 50$.

Q: OK, for how much?
A: The system being based on some Linux, it will be, like … free I think. If you wish to donate somthing (in the case you like the browser, of course) you can. Maybe 10 bucks so you don’t have to think why is free :)

Q: What’s your solution for viruses, trojans, DoS attacks and other beasts?
A: Perhaps we will include some kind of router or protection; it will be rather calm and cosy around you.

Q: Extending the system options?
A: Like browser extensions? You can download a handfull :)

Q: And how about hardware? What if I want some more harddisk capacity?
A: Come on! Don’t you use search engines? You can rent some 4 Gb for 8 bucks a month! Why spending 150 each year for actually buying a hard drive???

Q: OK. But there must be a catch! In a year my computer will be kind of Matusalem, right? ;)
A: No way! 10 years seems more decent as a prevision :) You don’t have to buy those what’s the most powerfull and usefull too RAM memory this month magazines anymore. We will put some RAM for you. If it’s not enough, you can add some more. Perhaps you are an online gamer, right?

Q: I will be back, you know?.
A: OK.

Note
This is an imaginary dialog between a BrowserOS support and a client. BrowserOS doesn’t exist. Yet.
Idea inspired by recent kottke.org and Paul Graham notes.

Updated with some example sites.