peace on the web, too

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 an exclusive nine-part dialogue with an imaginary eBay
Architect, we present an accessible discussion of the
REST vs. SOA issue.

Although eBay have what they call a ‘REST’ interface, it is, in
fact, a
STREST
interface, and only works for one of the many function calls
that they make available via SOAP (GetSearchResults).

In this dialogue series,
I argue the case for eBay to adopt a truly REST approach to
their integration API.

From the CodeGear’s CEO, Ben Smith:

I have been spending a bit of time with partners in the development world ranging from ex Softies to ex Borlanders to really get more perspective on our efforts in Delphi, around PHP, with Eclipse, and Ruby.
[link]

What do you know … I guess I should think about what a Delphi for Ruby/Rails IDE could look like …

[Update]
CodeGear’s Michael Swindell, in a response on Mike Does Tech’s blog:

… But Ruby is different. Ruby as a language hasn’t yet taken off into the stratosphere, but it has more mindshare and great brains thinking about it today than any other up-n-coming language. It has the potential to be a very significant and with Rails it has the potential to go beyond public facing web apps and really be an alternative to Java or .NET in the Enterprise app world. With the “deregulation” and fragmentation of the Java world, and the constant demand for “an easier Java than Java”, RoR has a unique opportunity today. We do see Ruby and RoR in CodeGear’s future.

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

As you may already know, the Borland Developer Tools Group has been spin-off from Borland in latest 2006. The new company is called CodeGear and it sells IDEs like Delphi, C++Builder, JBuilder or C#Builder, formerly known as Borland IDEs.

From some time know there are rumors about new tools oriented to support dynamic and mostly web related languages, as PHP or Ruby.

If you like/use CodeGear tools and would like to see a Ruby or Rails tool from them, please consider filling a survey here: Ruby and Ruby on Rails survey.

At the end of the survey you will be able to apply for a Ruby tool field test ;)

And now, for a different top, check out the iA website:

The 50 loudest websites in 2006 and why they’re so successful

Marketing, Content, Usability, Design and Behavior are the main factors that make a website work.

1. Internet Marketing is a combination of Presence (how well is it pushed? How known is it?) and Self Dynamic (how well does it market itself as a product?).
2. Interactive Content is a combination of Constructivity (is
   the content/service productively usable? Are the texts authentic? Do
   they incite to write? Are they leading to positive action?) and Uniqueness (are they genuine? Are they special?)
3. Usability is a combination of Structure/IA (Are the contents organized in an understandable way? Where am I? Where can I go?) and the organisation of the User Interface (Do I understand where is what and why? Do I understand how it works? Does it do what I expect it to do?)
4. Web Design is a combination of Typography (Is the text easy to read? Is the typography web adequate?) and Attention to detail (does the website care about the little things? Is it characteristic and delicate or just bold?)
5. Online Behavior is a combination of Interactive Ethics (do the authors/owners have a positive open-minded attitude? Do they follow the basic rules of good manners?) and Democracy (Are they working towards a democratic open web or do they work only for their own pocket?)

The author, Oliver Reichenstein, goes on and evaluates the loudest websites in 2006. He notes the Marketing, Content, Usability, Deisgn and Behavior of the websites, picking les grands du jour and some personal favorites and gives us his top.

Wanna see what these criteria do to a classic websites top? Full article here.

The well-known Read/Write Web website released their predictions for the web trends to follow in 2007. Full article here.

I made a concise summary hereafter, grouping some related categories and excluding some very niche products (like online real estate):

• Structure: Semantic Web, RSS, Structured Data, Microformats, Widgets
• Enterprises: Enterprise web-based applications
• Web applications: Rich Internet Applications, Web desktop, Web office applications
• Publicity: evolution of the online ad model
• Search: Web search evolution, search verticals, semantic web integration
• Browsers evolution (aka war)
• Multimedia: VoIP, Internet TV, P2P, Virtual “spaces”
• Social networks, communities
• Internationalization - China, broadband expansion
• Mobile web - applications, integration with RSS, Social networks, ads

This is a great usability article and tool from Thomas Baekdal.

User testing is great for getting the finer details right, not as a general usability measurement.

Instead
you need a tool that help you analyze the work ahead of you - before
you start doing anything. This is one of the strong points of the
“Fast, Efficient, Simple and Focused” concept.

The Analyzer

I have made an Excel analyzer (freebie) to help
you do this. I have been using this successfully for the last 5 years -
for both analyzing the best solution to a problem or when evaluated
other people’s work.

Technorati Tags: baekdal, usability, tool, analyzer