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Ruby, you're still the one for me

Sep 24 by Andre in Ruby on Rails »

Ruby and Rails seems to be taking a beating on blogs the last few days. Lots of assertions, rants, and general discontent. And, a few valid points made on both sides of the spectrum.

At the end of the day, nothing I've read will change what I'm doing tomorrow: having fun creating great products with a language and framework that is a joy to use. Working in a space that is dominated by innovative thinking. Engaging a vibrant community of smart, creative technologists.

Everyone knows that Ruby and Rails have limitations. They are not perfect for every project. But, they are perfect for my projects right now!

"Quick break" options beyond slashdot, digg, facebook, NYTimes

Sep 24 by Andre in Misc »
  • catch up on some of those neglected RSS feeds. Google Reader makes it easier to read a few posts at a time without committing to a long session.
  • check in on those Google groups you belong to but rarely read.
  • go back to NYTimes, since Select is free again.
  • browse upcoming and squidlist for interesting things happening in the real world.
  • read DZone. There are a lot of good links there.

jQuery UI launches

Sep 17 by Andre in jQuery »

John Resig and team have officially launched their long-awaited jQuery UI library early this morning. jQuery UI provides "higher-order" effects like magnification and drag-and-drop. It also provides themeable widgets (tabs, accordions, sortable tables, calendars, etc). Here are the key links:

My impression so far is that this initial release is a little rough. Like any ambitious cross-browser effort, it will go an iteration or two, gaining polish and stability.

A final note: if you're used to check in on the jQuery group for news, note that there's a separate group for UI: http://groups.google.com/group/jquery-ui.

iPhone Web Dev

Sep 14 by Andre in iphone »

I chose jQuery as my JavaScript library, and I opted not to use iUI. The iUI choice was driven primarily by the specifics of the application, and the kind of user interaction that made sense for it.

Here is the most basic JS/CSS to get the iPhone orientation detection going:

<head>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=320; initial-scale=1.0; maximum-scale=1.0; user-scalable=0;">
<%=javascript_include_tag 'jquery' %>
<script language="JavaScript">
  window.onload=function(){
    setTimeout(ip.updateLayout, 0);
    setInterval(ip.updateLayout, 100);
    setTimeout(ip.hideURLbar,100);
  };

  ip={
    pageWidth:null,
    updateLayout:function(){
      var width=window.innerWidth;
      if (width != ip.pageWidth) {
        ip.pageWidth = width;
        var orientation = width == 320 ? "profile" : "landscape";
        // fire transition events
        orientation == 'profile' ? ip.transitionToProfile() : ip.transitionToLandscape();
        $(document.body).attr('class', orientation);
        setTimeout(function(){
            window.scrollTo(0, 1);
        }, 100);
      }
    },
    transitionToProfile: function(){
    },
    transitionToLandscape: function(){
    },  
    hideURLbar:function(){
      window.scrollTo(0, 1);
    }
  };   
</script>
<style>
  body {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
    font-family: Helvetica;
    color: #FFFFFF;
    -webkit-user-select: none;
    cursor: default;
    -webkit-text-size-adjust: none;
  }

  body.profile { 
    height:416px;
    background-color:red;
  }

  body.landscape { 
    height:270px;
    background-color:green;
  }
</style>
</head>