Montreal On Rails, 2nd Edition (8)
September 5th, 2007 · by Heri · Events
Chris Scott demonstrating a physic theorem ext on rails
Yesterday, 4th of September was MontrealOnRails, with 3 speakers. It’s organized by Carl Mercier and Mat Balez from Karabunga. The 2nd edition was as solid as the first one, and it proved that Montreal now has a dynamic Rails developer community, which was unsure a few months ago.
If you are a web developer or designer, you can continue reading with some technical notes from the event:
- Chris Scott started with a demo about Ext, a javascript framework for creating Rich Applications. You can create widgets and do pretty much what you want with DOM elements, ie formatting, editing, enriching or even data binding. I have no previous experience with the framework, and it should be something I will have to get a look into. Now, what I also saw was many opportunities for errors, with erb mixed with javascript and json. It also mixed the model logic with the views. Maybe the framework is still young. Or maybe it just needs a couple of well-defined helpers and generators. What I get is that if you want to use Ext, then you will also have to work with a ninja javascript programmer. Somehow discouraging, even though the thought of building my own version of Gmail or online spreadsheet crossed my mind.
- Chris Lamothe presented the acts_as_authenticated, a Rails plugin to add easily user authentication to your web application. It was aimed for newcomers and he provided step-by-step guide on how to use it - ie it was like reading a blog post or tutorial about the plugin, but live. He also presented RoleRequirement which allows to define permissions. A nice presentation, it should allow new developers to prototype an app very fast.
- Terje Tjervaag had a presentation about client-side debugging with Firefox, first with the web developer extension which he calls the “mother of all extensions”, and then with Firebug. The web developer extension allows front-end designers to control the environement like javascript, cookies, and of course CSS and the generated HTML code. It allows for instance live editing of stylesheets and “sticky” edits through webpages. Firebug is on the other end for debugging firefox’s rendering and javascript. I have to say though that I don’t use Firebug as much as the first one, as the advantages it gives are always in the “nice-to-have” requirements. Overall, I liked a lot his presentation. He also had a cool idea, which get a RRobots session for the next MontrealOnRails. And I am sorry for that, if a robot seem straightforward to program, I don’t feel like installing TCL/Tk on my laptop.
Heri,
You are aware it’s a software-only robot right?
http://rrobots.rubyforge.org/screenshots.html
yes. i downloaded it 3 weeks ago.
[...] Heri wrote a better report then mine” report (he was not [...]
>Or maybe it just needs a couple of
>well-defined helpers and generators.
In fact, I spent a few months creating my own vendor/plugin wrapper for Ext components but I’ve recently walked away from it. there’s still a place for a ruby classes generating Ext. I’ll figure it out.
[...] it yet. Used it at work today to great effect. You can read more reviews of the night here and here, while photos have been posted on Flickr and videos might pop up on Youtube. top [...]
Just had to comment on Ext.js — it’s unusual in many ways, with strange code separation, but the result is a framework that can do things that no other does, and is among if not the top in speed.
It’s very hackable, with good documentation and was created by Jack Slocum, who should be considered one of the top javascript gurus out there. I use it with a php backend, and would recommend it for almost any js intensive project.
chdig,
i saw what chris did, and indeed, it’s the most powerful js framework i have seen.
i still maintain though that there needs to be a wrapper (for Rails, a helper) so that you can generate the appropriate js code, with no opportunities for errors.
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