diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'content/posts/2006-01-26-notes-from-the-first-novarug-meetup.html')
| -rw-r--r-- | content/posts/2006-01-26-notes-from-the-first-novarug-meetup.html | 190 |
1 files changed, 190 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/content/posts/2006-01-26-notes-from-the-first-novarug-meetup.html b/content/posts/2006-01-26-notes-from-the-first-novarug-meetup.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..59ded17 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/posts/2006-01-26-notes-from-the-first-novarug-meetup.html @@ -0,0 +1,190 @@ +--- +date: "2006-01-26T03:55:35Z" +title: Notes from the First NovaRug Meetup +--- + +<p>Tonight I went to the first Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group +(<acronym title="Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group">NOVARUG</acronym>). Here are my semi-distilled notes and commentary on the +evening:</p> + +<ul> +<li><a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich Kilmer</a> spent most of the time giving a presentation on +<a href="http://alph.rubyforge.org/" title="No, not the space muppet. Alph is a Ruby/ActionScript bridge.">Alph</a>, and talking about his experience doing a functional +prototype interface for mid-air plane refueling. He also talked about +bridging <a href="http://ruby-lang.org/" title="A high-level, cross-platform, pure object-oriented programming language.">Ruby</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript" title="Scripting language for Flash and ShockWave.">ActionScript</a>. The <a href="http://ruby-lang.org/" title="A high-level, cross-platform, pure object-oriented programming language.">Ruby</a>-related content +was similar to the presentation he gave at <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1380" title="My first (of several) posts about RubyConf 2004 in D.C..">RubyConf 2004</a>, so I +didn't bother taking too many notes on the actual application.</li> +<li>~44 people. There were roughly 60 people at <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1122" title="My post about (and notes from) RubyConf 2002 in Seattle, WA.">RubyConf 2002</a>, and +maybe 100 at <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1380" title="My first (of several) posts about RubyConf 2004 in D.C..">RubyConf 2004</a>. 40+ people in for a straight +<acronym title="Northern Virginia,">NOVA</acronym>/<acronym title="District of Columbia">DC</acronym> meetup kind of puts the recent exponential growth of +<a href="http://ruby-lang.org/" title="A high-level, cross-platform, pure object-oriented programming language.">Ruby</a> in perspective. <a href="http://rubycentral.com/" title="The man with the plan behind RubyConf, who apparently has no web site (or at least not one that I can find).">David Black (dblack)</a> and I talked about +that a few months ago on <acronym title="Internet Relay Chat">IRC</acronym>, but I didn't appreciate the magnitude +of the increase until this evening.</li> +<li>While fiddling around on my laptop without Internet, I just discovered +that the never-released <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1384" title="My GTK+-based GUI for RubyGems.">Gemini</a> still works :D. <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1384" title="My GTK+-based GUI for RubyGems.">Gemini</a> is a +<a href="http://gtk.org/" title="Graphical widget library. Foundation for GNOME, GIMP, XMMS, and more."><acronym title="Gimp ToolKit">GTK</acronym></a> package management <acronym title="Graphical User Interface">GUI</acronym> for <a href="http://docs.rubygems.org/" title="Ruby packaging application.">RubyGems</a>, written in +(suprise!) <a href="http://ruby-lang.org/" title="A high-level, cross-platform, pure object-oriented programming language.">Ruby</a>. Is anyone interested in this thing? I could +probably touch it up and have it release-ready in about a week if +there's still a desire.</li> +<li>Rich mentioned <a href="http://mtasc.org/" title="A fast, open source, Ocaml-based ActionScript 2 compiler."><acronym title="Motion-Twin ActionScript 2 Compiler">MTASC</acronym></a>, which is a fast, open source, +<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript" title="Scripting language for Flash and ShockWave.">ActionScript</a> to <acronym title="Macromedia ShockWave/Flash file (not really an acronym)">SWF</acronym> compiler written in <a href="http://caml.inria.fr/" title="General-purpose functional, imperative, and object-oriented programming language.">OCaml</a>. Apparently +it's noticably better than <a href="http://macromedia.com/">Macromedia</a>'s (now <a href="http://adobe.com/">Adobe</a>) tools</li> +<li>Talked about <a href="http://actionstep.org/" title="Rich Kilmer's Flash GUI library based on OpenStep/Cocoa.">ActionStep</a>, a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_Flash" title="A popular media plugin for web browsers.">Flash</a>-based <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStep" title="An open, object-oriented API, originally used in NeXTSTEP.">OpenStep</a>/<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_%28API%29" title="Apple's object-oriented MacOS X API.">Cocoa</a> +<acronym title="Application Programming Interface">API</acronym></li> +<li><a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a> apparently didn't know what <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebasing" title="Reference to smoking crack or heroin">freebasing</a> was when he named +<a href="http://freeride.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl?FreeBASE" title="The core for the FreeRIDE Ruby IDE.">FreeBase</a> (I wondered about that at <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1122" title="My post about (and notes from) RubyConf 2002 in Seattle, WA.">RubyConf 2002</a>).</li> +<li><a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a> noted that he's using <code>camelCase</code> instead of underscores +for method names in <a href="http://alph.rubyforge.org/" title="No, not the space muppet. Alph is a Ruby/ActionScript bridge.">Alph</a> because the methods are actually +<acronym title="Remote Method Invocation">RMI</acronym> calls from <a href="http://ruby-lang.org/" title="A high-level, cross-platform, pure object-oriented programming language.">Ruby</a> to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript" title="Scripting language for Flash and ShockWave.">ActionScript</a>. He noted that +underscores are generally the <a href="http://ruby-lang.org/" title="A high-level, cross-platform, pure object-oriented programming language.">Ruby</a> way, and that people outside +the <acronym title="United States">US</acronym> (especially Japanese people) have a lot of trouble reading +<code>camelCase</code> code because they don't recognize the case and, by +extension, can't distinguish the words. If you think about it, it +makes sense. Can you tell two similar <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji" title="Japanese writing system derived from Chinese characters.">Kanji</a> glyphs apart?</li> +<li><a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a>'s presentation uses code like <code>60.days</code> and <code>24.hours</code>. +He mentioned that that's an extension to <code>Integer</code>, but I hope he +misspoke, because that makes a whole lot more sense as an extension to +<code>Numeric</code>, because that way it gets picked up by <code>Bignum</code>, <code>Fixnum</code>, +and <code>Float</code> for free.</li> +<li><a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a> showed off <a href="http://infoether.net/" title="Cross-platform Flash-based personal information manager.">Indi</a>, a cross-platform <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_Flash" title="A popular media plugin for web browsers.">Flash</a>-based <acronym title="Personal Information Manager">PIM</acronym> +for <acronym title="Universal Serial Bus">USB</acronym> drives. It requires <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_Flash" title="A popular media plugin for web browsers.">Flash</a> 8, so by cross-platform he +really means <a href="http://apple.com/macosx/" title="MacOS 10. The operating system by that bitten fruit company."><acronym title="MacOS 10">OSX</acronym></a> and <a href="http://microsoft.com/windows/" title="The Microsoft Windows operating system.">Windows</a>, at least until +<a href="http://macromedia.com/">Macromedia</a>/<a href="http://adobe.com/">Adobe</a> release <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_Flash" title="A popular media plugin for web browsers.">Flash</a> 8 for <a href="http://linux.com/" title="Free SysV/BSD hybrid Unix.">Linux</a>.</li> +<li>Apparently the current <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_Flash" title="A popular media plugin for web browsers.">Flash</a> runtime doesn't do <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-in-time_compilation" title="Technique for improving the performance of bytecode-compiled programming systems."><acronym title="Just In Time compilation">JIT</acronym></a> +internally (I asked about this, apparently it parses, then walks +the <acronym title="Abstract Syntax Tree">AST</acronym>, similar to <a href="http://ruby-lang.org/" title="A high-level, cross-platform, pure object-oriented programming language.">Ruby</a> 1.8. If they're doing that, then +they really shouldn't be calling <acronym title="Macromedia ShockWave/Flash file (not really an acronym)">SWF</acronym> files <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bytecode" title="Intermediate assembly-like code that is intended to increase speed and portability.">bytecode</a>). According +to <a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a>, the upcoming runtime <em>will</em> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-in-time_compilation" title="Technique for improving the performance of bytecode-compiled programming systems."><acronym title="Just In Time compilation">JIT</acronym></a>, which means an +approximate 10x speed boost at the cost of an upgrade and increased +disk footprint of roughly 200k. Not too shabby.</li> +<li>Thought: <a href="http://infoether.net/" title="Cross-platform Flash-based personal information manager.">Indi</a> for <a href="http://linux.com/" title="Free SysV/BSD hybrid Unix.">Linux</a> could use the evil shell script stuff +to build an all-in-one equivalent to a <a href="http://apple.com/macosx/" title="MacOS 10. The operating system by that bitten fruit company."><acronym title="MacOS 10">OSX</acronym></a> <code>.app</code> (they'd need +to statically compile stuff to make it truly portable).</li> +<li>Some group conversation about <a href="http://www.openlaszlo.org/" title="An XML-based declarative language for creating user interfaces.">OpenLaszlo</a>), an <acronym title="eXtensible Markup Language">XML</acronym>-based platform +(<acronym title="Interface Definition Language">IDL</acronym>, <acronym title="Integrated Development Environment">IDE</acronym>, etc), and how it compares to <a href="http://alph.rubyforge.org/" title="No, not the space muppet. Alph is a Ruby/ActionScript bridge.">Alph</a>. The +difference between <a href="http://alph.rubyforge.org/" title="No, not the space muppet. Alph is a Ruby/ActionScript bridge.">Alph</a> and <a href="http://www.openlaszlo.org/" title="An XML-based declarative language for creating user interfaces.">OpenLaszlo</a> is that the former +<em>parses</em> <acronym title="eXtensible Markup Language">XML</acronym> at runtime (similar to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XUL" title="Declarative XML-based language for describing user interfaces.">Mozilla's <acronym title="eXtensible User Interface Language">XUL</acronym></a> and +<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XAML" title="Declarative XML-based language for describing user interfaces.">Microsoft's <acronym title="eXtensible Avalon Markup Language">XAML</acronym> (Avalon)</a>), while the latter compiles +the <acronym title="eXtensible Markup Language">XML</acronym> <acronym title="Interface Definition Language">IDL</acronym> to a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_Flash" title="A popular media plugin for web browsers.">Flash <acronym title="Macromedia ShockWave/Flash file (not really an acronym)">SWF</acronym></a>.</li> +<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript" title="Scripting language for Flash and ShockWave.">ActionScript</a> 1 was a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype-based_programming" title="A form of object-oriented programming without classes used by languages such as JavaScript and ActionScript 1.">prototype-based</a> language (e.g. like +<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript" title="Prototype-based, object-oriented scripting language used in web browsers.">JavaScript</a>). apparently now it's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_%28programming%29" title="Description of an object in an object-oriented programming language.">class-based</a>.</li> +<li>Question about why not <a href="http://alph.rubyforge.org/" title="No, not the space muppet. Alph is a Ruby/ActionScript bridge.">Alph</a> isn't using <acronym title="Scalable Vector Graphics">SVG</acronym> for the runtime, +especially since it has the advantage of being open. <a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a> +explained that <acronym title="Scalable Vector Graphics">SVG</acronym> requires a plugin (which isn't quite true, +<a href="http://mozilla.org/firefox/" title="The latest and greatest version of Mozilla Firefox.">Firefox 1.5</a> doesn't require a plugin to display <acronym title="Scalable Vector Graphics">SVG</acronym>, but +it's implementation <a href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/SVG_in_Firefox_1.5" title="Firefox's SVG support is a subset of SVG 1.1.">needs some work</a>). Regarding +licensing, <a href="http://macromedia.com/">Macromedia</a>/<a href="http://adobe.com/">Adobe</a> aren't likely to make any major +licensing changes, since that would screw their established user base.</li> +<li>Last year <a href="http://adobe.com/">Adobe</a> open-sourced <a href="http://opensource.adobe.com/group__asl__overview.html" title="Adobe's open source interface libraries.">Adam and Eve</a>, the C++-based core +interface framework for <a href="http://adobe.com/products/photoshop/" title="The de-facto professional image editing application.">Photoshop</a> and several other <a href="http://adobe.com/">Adobe</a> +applications</li> +</ul> + +<p>And that's all I've got for <a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich Kilmer</a>'s presentation. Afterwards +he gave the group an opportunity to talk about their projects. I didn't +catch anyones' names, and <a href="http://google.com/" title="Some search engine. Never heard of it">Google</a> failed me, so I couldn't find +references to these projects online.</p> + +<ul> +<li>Guy who works at <a href="http://nist.gov/" title="U.S. government body that handles technology standards."><acronym title="National Institute of Standards and Technology">NIST</acronym></a>, demoing app to model <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printed_circuit_board" title="An insulated board with the circuit conductors etched in."><acronym title="Printed Circuit Board">PCB</acronym></a> standards, +in <acronym title="Three-Dimentional">3D</acronym>. You can zoom in and out and rotate the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printed_circuit_board" title="An insulated board with the circuit conductors etched in."><acronym title="Printed Circuit Board">PCB</acronym></a> around. +Got oohs and aahs from the crowd :).</li> +<li>"Pippen" apparently marshals data to <acronym title="eXtensible Markup Language">XML</acronym>, and there was another +app called "Genie", but I didn't catch what it did.</li> +<li>He made several references to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiducial" title="A fixed reference point to which objects can be related.">fiducials</a>, which I +thought sounded neat, so I looked it up on <a href="http://wikipedia.org/" title="A free and open encyclopedia.">Wikipedia</a>.</li> +<li>Everything his group at <a href="http://nist.gov/" title="U.S. government body that handles technology standards."><acronym title="National Institute of Standards and Technology">NIST</acronym></a> does is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain" title="The body of knowledge which no legal entity can establish or maintain proprietary interest.">public domain</a>, so +people are more than welcome to try this stuff out.</li> +<li>Someone asked about the state of <a href="http://www2.giganet.net/~yoshi/" title="OpenGL bindings for RUby.">Ruby OpenGL</a>, since it's listed +as a prerequisite for his demo application. Apparently it's working +just fine for everything he's tried, except for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellation" title="Collection of plane figures that fill a plane with no overlaps and no gaps.">tesselation</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<p>Someone else (again, no name, although he made a passing reference to +the <acronym title="District of Columbia">DC</acronym> <acronym title="eXtreme Programming">XP</acronym> users group) talked briefly about a <a href="http://rubyonrails.org/" title="An MVC-based web framework, written in Ruby.">Rails</a>-based +social networking tool:</p> + +<ul> +<li>Allows animal rescue people to coordinate on a national level.</li> +<li>Someone suggested that he use <a href="http://maps.google.com/" title="You already know what this is. If you don't, where have you been?">Google Maps</a>, and he said he +is thinking about it, but the more important aspect of the application +is route-planning and commentary (he doesn't want to stop at the wrong +<a href="http://mcdonalds.com/" title="Fast food. Don't eat here. Seriously.">McDonalds</a> and meet up with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy" title="Not someone you want to meet at a truck stop.">Ted Bundy</a>).</li> +</ul> + +<p>Finally, one person to the right of me (hiding in the back, along with +all the other <em>real</em> introverts. Either that or he was late like me +:D) mentioned an abstract <a href="http://rubyonrails.org/" title="An MVC-based web framework, written in Ruby.">Rails</a> authentication plugin he was working +on. No name, and no project name (he didn't provide either), so that's +the most information I can give you.</p> + +<p>After that, there was some miscellaneous conversation about future +<a href="http://novarug.org/" title="Blog for the Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group."><acronym title="Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group">NOVARUG</acronym></a>, specifically times and frequency. It sounds like they're +going to be monthly, on Thursday evenings (because otherwise it +conflicts with my poker night!), and start at 7:00 (or 6:30 if you want +the free pizza). There was one comment about starting earlier, but the +general consensus seems to be that 7:00 is just fine; any earlier and +traffic becomes a serious problem. Personally, I'm hoping we can find a +venue that's closer to the Fairfax area, mainly because I'm selfish +and lazy, but also because that would make <a href="http://novarug.org/" title="Blog for the Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group."><acronym title="Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group">NOVARUG</acronym></a> more <acronym title="District of Columbia">DC</acronym> and +Maryland accessible. Also, the <a href="http://www.wmata.com/" title="Subway system for the greater Washinton D.C area.">Metro</a> doesn't run out to Reston, +which means people <em>have</em> to drive or carpool. </p> + +<p>(Of course, when I say "drive", I mean "sitting in stopped traffic on +495 for 30 minutes, staring at the silhouette mudflaps on the semi in +front of you and hoping the drivers on both sides don't notice you +picking the gunk out of your eyes or hear you jamming out to +<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_%28entertainer%29" title="Madonna, the queen of pop.">Madonna</a>").</p> + +<p>There was some talk about setting up a <a href="http://novarug.org/" title="Blog for the Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group."><acronym title="Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group">NOVARUG</acronym></a> mailing list. +Apparently there are already a couple <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/" title="Yahoo collaberative tool that provides mailing lists and more.">Yahoo groups</a>, but both +are essentially dead, and the owner of one is <acronym title="Missing In Action">MIA</acronym>. <a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a> and +<a href="http://tomcopeland.blogs.com/" title="Brains and the brawn behind RubyForge.">Tom</a> are going to set something up on the <code>novarug.org</code> domain, and +provide the details on <a href="http://novarug.org/" title="Blog for the Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group.">the <acronym title="Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group">NOVARUG</acronym> blog</a>.</p> + +<p><a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a> mentioned something about <a href="http://paulgraham.com/" title="Popular Lisp programmer and geek writer.">Paul Graham</a> speaking at the +upcoming <a href="http://railsconf.com/" title="The upcoming conference for Ruby on Rails.">RailsConf</a> in Chicago. Personally, I have no real interest +in <a href="http://rubyonrails.org/" title="An MVC-based web framework, written in Ruby.">Rails</a> — I think it's a great, I just don't use it personally +— so I can't justify the cost of the conference. I like +<a href="http://paulgraham.com/" title="Popular Lisp programmer and geek writer.">Paul Graham's</a> writing (although I'm only aware of +<a href="http://paulgraham.com/college.html" title="Paul Graham's one reference to Ruby.">one Ruby reference</a>), so I'd love to hear him speak. Hopefully +that'll go better than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Cox" title="Author of Objective C.">Brad Cox</a> at <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1380" title="My first (of several) posts about RubyConf 2004 in D.C..">RubyConf 2004</a> (which was +actually really interesting, until he tried to talk about his new +proprietary <acronym title="Digital Rights Management">DRM</acronym> system...to an all open source crowd).</p> + +<p>Afterwards, a couple of 3-5 person groups coalesced and talked for +about 30 minutes. I eavesdropped in on the group around <a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich Kilmer</a> +and even offered a bit of commentary. <a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich Kilmer</a> said <a href="http://fox-toolkit.org/" title="An open source, cross-platform, C++-based graphical widget toolkit.">Fox</a> is ugly on +some platforms, and I said "no, <a href="http://fox-toolkit.org/" title="An open source, cross-platform, C++-based graphical widget toolkit.">Fox</a> is ugly on every platform" (it +is. I've seen stuff I've written on themed XP systems, and it basically +looks like a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tk_%28computing%29" title="An ugly open source, cross-platform widget toolkit.">Tk</a>-based app does on every platform: teeth-gnashingly +ugly). <a href="http://docs.rubygems.org/" title="Ruby packaging application.">RubyGems</a> and <a href="http://rubyforge.org/" title="Home for Ruby open source projects.">RubyForge</a> both came up a couple of times +in conversation, so I'll mention them here: <a href="http://docs.rubygems.org/" title="Ruby packaging application.">RubyGems</a> and +<a href="http://rubyforge.org/" title="Home for Ruby open source projects.">RubyForge</a>. And don't forget +<a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1440" title="Never trust crypto from a guy in clown suit.">this amusing <acronym title="Internet Relay Chat">IRC</acronym> quote</a> about <a href="http://docs.rubygems.org/" title="Ruby packaging application.">RubyGems</a>.</p> + +<p>On the way out I got a chance to talk to <a href="http://tomcopeland.blogs.com/" title="Brains and the brawn behind RubyForge.">Tom Copeland</a>, who I haven't +seen since he made me feel like a celebrity by recognizing me as "the +Pablotron guy!" at <a href="http://bajafresh.com/">Baja Fresh</a>. He liked the excessively +verbose description of <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1475" title="My recent patch to add XHTML output support to Ruby CGI.">my <acronym title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language">XHTML</acronym> patch</a> on <code>ruby-core</code>, +and also noticed how it's difficult to get patches through on +<code>ruby-core</code>. I realize that's mainly a language/cultural barrier and +not any sort of malice,, but it's still frustrating to be on the short +side of the stick. <a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a> suggested I send <a href="http://rdoc.sourceforge.net/" title="Ruby documentation generation program.">RDoc</a> patches directly +to <a href="http://blogs.pragprog.com/cgi-bin/pragdave.cgi" title="Author of Programming Ruby, one of the Pragmatic Programmers.">Dave Thomas</a> (those particular patches have already been silently +accepted into 1.9, but not <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1475" title="My recent patch to add XHTML output support to Ruby CGI.">the <acronym title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language">XHTML</acronym> ones</a>).</p> + +<p>That's it for my notes. You know the drill: let me know if you see any +gratuitous errors. I'll definitely be at the next schindig; maybe I'll +even have something to present!</p> + +<p><b>Update:</b> The colorful language about <a href="http://fox-toolkit.org/" title="An open source, cross-platform, C++-based graphical widget toolkit.">Fox</a> isn't meant to downplay the usefulness of the library; I think the <acronym title="Application Programming Interface">API</acronym> is really straightforward, and that it looks and feels nicer than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tk_%28computing%29" title="An ugly open source, cross-platform widget toolkit.">Tk</a> and a slew of other non-native widget libraries. That said, non-native widget toolkits don't mimic the look and feel of the native system, and that almost always looks terrible to me. That goes for <a href='http://mozilla.org/'>Mozilla</a> under, well, pretty much everything, <a href='http://gimp.org/'>Gimp</a> and <a href='http://gaim.sf.net/'>Gaim</a> in Windows and, of course, <a href="http://fox-toolkit.org/" title="An open source, cross-platform, C++-based graphical widget toolkit.">Fox</a>. <a href='http://mozilla.org/firefox/'>Firefox</a> seems to look okay to me for some reason, except under MacOS. Go figure. Anyway, my comment above was intended less as an to insult the <a href="http://fox-toolkit.org/" title="An open source, cross-platform, C++-based graphical widget toolkit.">Fox</a> developers, and more as a light-hearted jab from someone at 10,000 feet who hasn't taken the time and effort required to design, create, and maintain a cross-platform widget toolkit. +</p> + +<p><b>Even Later Update (2006-02-27):</b> The "anonymous guy talking +about an authorization plugin" was <a href='http://billkatz.com/'>Bill +Katz</a>, and his <a href='http://rubyonrails.com/'>Rails</a> +authorization plugin is available <a +href='http://www.billkatz.com/authorization'>here</a>. +</p> + |