http://www.rubyweeklynews.org/20060910.html
Ruby Weekly News 4th - 10th September 2006
Ruby Weekly News is a summary of the week’s activity on the ruby-talk
mailing list / the comp.lang.ruby newsgroup / Ruby forum, brought to
you
by Tim S…
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Articles and Announcements
* RuPy 2007 - Python & Ruby Conference
--------------------------------------
Jakub Piotr N. announced a Python & Ruby Conference, to be
held at
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland in 2007.
"The philosophy of RuPy is to put together Python & Ruby experts
with
young programmers and to provide a good communication channel for
East-West exchange of prospective ideas."
* Adobe releases the Ruby on Rails RIA SDK
------------------------------------------
Adobe have released a Ruby on Rails RIA SDK that lets you build
Rails
applications with a Flex (Flash-based) front-end instead of
HTML/Javascript. It’s an open source project (New BSD license),
and is
being developed in the open, with contributors welcome.
* Italian Ruby Book
-------------------
Lawrence O. announced "Ruby per applicazioni web", an
Italian
Ruby book, written by di Marco C. with a chapter contributed
by
Lawrence.
"The book is going to be available in the stores before the end
of
this month so check it out my fellows Italian readers."
* Euruko 06
-----------
"Euruko06, the European Ruby Conference, will be in Munich,
November 4
and 5, 2006", reminded Stefan S… He noted that the
conference
fee is only 20 euros.
* Sun hires JRuby developers
----------------------------
Sun announced its hire of the main JRuby developers, Charles
Nutter
and Thomas E… Tim B. posted the official “Sun PR party
line” in
JRuby Love, giving reasons for the hires and where they’re
looking to
take JRuby.
Charles also commented in JRuby Steps Into the Sun. "And yes,
JRuby
will remain as open source as it is today. It just might start
moving
a bit faster (as if it weren’t moving fast already!"
> You can imagine how excited I am about this opportunity, and
how
> pleased I am to know that Sun takes Ruby so seriously. Not only
will
> I get to work on the project I’ve poured my heart into this
past
> year, but I’ll be able to do it while helping one of my
favorite
> companies turn a technological corner. Naturally I’ve been
talking
> with a myriad of folks at Sun over the past several weeks, so
> believe me when I say these guys really get it. The tide has
turned
> and dynamic languages are on everyone’s agenda. It’s going to
be
> quite a ride.
* The Ruby Mine - News and Articles for the Italian Community
-------------------------------------------------------------
Chiaro Scuro was pleased to announce The Ruby Mine, a site aiming
to
be a reference point for Italian developers looking for high
quality
content in their native language.
"We are also actively looking for developers, writers, editors
and
contributors that would like to help us further spread this
elegant
language throughout the country."
* Thousands of words on Ruby
----------------------------
Tim B. finished a series of essays called the Ruby Ape Diaries,
and
there were some interesting responses. Ape is “Atom Protocol
Exerciser”, a tool that Tim’s developing.
* My book is out -- Ruby on Rails: Up and Running
-------------------------------------------------
Curt H. said that his and Bruce Tate's book Ruby on Rails: Up
and
Running is out and about. It’s published by O’Reilly, and “is a
quick-start guide expressly designed to get you going with Rails
quickly.”
Threads
Crashing RubyConf
Gavin K. suddenly realised he was too late to register for
RubyConf
2006 (Denver, Colorado, October 20-22, 2006), which was a pity since
he
lives only 30 minutes away.
Assuming the answer was no, but hoping anyway, he asked how sold out
it
is: “might be OK for those of us who live nearby to drive in, attend
sessions, and drive out?”
David A. Black said that unfortunately “sold out” really means sold
out.
“Sold out means we’re at capacity, based on the facilities and our
judgment as to what would make for a successful and reasonably
comfortable
event.” Anyone who isn’t pre-registered won’t be allowed in,
regardless of
whether they try to pay at the door.
“Public areas of the hotel are, of course, hangable out in”, he
added,
with several other posters suggesting Gavin go to the lobby and bar,
in
order to talk with Rubyists outside the conference proper.
Austin Z. heard that some of the most interesting discussions at
last
year’s RubyConf occured around the pool later in the day.
David: “It was a remarkable sight: a spontaneous pool-side discussion
that
actually had more people at it than attended the first RubyConf in
2001!”
Using RubyInline for Optimization
Eric H.: “I wrote an article on using RubyInline for optimization
where
I take png.rb, sprinkle in a little profiling and a little C and make
it
go over 100 times faster.”
The article is ‘Using RubyInline for Optimization’.
Dominik B. said the article is nice, but you can get around the
same
performance improvement using pure Ruby, by avoiding many redundant
array
to string conversions in the original png.rb.
New Releases
Many new releases, including …
sandbox 0.2
why the lucky stiff released a new version of the
FreakyFreakySandbox.
The sandbox extension lets you create new Ruby environments, either
restricted or featureful. Need a safe little housing for dangerous
code,
with an explode-proof shield on it? Aha, get over here. Or, need to
load
a conflicting library into a safe, clean Ruby? See, look at all
these
reasons.