Joel Spolsky is not impressed by coding conventions. He says something like “When I was program manager on the Excel team…” in a [podcast](http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail207.html) at [IT Conversations](http://www.itconversations.com).
Here is a clip where mentions the coding conventions. The clip was made with ITC’s fine PHP tool to “Create a Clip or Excerpt”. Makes me involved.
So, you are using some modules for Ruby, in the shape of [gems](http://rubyforge.org/projects/rubygems/) (read [the book](http://docs.rubygems.org/)!). You need to read the gem’s docs. Instead of Googling, fire up a local pure-Ruby webserver ([Webrick](http://www.webrick.org/)), on a custom port, and view the beautiful RDoc pages there, in their web-native shape! Invoke the thing like this:
gem_server
Then go visit [http://localhost:8808/](http://localhost:8808/). (Corrected the link, thanks Matthew!)
(I wrote this here since Googling the term gem_server turned up nothing the un-informed could use at once. Or, you could have [read about this a year ago](http://laughingmeme.org/articles/2005/04/01/some-rails-tips-especially-for-os-x-hackers) at Laughing Meme. The top results were all bug reports and such.)
This weekend I had some wonderful spare time, and I spent some of it reading [Beyond Java](http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/beyondjava/), a book about the Next Language. (Spoiler: It is [Ruby](http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/), or some cool continuations-based project – read: [Seaside](http://seaside.st/) with Smalltalk. But you knew that.) The book is chock-full of kayaking metaphors, which got so irritating they became funny.
Java’s rise to power, that was the best story in the book, for me. A history of how Java captured a whole segment of disgruntled C++ programmers, and kept them. And, how Microsoft uses a the copycat C# to capture the Java-folks to their platform. The author says the problems that Java developers have in their environment are just the same shape and size if the move to .NET. He wants a dynamic language for his next tool.
([Sam Ruby tells it best](http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2005/11/01/Beyond-Java), so read his commentary on how the languages fare in Tate’s book.)
What I’d like to tell you about is my experience in the bookshop, [Gad, at Nørreport](http://www.gad.dk/om/her/gadkbh.asp) (address and opening hours at the link). I complimented the clerk on their well-stockedness, especially on the fact that I was able to waltz in and buy a book I had heard buzz about. I added that I am one of those customers who buy computer books on a whim. The clerk then got a genuine smile on her face. My fiancée gave me a compliment, a thumbs-up, a well-done gesture. (All my make-the-world-a-better-place I have learnt from others. And my fiancée’s taught me a lot these last years. Thanks!)
Copenhageners, where do you buy these kinds of books on an impulse?
PS: When I registered the book at O’Reilly’s website, I was granted the possibility to copy and paste as many kayaking metaphors as I wanted, via their e-book thing, [Safari Bookshelf](http://safari.oreilly.com/). I might never exercise that right.
Maybe something for upcoming [Fastaval](http://www.fastaval.dk).
Dustin Diaz tells about Yahoo Event Utility which is the addEvent killer of all time. If you do serious Javascripting these days, please, do yourself a favour, and read that piece. Slowly. You might find drool on your chin afterwards. Then, go get the Event Utility. You owe to yourself. You deserve it.
And, be sure to get Firebug, while you are at it. It is Firefox-only debugging nirvana. Just exhale, and see the internals of your web apps. (And others’ web apps, as well.)
The times they are a’changing. I love today’s stuff. Be safe out there. Me: back to the cave.
