Sometimes a small sample is really helpful in showing the differences between two approaches. Ruby on Rails is a slick web framework for building web applications the old way. When I say the old way, I mean building URLs manually and passing parameters through query strings manually, i.e. marshaling session data manually.
Ramon Leon On Smalltalk — Interesting post, not a hostile comparison, if you are concerned about that, that carries over into the comments, which are worth reading.
I’m going to stop with Ramon’s stuff for now, just go read his blog.
I still work with Rails. I love Rails. I’m just saying all this to offset the stupidity of the comments in Ramon’s blog about Rails being able to generate HTML programmatically. It’s not about being able to generate HTML programmatically. It’s about being able to generate Web apps programmatically.
Giles Bowkett — An interesting digression from Ramon Leon’s “Rails vs Seaside” article mentioned in the previous item.
Carefully crafting your markup is like making a lucrative investment in the future of your code base. It’s easier to create and maintain back-end code when it integrates with clean and simple markup. Your CSS can be elegant. Your DOM scripting can connect seamlessly. You’ll have made a significant first step towards improved accessibility. And you might even pick up some extra search engine traffic. It’s time to treat markup as a craft, and give it the love and attention it deserves.
Digital Web Magazine — Nice set of guidelines.
Yet Another Friday the 13th CartoonSavage Chickens — Just in case you haven’t subscribed.
Helping Moldova's deserted children
Anna’s father has disappeared. Her mother went to work abroad when she was nine, leaving Anna and her 11-year-old brother under the eye of a neighbour.
But when her mother failed to send money home, the neighbour abandoned the children.
Their mother was away for two years.
BBC — Save your outrage — read the whole story. What a mess!
Let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage
As a result, Eustace is at a significant disadvantage when he first arrives in Narnia and finds himself in a dragon’s lair. “Most of us know what we should expect to find in a dragon’s lair,” Lewis writes, “but, as I said before, Eustace had read only the wrong books. They had a lot to say about exports and imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons.”
Micheal Flaherty Speech at Hillsdale College — The quote is, intentionally, misleading — until you read the speech.
Global Warming: Dim Bulbs, Bright Lights
… what is needed at this time of the global warming crisis is a movement that vigorously challenges the status quo, one that does more than advise citizens to “ask” members of their families to reduce energy use, or “encourage” electric utility corporations to be more efficient or, “tell” their elected representatives to “push” industry. … Take the Civil Rights movement. Yes, personal reflection and individual change had its place, but can you imagine Martin Luther King telling people to “ask” their school boards to integrate the public schools, or “encourage” corporations not to discriminate, or “tell” their elected leaders to “push” legislatures in the South to do away with Jim Crow laws?
In These Times
Top 10 Funniest GadgetsTechEBlog — Nice list!
June Callwood, Canada's Social Conscience, dies at 82
June Callwood, the remarkable Canadian journalist, humanitarian and social activist,died early Saturday after a long fight with cancer. She was 82.
CBC
