Software As She’s Developed

“A Mock Is Not So Stupid After All!” Dave Crane’s been talking about Mocking the Server-Side: A Mock Object is a stand-in for the real thing. Few modern programs are really standalone, and enterprise apps require a very complex context in order to operate; containers, databases, directories, web services, etc. This can make testing difficult, […]

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This 47-minute podcast is a discussion with Alexander Kirk, creator of the recently released Blummy (which I mentioned last week) and also Bandnews. A few things we discussed: The design behind Blummy. (Interestingly, I was incorrect to guess it uses XHR - basically, the Blummy is like a Greasemonkey script - it uses DOM manipulation to alter […]

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The Basics of Ajax: A 3-Part Podcast Series I’m beginning to podcast about specific Ajax patterns. To start with, a three-part series on the basics of Ajax development, covering all the Foundational Technologies patterns: Podcast 1: Display Patterns and the DOM. Podcast 2: Web Remoting - XMLHttpRequest, IFrame Call, HTTP Streaming. Podcast 3: Dynamic Behaviour - Events and Timing. These […]

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I just updated the ajaxpatterns.org “What’s Ajax” page to include more info on Ajax Benefits, and added a new section on Downsides. Have I missed any? Benefits of Ajax Web as a Platform: The web is no longer just about websites that expose some information; it’s increasingly being used for full-blown applications. These applications demand richer […]

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Google Base: It goes beyond classifieds. The popular view today seems to be that Google Base is all about classifieds, but as mentioned earlier, it’s much more than that. (Incidentally, still smarting I missed the “All Your Bases” happy fun humorous moment opportunity.) If Google Base lets you tag entries, you could easily create a podcast […]

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Google’s apparently releasing base.google.com. While some see it as a Craigslist play, it’s a lot more than that: Google has seen the future, and the future is one big mashup of microcontent. “A” microcontent is a small chunk of information, typically with its own URL, but not actually a web page. It’s not a web […]

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Check out Alexander Kirk’s new website: Blummy. A blummy is a kind of bookmarklet that opens up a kind of pop-up portal, giving you access to various web services. Just like a portal is made up of Portlets, a Blummy is made of Blummlets, which essentially do the kind of things bookmarklets do. e.g. […]

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I’ve been posting Ajax entries under “HumansAndTech” or “SoftwareDev” or both and holding off on a special category. I’m grateful that the Ajaxians included me in their planet.ajaxian.com feed, and that’s the tipping point for me: I still want to write about agile, OO, etc., without polluting the Ajax sphere. Hence, a new “Ajax” category […]

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It’s that time in a technology’s lifecycle when myths abound and someone wheels out a collection of “myths” and retorts. Here’s my contribution to that time-honoured genre. Nine myths in 37 minutes. Myth: “AJAX” Reality: Ajax Myth: Ajax is rocket science Reality: It’s an incremental progression Myth: Javascript sucks Reality: It doesn’t Myth: The URL’s always the same Reality: Unique URLs are […]

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The publicly-editable Ajax Frameworks Page got a nice kick along in the past few days, presumably due to a recent link from Ajaxian. If this list is anything to go by, the most common language is pure-Javascript, and Java is, as you might have guessed, highest on the server-side, followed by .Net and PHP. Sections for Python and Perl were opened […]

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