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Crossing borders: Domain-specific languages in Active Record and Java programming
The Java programming world is full of domain-specific languages (DSLs), but options in the Java language for building DSLs are limited. Not so with Ruby. In this article, you'll learn some nifty ways Ruby lets you integrate clean DSLs, giving you a new frame of reference for examining your Java options with open eyes.
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04 Apr 2006 |
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Crossing borders: Exploring Active Record
The Java programming language has had an unprecedented run of success for vendors, customers, and the industry at large. But no programming language is a perfect fit for every job. This article launches a new series by Bruce Tate that looks at ways other languages solve major problems and what those solutions mean to Java developers. He first explores Active Record, the persistence engine behind Ruby on Rails. Active Record bucks many Java conventions, from the typical configuration mechanisms to fundamental architectural choices. The result is a framework that embraces radical compromises and fosters radical productivity.
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07 Mar 2006 |
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Crossing borders: A Rails case study
Ruby on Rails development and Java development differ in fundamental ways. In this final installment of Crossing borders, Bruce Tate outlines the major differences he's discovered by using Rails to develop a complex, scalable Web site from the ground up.
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10 Apr 2007 |
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Crossing borders: Extensions in Rails
The Java programming language has long been a great melting pot, with rich and powerful capabilities for integration -- from dependency-injection containers for integrating enterprise libraries, to Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) technology, to the component models for Eclipse. With so many ideas and architectures available, Java developers pioneer new ways to weave disparate software libraries and components into a cohesive whole. But Java developers don't have a monopoly on good integration techniques. See how Ruby on Rails plug-ins work by looking at a popular plug-in called.
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13 Mar 2007 |
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Crossing borders: The beauty of Lisp
Lisp has long been recognized as one of the great programming languages. The fanatical following it has inspired throughout its long history -- nearly 50 years -- tells you it's something special. At MIT, Lisp plays a foundational role in the curriculum for all programmers. Entrepreneurs like Paul Graham used Lisp's incredible productivity as the jet fuel for successful startups. But to the chagrin of its followers, Lisp never made it into the mainstream. As a Java programmer, if you spend some time with Lisp -- this lost city of gold -- you'll discover many techniques that will change the way you code, for the better.
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07 Feb 2007 |
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Crossing borders: Closures
Closures are blocks of code that can be used as arguments to functions and methods. The programming construct has long been a staple of languages such as Lisp, Smalltalk, and Haskell. The Java community has resisted closures so far, even as competing languages such as C# add them. This article explores whether closures represent unnecessary complexity for a language for a little convenience, or something more.
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09 Jan 2007 |
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Crossing borders: JavaScript's language features
JavaScript is often ridiculed as the black sheep of programming languages. The development tools, a complicated and inconsistent document object model for HTML pages, and inconsistent implementation in browsers contributes to that sentiment. But JavaScript is much more than a toy. In this article, Bruce Tate explores JavaScript's language features.
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19 Dec 2006 |
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Crossing borders: Ajax on Rails
The hype for Ajax, a technique for making Web pages more interactive, is in overdrive. The Ruby on Rails framework is also flourishing, partly on the strength of its excellent Ajax integration. Find out what makes Ajax on Rails such a powerful combination.
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05 Dec 2006 |
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Crossing borders: Delayed binding
Statically typed languages, such as the Java language and C, bind a method call to their implementation at compile time. This strategy lets these languages perform a wide variety of syntax and type checks, giving them more stability -- and often better performance -- than dynamically typed languages that have no such compile-time checks. But static typing comes with a serious limitation: early binding. Some dynamic languages -- such as Ruby, Smalltalk, and Self -- allow delayed binding, which enables another level of programming features.
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07 Nov 2006 |
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Crossing borders: Streamlined, Part 2
Part 1 of this two-article series introduced Streamlined, a Rails-based open source framework that combines the power of Ajax, metaprogramming, and code generation to take Rails productivity to a new level. Part 2 explores how the metamodel behind Streamlined enables customizations.
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03 Oct 2006 |
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Crossing borders: Streamlined, Part 1
Ruby on Rails is a radically productive Web development environment based on the Ruby programming language. Streamlined is a rapidly growing new open source framework based on Ruby on Rails. Streamlined combines the power of Ajax, metaprogramming, code generation, and Ruby on Rails to take Rails productivity to a new level.
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05 Sep 2006 |
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Crossing borders: Rails migrations
Ruby on Rails is a progressive Web development framework that implements radical ideas such as convention over configuration, heavy metaprogramming, domain-specific languages, and database wrapping instead of object-relational mapping. This article examines Rails schema migrations, a philosophy of separating each database schema change from the base object model.
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15 Aug 2006 |
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Crossing borders: REST on Rails
Earlier articles in the Crossing borders series introduced Ruby on Rails as an explosively popular framework that's serving as a catalyst for the Ruby programming language. As Ruby experiences increasing success, developers are seeking to integrate their Ruby applications with applications written in other languages. Rails provides excellent support for Web services. This article introduces Web services in Rails and focuses on a strategy known as Representational State Transfer (REST).
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01 Aug 2006 |
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Crossing borders: Explore functional programming with Haskell
Structured programming and object-oriented programming both revolutionized the way business applications are built. But other programming models exist, and some visionaries argue that those paradigms are more productive than object-oriented programming. This article explores the basics of functional programming using Haskell. Learning a functional language can reshape ways you think about Java programming.
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18 Jul 2006 |
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Crossing borders: Web development strategies in dynamically typed languages
The Java community has used JavaServer Pages (JSP) technology through most of the last decade, but signs of rust are starting to show. Longstanding conventions inhibit Java programmers from using Java code within Web pages now, and extending even simple components is a chore. Frameworks that take Java Web development beyond JSP programming have emerged, but they fall short of dynamic languages' capabilities. This article shows you Ruby's Web page development strategy and touches on Seaside's radical approach.
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05 Jul 2006 |
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Crossing borders: Testing in integrated frameworks, Part 2
Part 1 of this two-article series introduced the Ruby on Rails approach to unit testing and showed how adopting aspects of that approach can improve your Java unit tests. Java developers' options for higher-level testing are more limited. In this article, again looking at Rails, you'll gain an appreciation of the advantages of integrated frameworks for functional and integration testing.
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20 Jun 2006 |
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Crossing borders: Testing in integrated frameworks, Part 1
The Java community has done a fantastic job of advancing automated unit testing. An increasing number of open source frameworks let you build automated test suites along with your projects. The Spring framework, JUnit, TestNG, and several other frameworks owe some or all of their inspiration to the idea of automated testing. Still, some non-Java languages and frameworks have more motivation to test, more suitable testing tools, and a more unified view of testing. By looking at how other frameworks test, you can improve the way you test in the Java language, or even use a more appropriate language to test your Java code. This article, the first of two on testing in Ruby on Rails, covers the Rails approach to unit testing.
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06 Jun 2006 |
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Crossing borders: Typing strategies beyond the Java model
The Java community is split when it comes to the language's approach to typing. Some love the compile-time error checking, better security, and improved tools -- all features enabled by static typing. Others would prefer a more dynamically typed experience. This time in Crossing borders, you'll look at the dramatically different typing strategies used by two highly productive non-Java languages and at ways you can achieve some typing flexibility in your Java programming.
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23 May 2006 |
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Crossing borders: Concurrent programming with Erlang
The Java programming language made starting a new thread easier than ever before. But freeing your concurrent programs of obscure bugs is a different matter, and Java's programming model might not be the best available. A language called Erlang is getting some good press now in the areas of concurrency, distributed systems, and soft real-time systems.
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18 Apr 2006 |
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Crossing borders: Continuations, Web development, and Java programming
The Crossing borders series looks at how non-Java languages solve major problems and what those solutions mean to Java developers today. This article explores continuations, the technique behind frameworks like Smalltalk's Seaside. Continuation servers make it much easier to build Web applications by offering a stateful programming model without giving up the scalability inherent in statelessness.
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21 Mar 2006 |
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Crossing borders: What's the secret sauce in Ruby on Rails?
Ruby on Rails seems to be a lightning rod for controversy. At the heart of most of the controversy lies amazing productivity claims. Crossing Borders author Bruce Tate has come to understand that Rails isn't a better hammer; it's a different kind of tool. This article explores the compromises and design decisions that went into making Rails so productive within its niche. Then it looks at Rails-inspired ideas that should get more attention within the Java community.
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09 May 2006 |
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