1. X = Dr Nic
2. Y = iPhone development
3. Z = Ruby

From the Mobile Orchard news desk:

Dr. Nic talks about his migration manager for updating SQLite iPhone databases, trying to get Ruby onto an iPhone, using Ruby to unit-test Objective-C iPhone code, his company Mocra, and the Mobile Orchard Podcast’s lavish recording studios.

Dan Grigsby is the interviewer and post-production guy for the interview, and so it is entirely his handy work that it seems like I’m the only one talking for 15 minutes. The original interview took 4 hours and it was mostly him talking. He’s quite a chatterbox. I barely got a word in edgewise. [1]

Dan also created this list of “things we talked about”:

1. 0:00: Migrations for SQLite
2. 5:18: Getting Ruby onto an iPhone
3. 5:59: Nu – Lisp-based language that sits atop Obj-C and would work on the iPhone
4. 7:37: Unit testing Obj-C from Ruby
5. 8:12: Webkit UIs
6. 12:31: Mocra / “Used my blog for evil”

Go to Mobile Orchard (or Mobile Awkward it is accidently called at the end of the interview) to cop a listen.

[1] This paragraph starts well and ends with blatant falsehoods.

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Now put away the crayons and get back to pure Javascript with embedded Ruby with “MinusR” – RJS minus the R (for Ruby).

This is especially useful if you want a clean way to support non-Prototype/Scriptaculous frameworks, like jQuery. You can call the raw Javascript for these libraries, and embed your Ruby objects using Erb and a handy js helper to convert Ruby to JSON.

Its clean, healthy fun. Like carrots.

Makes me think about jogging, its just that healthy for you.

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When you unpack your shiny new version of Rails and generate your first Ajax link, you are using the Prototype library. It’s beautiful to use. It adds many Rails-like constructs into the Javajscript language, e.g. the each method to iterate a closure over an array. Sexy stuff.

But the following effect isn’t done using Prototype:

It was done in a few lines of Javascript using the jQuery library [1].

$(".tick").hover(function() {
  $(this).removeClass("tick-off").addClass("tick-on").announceButton(this)
}, function() {
  $(this).removeClass("tick-on").addClass("tick-off");
});

Prototype provides a comprehensive library of base classes, such as Element and Hash, where as jQuery is fundamentally different. It provides just one entity – the jQuery object. This is created using the familiar $ function and represents a collection of DOM nodes, rather than just one.

The jQuery object is then extended and extended and extended with all the functionality you need – scriptaculous-like effects, Ajax calls, prototype-like manipulations, etc. JQuery plugins

Yehuda Katz – author of autoDB – the dynamic admin console for Rails apps – has his feet deep in jQuery land as well. He manages the Visual JQuery documentation, and recently wrote an article comparing the philosophies of Prototype and JQuery, to help people understand how they are different.

The core problem for Rails developers who might like to try out jQuery is that it eventually conflicts with the prototype library when you start to use Rail’s “in-built” helpers for prototype.

But perhaps you do not need to use these helpers, as an increasing number of jQuery plugins start to provide more and more elegant client-side functionality. For example, an InPlaceEditor extension, and many others.

Want something truly pretty developed using jQuery – how about the planets revolving around the sun?

Work is also underway to integrate jQuery into Rails, including its own set of helpers, code named JQuails.

Many Rails developers might not be familiar with the abilities of alternative Javascript libraries as they get prototype/scriptaculous embedded for free. Yet it would be wise for all developers to be aware and competent in multiple frameworks, so that the best tools for each job can be selected. There is certainly some momentum behind jQuery in the wider development community. To Rails developers I say, Keep a Look Out!

[1] The Hover Demo Script was written as pure Javascript to make it easy to download. Firstly it disables the static image (for RSS feed and non-JS environments), and then creates the DIVs for the effect. The hover effect is then setup by applying the hover function to all elements of the class tick. The two functions we pass it perform the CSS class manipulation that gives the effect. Note the use of chain calls that make the syntax so attractive.

Note also that we’ve added a custom function to the jQuery object – announceButton. It assumes that only one button is active at a time, uses this[0] to determine which one it is. The function then returns the jQuery object (stored as this) to allow the standard method chaining to continue.

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Today, you get to see a magic trick. No code to download, no brain cells to engage. Its Sunday after all. A day of rest, BBQs, beer, football, and magic tricks. Everyone knows that.

But I can’t show you the trick here in your feed reader… the lighting is terrible. Jump to my site for the live magic show itself.

…pausing…

Ok, at the top of the screen… I introduce to you the Magic Announcements. They are just brilliant, and good looking to boot.

Once you’ve read each one, you click on them to make them go away and they will never return. Once you’ve read the announcement of verson 0.7.1 of Dr Nic’s Magic Models, you will never see another announcement until a new version is released (be it 0.7.2, 0.8.0, or 1.0.0, etc). Nod your head with me, this is cool.

When you get your hands on this, it will be a pure Javascript install into any page (or domain of pages such as a blog). It will fetch announcements AND version change information from anywhere on the web, not just the presentation site. For example, the version information for the two projects are being retrieved from the project home pages themselves. This way, I never have to modify my blog to enter new announcements or versions: I just update the relevant data at the relevant place.

How cool is this? Imagine if you could plug the Magic Announcements directly into RubyForge or SourceForge, etc, and whenever you released a new version of your code to *Forge, your blog automatically started announcing it to your readers! Keep nodding, sexy, yes.

I’m still writing up the install/usage docco for it, but I hope to release it within a day or two.

But to give you some preparation time, for each project you want to provide announcements for, you will need to create files that look like this:

MagicAnnouncement.show('magicmodels', '0.7.1');

If you want to provide generic site announcements, like “Welcome to my website”, then it will look like this:

MagicAnnouncement.show('general_notes', 1,
  "Very rarely, you\'ll learn something here. Mostly, you'll just be entertained by the programming magic.",
  "<strong>Welcome to Dr Nic's Magic Castle of Programming Mystery</strong>");

In both cases, the 2nd argument is the announcement version number. The 3rd is an additional description (useful for version announcements and site announcements), and the 4th is for the header. You’ll normally want the header to be generated for you for version announcements, as per the Magic Models and Composite Keys announcements above.

Bonus: want to see the announcements again? Turn on the Debug Controller…

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