Vos Virtual Network

Scooby-Do’s way of saying “Ruby Lovers Roundup”…  A quick review of recent happenings (and writings) in the Ruby  development community… and what a fun round up it is! The ruby rock stars are pushing agile development in sunny Florida … and the sunny Java guy is resting from Java to talk about Ruby RSpec RESTing and testing..

Tim Bray took a break from his other stuff to run more RSpec tests. Is he RESTing or testing, or both at the same time? He’s misusing RSpec (like Andy McKee abuses the guitar) — and that kind of innovation could lead to a cool new invention — but only if he plays with it long enough to discover something new and interesting.

Obie Fernandez is pushing paired programming the HashRocket way. Looks like they are having fun with it, and getting some good results. True believers in agile programming methods are already doing this, and everyone else is watching it closely, or closing their eyes, and trying to ignore it with one pragmatic eye still open.

David H. Hansson was not really “thinking out loud”, but he recently twittered:

getdropbox.com is exactly what I need to complete the two computer conundrum. Great execution. Can’t wait to be able to pay for it.

DHH also released Rails 2.1.1 — with lots of little bug fixes.

Dave Thomas is having fun with procs in Ruby 1.9

Michael Galpin talked about rapid prototyping with Apache Derby and JRuby on Rails over on IBM developerworks.

Did I mention that JRuby 1.1.4 was released? –  with a 2-20x increase in speed for most features

John Lam (the Microsoft IronRuby guy) helps you connect the dots and solve the really big problems in this video captured at the last RubyFringe.

Nick Sieger talks about jazzing things up with JRuby in this InfoQ video interview.

… and from the awesome fresh news department … enjoy the awesome fresh rails documentation.

Tags: DHH, FOSS, IronRuby, JRuby, Obie Fernandez, REST, RoR, RSpec, Ruby, ruby on rails, Scooby Do, Tim Bray, video

Maybe you figured out that I love jazz. I enjoy many musical genres, and musical styles, but lately I’ve been really exploring jazz. In a recent article I described jazz as being full of  images, mirrors, and reflections.  Jazz is like a bridge — always going from someplace to another place. Jazz is always asking questions, bending notes, refactoring routines, revisiting and revising themes, and making analogies. Jazz energizes me with its innovative musical poetry of patterns, parallels and allegories.

Jazz Piano Art - found at Detroit River Days

Back in April, I started talking about creativity, innovation, improvisation … and how it relates to jazz and the blues… meditating on the mysteries of musical creativity  … compared to creativity , innovation, and risk taking in other domains (like art, architecture, design, entrepreneurship, computer programming, product design, web design, etc.) … pondering the amazing results that often happen when a skilled musician begins  to improvise with a good idea and the right attitude.

Surprising success and fantastic results can happen in your life (or your business) when you understand how it all works.  Innovation - It’s not a new idea, and I’m not the only one talking about this. I’m just improvising on a great theme.

Nick Sieger (no relation to the Detroit rocker Bob Seger) wrote a great article in July called Jazzers and Programmers. I found Nick’s article while researching some things about Ruby on Rails, and JRuby.  NIck describes the history and styles of jazz and compares it to the history and styles of programming. He talks about jazz fundamentals, and compares the rhythm section (piano, bass, and drums)  to programming libraries, frameworks, and patterns. He compares Bass-Drums-Piano to Model-View-Controller. It’s really great stuff — and even includes a musical score from one of the jazz standards, Blue Monk.

Nick spiced up the article with nifty quotes from famous jazz musicians like: “It’s taken me my whole life to know what not to play” - Dizzy Gillespie … “Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple” - Charles Mingus  …  I won’t steal anymore of Nick’s thunder. Go read the whole article.

Are you catching my drift? We’re not done with this jam session yet. I’m just taking a breather in between songs.

Tags: creative thinking, I love jazz, improv, improvisation, innovation, jazz, jazz musician, jazz standard, JRuby, Model View Controller, music, MVC, ruby on rails, scripting