Tag Archives: Hibernate

It’s a busy week in Ann Arbor!

I’m still trying to finish up my blog from my visit to Microsoft last week (and from the Michigan Celebration of Women in Computing over the weekend), but I wanted to make sure that I mentioned the busy week that we’re having in Ann Arbor this week.

James Ward, Flex evangelist from Adobe, is coming in from Oklahoma City to present Flex both Tuesday night at the Ann Arbor Java User Group (www.aajug.org), at 7:00 (note the earlier time!), and on Wednesday night at the Ann Arbor Computer Society (www.computersociety.org) at 6:00 pm. While James has sent me the same abstract for both nights, he’s said that the Tuesday night event will be more Java-focused and the Wednesday night event will be more about the technology. There’s not much overlap in attendance at the groups but since I’m planning to attend both nights, it will be great to hear something different the second night.

Here’s the abstract:

Sexy Web Apps with Java, Mozilla Tamarin, and Flex

In this session James Ward will do live demonstrations and write code to show how easy it is to build sexy web apps with Java, Mozilla Tamarin, and Flex. The session will cover the programming model, Java Remoting, Pub/Sub messaging & JMS integration, Data Synchronization, Hibernate integration, charting, cinematic experiences, and media integration.

I’ve seen James demo some incredible stuff with Flex. He built a TurboGears widget with Flex at CodeMash. He demo’ed a nice bookshelf photo application there as well (using photos from CodeMash!). And, he showed a demo at the Java Posse Roundup that used transparent pages from an old medical textbook … wow! To be able see the transparent pages turn, and to be able to see through them to the previous page is REALLY cool, and really does give you a flavor for the compelling interfaces that can be built with modern technologies.

We’re really making the best of James’ time while he’s here. In addition to the evening events, Adobe, Microsoft, and SRT Solutions are presenting, “UI Smackdown 2007: Using GWT, Flex, and WPF”. This is a one-day workshop to learn more about all of these toolkits in an open spaces type of environment. We’re going to start off by presenting a quick overview of each, and then the participants will be breaking out into groups of their choosing to work with the various toolkits. The $90 registration fee includes continental breakfast and lunch. There are still a few slots available, so if you still want to sign up, do so right away so that we can make sure that we order enough food!

Web Frameworks Jam: Wednesday

Another Day in Crested Butte

First, work stuff:

We continued our TurboGears quest yesterday (Wednesday). The “out of the box” tutorial experience isn’t really there yet, but we’re still hopeful about the package. Mainly, if I had been working on my own, I’m just not sure I would have been this motivated to continue working with the package, after encountering the roadblocks that we’ve hit. None of them have been insurmountable, but “real” work would have probably drawn me away from it when I did get temporarily stuck and I’m not sure I would have gone back.

The idea of using Best of Breed Components to put together a framework is compelling, and I’m enjoying getting my feet wet with a little Python as well. The “gotchas” seem to be package installs, at this point, further complicated by the fact that we don’t have a live internet connection at the conference location (which really just inspires us to visit the coffee shop next door quite frequently).

We’ve been making notes, mainly about the tutorial and this “out of the box” experience that I just mentioned. Bruce is going to post them, and I’ll add a link here when he’s done that.

The Spring/Hibernate team is plugging along (mainly focusing on Spring at this point, I think). The Google Web Toolkit team is making progress as well. One of the guys has extensive knowledge of the toolkit (has been using it for a while) while the other 2 have great interest. I’ve seen notes from them as well (extensive!), and I’m hoping that they post those as well. I’m looking forward to reading them in more detail, and I’ll post a link if they get blogged. Pretty sure they will …

In any case, we’ll be getting back to TurboGears this morning. Barry finally has everything working on Debian and Bruce has upgraded to 0.9 from the default install of 0.8.9. We’ve learned a lot about the package, and I’m looking forward to getting through the tutorial and onto new things now that (hopefully) the wrinkles have been ironed out.

And now, the recreation report:

We went for another hike (Slate River) yesterday afternoon, hiking to a waterfall. An old mine is nearby. It was a very nice hike, more elevation than yesterday.

And we had lunch at a great little outdoor Tibetan restaurant (Mo Mo’s). I had curried beef with lentils and rice and some chai. It was fantastic and the outdoor garden setting is amazing.

Last night, one of the other attendees and I attended a community forum at the local school. Ambassador Ed Peck, former chief mission to Baghdad, spoke to a standing-room-only crowd about unrest in the Middle East. Pretty timely. He’s an amazing speaker and probably makes a great diplomat. He really stressed the importance of listening to what people (in other countries, especially) are saying and thinking. Imagine that. This isn’t a political blog, so I won’t go into more detail, but suffice it to say that I’m really glad that I attended. I wish that I were going to be here next week, when Sandra Day O’Connor will be speaking. Wow!

Crested Butte is simply a wonderful place. Costly, but lovely. It’s definitely a great place to visit. Some local tidbits:

·I talked to a woman at Camp4Coffee yesterday morning who had ridden her bike there with her 6 month old baby. We were talking about bike trailers. She said that she bought that trailer when some visitors came to town for a week, bought a brand new bike trailer, and sold it for $70 when they left. Nice deal!
·I spoke to a man in the hotel lobby this morning who is a rancher from Texas who has been coming to this town every year for 30 years. He’s here with his grandson this week.

Web Frameworks Jam, Day 1

Greetings from Crested Butte!

I’m here, at Bruce Eckel’s Web Framework Jam, and (as expected) learning a lot already. We’ve broken up into 3 groups, each working on a different framework. Initial task is to become familiar with the framework. My group is working on TurboGears (the preview version, 0.9), and we’re not just working through the tutorial but also inspecting a lot of code along the way. A second group is working with Hibernate/Swing, and the third is using the Google Web Toolkit.

Each day, there’s time set aside for recreation (hey, if you’re in a beautiful place like this, you really SHOULD get out and do something!). Yesterday, we went on a nice, flat hike at Lake Irwin (flat is good, since we’re all still acclimating to the altitude, 9300 ft). Later in the week, I’m hoping to do some mountain biking. But … as we saw with the Programming the New Web conference here last March, the “breaks” really serve as a way for the groups to interact about what they’re learning as well. A lot (most) of the conversation centers around what we’re doing, something that most people who hang around with computer geeks probably don’t find surprising.

Wildflowers at Lake Irwin