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Practical RichFaces book - few free PDF copies leftYesterday

I’ve got a few free PDF copies left of my Practical RichFaces book. Email me (max at exadel dot com) if you want one.

SpringOne - Day 3 and Spring Python pluginsYesterday

Day 3 - Writing a Spring Python plugin manager
===================================================
Yesterday, I visited three sessions: RESTful Web Applications with Spring 3.0, Terracotta, and The Dojo Toolkit. I admit that my mind was wandering during the web-based ones. That was because I wanted to work on my command-line, plug-in based tool. So I planted myself in the back of the room for the first and third presentation, plugged into some power, and worked on a plugin.

I managed to get a basic one completed called gen-cherrypy-app. Right now, you can only find it on one of my sandbox branches at https://src.springframework.org/svn/se-springpython-py/sandbox/gregturnquist/sespringpythonpy-83/samples/coily/. In that directory is a command line python tool called coily. If you need help, type:

./coily --help

Currently, it will load plugins found in the current directory. In this case, you can see two in subversion: gen-cherrypy-app as I mentioned before, and noop as a test plugin that takes no arguments. In the future, it would be useful to have official plugins living on SpringSource's download site, perhaps split into officially supported ones, and others going through the Spring Extensions life cycle.

Back to coily. If you run:

./coily --install-plugin gen

JavaFx Is Here! Could Sun Be on the Right Path?Yesterday

When I saw JavaFax at last's and this year's at JavaOne, I did walked out of the presentations a bit skeptical "... yeah right, how is Sun's going to compete with the deadly Adobe Flex/Flash combination ... it's marketing gimmic" . Well today (and if you been following JavaFx, for a while) Sun finally made good on its promise of delivering a Rich Media platform by officially releasing the SDK for JavaFx (at http://javafx.com, the site is being slammed, everything is slow now).

I must say that I am less skeptical now and cautiously optimistic on the future of Java as a rich media platform. This could actually work.

Java as viable rich medium
Using JDK 6 update 10 (released earlier) as a base, you now can see how applets are positioning themselves to be a formidable option to the Flex/Flash combo.

1. Applets load gracefully


2. Online streaming videos with Applets
Here is something you have never done/seen before with Java applets. Online videos, cool!


3. Rich Applet
Look at the skinning, the rich interaction options provided by this applet, yes this not flash, it's a Java applet

Spring Integration 1.0.0 GA is outYesterday

Sneaked out last week, the general release of Spring Integration 1.0.0 is now officially available. To grab your copy head on over to the SpringSource download manager.

Big congrats to the Spring Integration team, especially Mark Fisher, Jonas Partner and Iwein Fuld. And of course there's always a BIG thanks in reserve for the Spring community for helping make this GA release as feature-rich and robust as possible with all your feedback.

Google Chrome - WebKit update ?December 3

Today I had to download Google Chrome, to work (verify) a bug. Same issue is present in Safari 3.2.1. Perhaps I should mention that both aren’t using the latest greatest WebKit as its core… So, I gave the nightly a shot… The bug wasn’t reproducibly with the nightly WebKit. Nice.

Since there is a huge G in Chrome… folks want to see fixes in there. Kinda more pressure instead of fixing a “Safari only” bug

This all is fine, sure. But it is interesting that the Chrome browser uses an older WebKit than Safari 3.2.1…

Let’s hope there is an update out soon, that bundles the G browser with the latest, greatest WebKit.