Monkinetic Weblog

Well, after probably a year of using Weblogs.Com as my jumping-off point, I need to get some new blood in my list of daily reads. I have started browsing the non-favorite blogs, looking for gems; I recently added Zeldman, for example, but mostly I've lost interest in most of my daily grind.

"Jim" has created a WebObjects-newbies list/group over on Yahoo Groups (née eGroups). If you're interested in WebObjects, and want to see what it's like to learn, come check it out!

Wow. Someone created a program that maps the call tree from the Linux Kernel graphically in PostScript. I could have used this in Frontier years ago!

Well, I'm two days into my WebObjects journey. I worked on Chapters 2 and 3 last night, finishing Chapter 2 and getting halfway though Chapter 3. "JIm" and I got to chatting, and we discussed some of the things I'm learning about WebObjects. Here are some of the interesting thoughts:

Long Form Journalism. [via Josh]

"Jim and I got to chatting, and we discussed some of the things I'm learning about WebObjects. Here are some of the interesting thoughts..."

"Falling Paradigms"

#ff0000">monkinetic: ok, and the little box is saying that the WOReq is the parameter for that call
JimRoepcke: #000000">the box in the parenthesis is the parameter to the message. the solid arrow points to the object being sent as that parameter.
#ff0000">monkinetic: ok...
JimRoepcke: exactly
#ff0000">monkinetic: and the form data arrow just shows where the elements are going to get their value
#ff0000">monkinetic: from the formData NSDict
#ff0000">monkinetic: now wait a minute
JimRoepcke: form data arrow?
JimRoepcke: oh, right
#ff0000">monkinetic: the request always gets posted to the component it came from? which then decides what to send next?
JimRoepcke: right!
JimRoepcke: remember, the action method is called on current component, which returns the next component to return to the browser.
#ff0000">monkinetic: this is going to take some getting used to
#ff0000">monkinetic: no wonder WO developers go nuts when they have to work in another environment
#ff0000">monkinetic: it's like going back to assembler or something
JimRoepcke:the action method is called on the SAME instance of your component class that was used to generate the page that the user just clicked on.
JimRoepcke: why do you think i'm calling ASP Assembly Server Pages
#ff0000">monkinetic: got it
monkinetic: muahaha
#ff0000">monkinetic: Wo turns quite a few of my web dev paradigms on their heads
JimRoepcke: yup.
#ff0000">monkinetic: like what forms and app components do - i'm used to forms pointing to the next page in line
JimRoepcke: and having to stuff the page with as much shit as possible to make sure the next one gets what it needs.
#ff0000">monkinetic: it's almost like there are no "pages" in WO
#ff0000">monkinetic:
JimRoepcke: with WO, you do all the "stuffing" and passing on the server side, not the client side.
#ff0000">monkinetic: well, and the whole idea of a "sending page" and a "recieving script" are stood on end too
#ff0000">monkinetic: er, is stood on end
#ff0000">monkinetic: brb
JimRoepcke:you get to think of the forms more like traditional gui forms, the values from your forms are just THERE, you don't have to do anything special to get the values into the forms and out of the forms. just bind the form elements to your objects and everything works.
#ff0000">monkinetic: that's the rub - WO was developed by application developers, who wanted to make it like cocoa programming
#ff0000">monkinetic:i come from the traditional web development background
#ff0000">monkinetic: so i don't know what "traditional gui forms" are! ;)
JimRoepcke: just ignore that then.
JimRoepcke: all that matters is that all the grudge work in web development is done for you by WO.
#ff0000">monkinetic: yeah... wow
JimRoepcke: drudge work, i meant, right

Well, last night marked Day 2 of my journey learning Apple's None

Majestic frightens me. I have an overactive imagination to start with, I don't need some #$^&% game messing with my head.

Last week someone linked me to an image (a mockup) of a possible Apple PDA, featuring pro-mouse-style clear plastics and an OSX-style interface. Now I cannot find the lik to save my life. So- if you know where this elusive pic is, please let me know!

Maybe it's all the recent news of Pyra's recently, but last night I dreamed I met Derek Powazek, who was doing massages for cash. Strange.

Heard on NPR this morning:

Finally Napster-ized some Fury In The Slaughterhouse, after a couple years failing to find them in CD stores. They've done some great tunes. In their own words:

Dave writes: "Prediction. Look for users sneaking DSL lines into offices much as they snuck in Apple IIs in the early 80s. From there it's a simple matter of setting up departmental LANs that are fully part of the Internet and unencumbered by system managers and firewalls."

Yesterday Microsoft predicted the demise of the Linux community and OS... oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

I took a big step last night toward fulfilling a 5 year dream: to try developing web applications using Apple's "WebObjects".

Co-worker and nascient weblogger Hans is still logging. Hans' site is run on some weblog code he's writing in PHP.