IBM has published another article in their alt.lang.jre series, this time on JRuby. JRuby is a pure Java implementation of the Ruby language. Ruby is often described as an object-oriented scripting language, and it combines the pure OO features of Smalltalk with powerful scripting features along the lines of Perl or Python. I have used various scripting languages (mostly Perl and Ruby) here and there, but never long enough to really become proficient in any of them....
Interesting article on the recent Wikipedia controversies. Have I mentioned how much I love Wikipedia? So far, I have always been able to find the information that I was looking for, including somewhat obscure topics and highly technical or computer-geeky information. Like most Wiki sites, Wikipedia has a very simple and clean design and is easy to navigate. Try visiting a random Wikipedia page today. :)
I don’t have a Gmail account, but if I ever get one (on that note, please feel free to leave a comment in case you have a spare Gmail invitation :)), I’ll be sure to try GmailFS. GmailFS turns your 1 GB Gmail account into a Linux-mountable filesystem. I’m not sure how useful this would actually be for me, as I only use Linux at home and therefore would not be able to access my files from the office, for example....
I just spent an hour playing with Groovy, and I have to say that it is very promising. I have not experimented a whole lot with the actual Groovy syntax, but based on what I have read as well as on my limited experiments, Groovy is a nice mixture of popular scripting languages such as Ruby or Python, but geared towards Java programmers. The syntax borrows many useful elements from other scripting elements but remains similar enough to Java to enable Java developers to easily learn this language....
I originally wanted to call this post (or series of posts) “Patterns of Home Computing” and provide a lot more background on how I use my various computers at home. However, as I really need to catch some sleep I will keep this initial posting reasonably short. About 2 months ago, I have bought two new laptops for me and my wife. I am running Windows XP on my laptop, which I mostly use for Email, web browsing, Microsoft Office, and some occasional programming....