In addition to Language of the month, I think a good idea would be to do "Tool of the month" to generate some talk. These could be presentations about IDE's, libraries, debuggers, operating systems, etc. I've talked to a friend about putting together a talk about vim. I think this would help generate interest in CAOS since we would be having more meetings. We could make the meetings kinda regular too, such as, the second week of the month we do the LOTM, and the fourth week we do the TOTM.
The goal of TOTM would, should, probably not be to teach everything about the tool, but just like LOTM, just generate some interest, introduce the tool, so you can go learn it on your own. Example: in vim presentation we've been talking about, we would just introduce vim, tell people how to get it, teach people the very basics of it, and show what vim is capable of.
Whats everyones thoughts on this idea?
Needs to happen
we could even try to make the *OTM presentations coincide, ex: LOTM: pythong, TOTM: python debugger
i think it sounds like a great idea!
Funny you mention that. VP Jarod Luebbert had that idea on his outline but neglected to mention it during his speech.. oh well. Great idea still!
Sweet! I agree with Brian, we should definitely have a talk on VIM. Maybe someone could also talk about using Git or just source control in general. We'll try to figure something out at our officer meeting and get something set up soon. Keep the suggestions coming!
If you want to do LOTM/TOTM, talk about Lisp and Emacs. We use emacs extensively at Morgan Stanley.
I talked w/ Brian and believe I have an ingenious way to wrap this all up into a few monthly series. This will be discussed in our officer meeting.
Scott
There are a ton of tools you guys could do talks on. You could even do talks about simpler stuff like Subversion, IDEs, plugins, etc...
Just a few, subclipse (eclipse subversion plugin), firebug (debugger plugin for firefox), Dojo (JavaScript Library), JQuery (JavaScript Library), JUnit (Java Automated Test Plugin), Eclipse/Netbeans, Apache Axis2 (Works well for Java Servlets and Webservices)....
There are tons out there. I am sure you guys can think of more. Where is Justin on this? I know he has a ton.
Kewl starter video (http://www.blackberry.com/DevMediaLibrary/view.do?name=addwebref) for creating an app that hits a webservice on a BlackBerry, if any of you have a BlackBerry. iPhone is not the only one! lol. This uses a plugin for Visual Studio, but they also have lot of support for Java Apps (http://na.blackberry.com/eng/developers/javaappdev/devtools.jsp).
- Source control software (Git my favorite and github.com makes it easy)
- A testing framework (I'm a Ruby guy and I use RSpec)
- A *real* text editor (All of the programmers that I know that are worth a damn use a real text editor and now how to use it well. Vim, Emacs, or even Textmate would be great)
- The terminal (Posix only... no one cares about DOS. Some key things are piping, io redirection, grep, ssh, scp, etc.)
- A feed reader (Seriously. Find some blogs about technologies you like and keep up with them)
I'm sure I could come up with more, if you're interested.
This sounds like a really good idea.
I am always wanting to learn some more cool little things.
We should definitely do this.
I would be kewl to show everyone how to set up something like Apache Tomcat and how to port forward if they have a router, and set up their own webpage. Would go great with something on JavaScript libraries like Dojo or JQuery.
Also, cygwin and how to use that as a virtual unix environment on a windows box and how to ssh into other boxes and use scp. Would be kewl.
JQuery is a great idea. Super powerful and super concise. I use it all the time and love it.
Yeah I believe that is what Google used to make iGoogle widget desktop stuff. I have been using Dojo a lot but believe JQuery is better structured, easier to use, and has better documentation.
Also, it would be helpful to do something on SOA (Service Oriented Architecture). There is a lot that goes with this that also leads to the use of webservices, which can lead to showing people tools like XMLSpy or soapUI to hit webservices and Eclipse with Tomcat or Glassfish to create webservices and/or servlets. Pretty fun stuff and is relatively a new way of thinking. Some really good work can still be explored in this area.
Also, teaching people alternatives to XML would be good.
XML is the end all be all Justin.
Alright... I made a good joke. Who censored me?
Yeah I believe when you make a servlet and have it send a JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) it sends a string structured in a specific way. For example, "id":"Tony","street":"foo st.","City":"Barville",.....
You can pass arrays of values etc... Don't quote me on this because I know that is what is the end result but I am not 100% sure that is what is being sent over the network. Never looked lol.
Quote from: raptor on 2009-02-13T15:58:16-06:00 (Friday)
XML is the end all be all Justin.
I hope you're joking. That's one technology I would love to move beyond. Anyway, luckily, I don't usually have to use it for more than configuration files.
Quote from: William Grim on 2009-02-14T02:21:39-06:00 (Saturday)
I hope you're joking. That's one technology I would love to move beyond. Anyway, luckily, I don't usually have to use it for more than configuration files.
Well, do you ever use webservices? They use XML. There are much better ways, but just wondering.
QuoteAlright... I made a good joke. Who censored me?
Excellent question...
The boards are meant to provide an open forum for serious discussion
as well as humor. I've had quite a few posts lately that have been edited or removed under the new "moderation" of CAOS and it's really upsetting; as a result, my activity on the forum has declined dramatically over the course of the past year. To the officers: you are my friends and it is out of genuine respect that I address you harshly -- you are abusing your power and do not deserve your position if you cannot responsibly and maturely handle the boards. I've held various officer positions myself, including President, and I too have had to make decisions about posts that were questionable in terms of being off-topic or inflammatory. To my knowledge, at least two posts in this thread have been removed for what I feel are unwarranted reasons. Yes, this is the "Official Business" forum,... but that does not mean that a few laughs (which, in this case, were clearly in good taste) are out of order -- heck, that's what has made this organization so great! I am ashamed that this level of censorship has slipped its way into this public forum, and I really hope that the officers consider "seriously discussing" (i.e., no jokes/laughing/humor?) the grounds for addressing such issues for future reference.
I thought about bringing this up a week ago (when my post was removed) in a new and separate thread (ya' know, so it would be "on topic"), but exercised restraint. If you think this is "off topic" then I would be more than happy to start a completely separate thread dedicated solely to this, which will include my full comments on the issue.
How long will this post last?
Yeah, Mike, I am joking. It kills me to deal with XML in any way.
Quote from: Tony on 2009-02-14T02:37:11-06:00 (Saturday)
Well, do you ever use webservices? They use XML. There are much better ways, but just wondering.
Not sure what you mean by "using." I don't develop web services, if that's what you mean, but I'm sure I use lots of websites that are running XML in the background.
It's not to say XML doesn't serve its purpose; I just feel it's poorly implemented in terms of ease-of-use and I/O performance. However, I am willing (maybe) to discuss in a separate thread this issue in a little more depth.
Quote from: Ross Mead on 2009-02-14T05:43:36-06:00 (Saturday)
The boards are meant to provide an open forum for serious discussion as well as humor. I've had quite a few posts lately that have been edited or removed under the new "moderation" of CAOS and it's really upsetting; as a result, my activity on the forum has declined dramatically over the course of the past year. To the officers: you are my friends and it is out of genuine respect that I address you harshly -- you are abusing your power and do not deserve your position if you cannot responsibly and maturely handle the boards. I've held various officer positions myself, including President, and I too have had to make decisions about posts that were questionable in terms of being off-topic or inflammatory. To my knowledge, at least two posts in this thread have been removed for what I feel are unwarranted reasons. Yes, this is the "Official Business" forum,... but that does not mean that a few laughs (which, in this case, were clearly in good taste) are out of order -- heck, that's what has made this organization so great! I am ashamed that this level of censorship has slipped its way into this public forum, and I really hope that the officers consider "seriously discussing" (i.e., no jokes/laughing/humor?) the grounds for addressing such issues for future reference.
How long will this post last?
I removed both the posts, but not because they were off-topic. I removed them because both of them were direct attacks on other people. Now, I know both of you and know that they were supposed to be innocent jokes, but it's one thing to make a joke or even joke about each other in each other's company. It's quite another to mock someone in a public forum that is searchable by anyone on the Internet.
How would you like it if one of your future employers did a search for you on the Internet and found that a lot of people were speaking down about you? That employer may be swayed against your employment, thinking you're not really a person that gets along well with others. What if it was your dream job?
Because of these reasons, I think the censorship was justified. I hope you can agree with this reasoning.
Quote from: William Grim on 2009-02-14T14:51:28-06:00 (Saturday)
I removed both the posts, but not because they were off-topic. I removed them because both of them were direct attacks on other people. Now, I know both of you and know that they were supposed to be innocent jokes, but it's one thing to make a joke or even joke about each other in each other's company. It's quite another to mock someone in a public forum that is searchable by anyone on the Internet.
How would you like it if one of your future employers did a search for you on the Internet and found that a lot of people were speaking down about you? That employer may be swayed against your employment, thinking you're not really a person that gets along well with others. What if it was your dream job?
Because of these reasons, I think the censorship was justified. I hope you can agree with this reasoning.
We need to start a thread about this. I do not agree with you what so ever. If an employer did a search for me and based their decision on what was said about me on a public forum, then I wouldn't want to work with them anyways. Anyone gullible enough to believe any rant or cheap shot thrown at someone on message boards isn't someone I want to work with professional.
It is the very fact that it is a public forum, where any idiot with a keyboard can spew whatever garbage they feel like behind the comfort of a monitor and the internet, that should make it obvious to any real intellects that what they see here is rarely the truth. Just my opinion.
Tony, you made the point that I was hoping to make -- I completely agree!
In an effort to refrain from the long rant of disappointment that is building up inside me, I will simply ask that this not happen again...
[To whom it concerns] (yes, I am hiding your name from searches from potential employers... ;-)), you know I respect you as a friend and, of course, as a long-time contributor to CAOS; however, I completely disagree with your judgment on this issue. It is not your [lone] place to be moderating these boards, especially without even consulting the existing officers. Yes, I understand that you had/have good intentions,... but you can't just take matters into your own hands. I'm not going to sit here and harp on this -- I'm sure that you can understand my frustration (just as I can understand your perspective).
(Not to mention that there are plenty of times where the aforementioned considerations were ignored, most notably, in regards to certain professors... "A coodah is a whatah?" anyone? :lol:)
And as far as editing posts (i.e., not deleting them) goes, that needs to stop as well. [To the officer responsible for that] (again, defending identities here... you and I know who you are... ), respect your position and, more importantly, those that elected you... or I won't help you with your Senior Project... ;-)
:shuriken:
Quote from: William Grim on 2009-02-14T14:51:28-06:00 (Saturday)
I removed both the posts, but not because they were off-topic. I removed them because both of them were direct attacks on other people. Now, I know both of you and know that they were supposed to be innocent jokes, but it's one thing to make a joke or even joke about each other in each other's company. It's quite another to mock someone in a public forum that is searchable by anyone on the Internet.
How would you like it if one of your future employers did a search for you on the Internet and found that a lot of people were speaking down about you? That employer may be swayed against your employment, thinking you're not really a person that gets along well with others. What if it was your dream job?
Because of these reasons, I think the censorship was justified. I hope you can agree with this reasoning.
I did not see the posts in question, so I cannot take a strong stance as to whether censorship was appropriate. I can certainly see it as being possible for there to be a remark made on a forum such as this, perhaps in the heat of some moment, for which the person being "censored" would even be thankful that someone removed their post. It has certainly happened to me in the past that things have escaped my mouth that I soon after wished I could take back. That being said, it is probably a good idea for the moderator to leave a note whenever something is censored detailing who did it and why so that others are not left to imagine what motives someone may have against them. In general, I agree with Mike on this one, let's try to keep our conversation civil. I think I can even say that Jesus would be on Mike's side on this one as it is written:
"... Walk in love, as Christ also has loved ... Let [coarse jesting] not even be ... among you ..." (Ephesians 5:2-4 NKJV).
Quote from: GigaByte on 2009-02-15T10:46:34-06:00 (Sunday)
I think I can even say that J**** would be on Mike's side on this one as it is written:
"... Walk in love, as C***** also has loved ... Let [coarse jesting] not even be ... among you ..." (Ephesians 5:2-4 NKJV).
Wut?
ironically, this forum topic is labeled "tool of the month".
Anyways, to get this back on track. Does anyone else have any cool tools they have been playing with or want to play with? You don't have to be an expert. Shoot, some people have probably forgotten about a few, and if you mention them they might remember.
Also, is there anyone who wants/can pull something like this together? Now that I work I have time to throw something together on any of the topics I listed. My work allows for flex time so I could work something into my schedule.
Quote from: Tony on 2009-02-15T20:30:23-06:00 (Sunday)
Anyways, to get this back on track. Does anyone else have any cool tools they have been playing with or want to play with? You don't have to be an expert. Shoot, some people have probably forgotten about a few, and if you mention them they might remember.
Also, is there anyone who wants/can pull something like this together? Now that I work I have time to throw something together on any of the topics I listed. My work allows for flex time so I could work something into my schedule.
Xcode linked with Carbon Emacs, developing with the iPhone SDK. It's quite a good tool kit, and if you're lucky, it may make you money fast.
I use vim all the time and love it, rspec is a super useful testing framework. I feel like automated testing is something that isn't covered in any of the classes to an appropriate extent.
I use git for code control, but even subversion would be better than nothing. This is a series I feel like has a lot of potential for awesomeness! It could help fill in the gaps of our very windows/visual studio/c++/ide centric education here.
Quote from: Adam C on 2009-02-16T00:52:14-06:00 (Monday)
I use vim all the time and love it, rspec is a super useful testing framework. I feel like automated testing is something that isn't covered in any of the classes to an appropriate extent.
I use git for code control, but even subversion would be better than nothing. This is a series I feel like has a lot of potential for awesomeness! It could help fill in the gaps of our very windows/visual studio/c++/ide centric education here.
i wish i could just thumbs up this like on facebook
Grim, don't you have to pay for the JDK for the iPhone or something like that?
If you want to distribute your application via the Apple App Store or put your app on something other than the simulator, you need to pay $99. You also get other perks, but I doubt they're too important to someone casually interested in learning.
If you are okay without any of that, then http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/download.html (http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/download.html) looks to have a free download. You need to register with their dev site, but that's also free.
And you have to have a Mac? Or OS X?
You have to have OS X. The SDK is part of Xcode.
A Hackintosh will also suffice.