August 9, 2011

Create a Rails-based Excel Clone with jqGrid

In my previous article, Combine jqGrid and Rails for Beautified Business Applications, I began an article series explaining how to build a rich, data-driven Rails application by adding a jQuery grid (jqGrid) to it. (Thanks to a great Rails plugin that made integrating Rails with jqGrid much easier.) Specifically, the

Scalability Rules

The co-founders of AKF Partners, Marty Abbott and Michael Fisher, have published a new book titled Scalability Rules. It offers advice for managers, architects, developers and operations personnel who face scalability problems. It offers 50 “rules” from 12 broad categories and quantifies the potential risks and costs of each. Those

What Today’s New Programmers Could Learn from Veterans

While many veteran programmers have skills that their younger counterparts will never need, many also say they have experience that could come in handy to today’s developers. Here’s a quick overview of the skills experienced programmers say that newcomers lack: Hardware knowledge. “I see people more often having difficulty in

Agile Turns Software Architects into Business Analysts

According to consultant Benjamin Day, Agile development methodologies are changing the job of the software architect. Today’s software architect has to be a combination project manager, forward thinker and business analyst. ?With the rise of Scrum, [development teams] aren?t doing big design up-front anymore,” said Day. “In my career, it?s

Google Developing an API to Connect All Web Apps

A new post on the Chromium blog reveals that Google is working on a new API it calls “Web Intents.” Just as Android Intents makes it easy to share data across mobile apps, Web Intents would make it easier to connect Web apps. The post explains: “In today’s browser ecosystem,