http://jan.varwig.org Somewhere between Hello World and HAL9000 Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:56:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This was long overdue but I finally got around to it. [REST in Place](http://github.com/janv/rest_in_place/tree/master) is using JSON instead of XML now. A lot of people seemed to have problems with XML, especially those using the Prototype version. I also included a small testapp in the repository. It is not meant as a ... http://jan.varwig.org/archiv/rest-in-place-now-using-json I have begun writing a Haskell library to remotely control Lego Mindstorms NXT Bricks via Bluetooth. I just uploaded the repository to github at . The library is far from complete, there's lots and lots of unimplemented commands and it's not even working with USB-connections yet. It doesn't run on windows ... http://jan.varwig.org/archiv/haskell-nxt After using [Mercurial](http://selenic.com/mercurial/) for 7 months we at 9elements have finally given in to the internet peer pressure und switched to [git](http://git.or.cz/) (Well, to be honest, several shortcomings in Mercurial played an important role too). Since then I've become accustomed to git and today ported over [REST in Place](http://jan.varwig.org/projects/rest-in-place) from ... http://jan.varwig.org/archiv/rest-in-place-now-on-github Why didn't ANYONE notice how FUCKED UP this is: > These factors led to the development of Automake. automake, like autoconf, is a program run by a developer. The developer writes files named `Makefile.am`; these use a simpler syntax than ordinary `Makefile`s. automake reads the `Makefile.am` files and produces `Makefile.in` files. ... http://jan.varwig.org/archiv/autotools In preparation for the work on my [Haskell NXT Library](http://github.com/janv/haskell-nxt), I needed to install [Yampa](http://haskell.org/yampa) today. The official page lists version 0.9.1 as most recent, though that release is from 2002. Newer (though kinda "inofficial") versions are [available](http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/Yampa) through [Hackage/Cabal](http://haskell.org/cabal/). Getting Cabal to work wasn't difficult at all in the end, ... http://jan.varwig.org/archiv/getting-cabal-to-run-on-mac-os-x-leopard Ever since Rails 2.0 came out, my REST in Place Plugins stopped working because of the request forgery protecting introduced into ActiveController. The AJAX request didn't submit the rails authenticity token and the requests weren't answered. I fixed that problem yesterday in both the [jQuery](http://www.jquery.com/) and the [Prototype](http://www.prototypejs.org/) version (both included ... http://jan.varwig.org/archiv/rest-in-place-now-rails-20-compatible I had a problem with Adium: After 3 minutes of inactivity, my monitor goes to sleep. With the laptops volume turned low I would not notice any incoming messages whenever I was playing a game or anything that made some level of noise. Back when I used windows, Miranda woke up ... http://jan.varwig.org/archiv/wake-up-your-display-with-adium-and-applescript Today a [post by Reg Braithwaite](http://weblog.raganwald.com/2008/06/bitchiness-also-sucks.html) brought to my attention [several](http://nothinghappens.net/?p=324) [blogposts](http://kore-nordmann.de/blog/why_active_record_sucks.html) [about ActiveRecords](http://blog.mikeseth.com/index.php?/archives/4-ActiveRecord-sucks,-but-Kore-Nordmann-is-wrong.html) [alledged shortcomings](http://karwin.blogspot.com/2008/05/activerecord-does-not-suck.html). Most of their writers are posting rants rants about some ideas they have about ActiveRecord without ever having really used it, it seems. The main issues seem to be - Domain-code in your controllers instead of ... http://jan.varwig.org/archiv/why-bloggers-suck > Common sense, above all else, is usually the essential ingredient in being good at anything. -- [Tim Rogers](http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=379) http://jan.varwig.org/archiv/common-sense Rails association collections know two ways to determine their size: 1. **Through a dumb count as soon as you query the collection for its size.** This doesn't require any additional work but puts quite a load on the database as soon as you have a large list ... http://jan.varwig.org/archiv/rails-association-collection-size-though-joins