Webvisions 2007 – Day 2 | Ruby on Rails | Location Based Content

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Webvisions Portland Oregon Wow! WebVisions 2007 day 2.

Today I am going to report on 2 presentations Ruby on Rails and Location Based Content. My head is still spinning from Robert Reinhardt’s Flash Video workshop from yesterday.

MVC Demystified: Understanding the Essence of Ruby on Rails

by Michael Jones

Ruby on Rails is a clever open-source web framework that is taking the web on by storm. So what makes this powerful framework so effective? How can we gain a deeper understanding of how the Rails framework functions? How can we be more effective Rails developers?

This session will examined the model-view-controller (MVC) design pattern explored what the pattern is, how it works, and why it’s such a good design pattern for web applications. We then looked specifically at how Ruby on Rails utilizes the MVC pattern, examined the various components in the full Rails stack. Then we examined the common mistakes developers make that go against the MVC pattern.

This was a very interesting presentation. Once again I am giving you my notes in bulleted format.

Ruby is a language
Rails is a framework

MVC
Model – View – Controller

Model is the data and the business logic
View Data presentation and user input
Controller controls application flow

MVC advantages

Separation of interests
- Model centralizes business logic
- view centralizes display logic
- controller centralizes application flow
Clean separation of content/style
Improved decoupling
Easier testing
Allow multiple people to work

Rails and MVC

Capistrano software for rails
textmate for rails development on Mac

Location based content via mobile devices

by Kinan Sweidan of ximida

Searching and filtering the vast amount of information on the web is one of the greatest obstacles to its utility. Initially, ranking pages based solely on their content, using algorithms like Google’s pagerank were enough. Then with the introduction of rolling content like weblogs, the need to prioritize current information over stale information became important and sites like technorati emerged. Now, the web is going local and search tools like yahoo local allow people to find static content around them – nearby services and content. Finally, with location based services linking the web to mobile devices, this local content becomes dynamic and ever-changing, based on the people who are nearby.

One statement Kinan made that I really don’t agree with is that the laptop will be replaced by the cell phone. I don’t even use the calendar in my cell phone I use a PDA. I used to carry a keyboard to take notes on my Palm. Now I have an iBook and I can’t live without it. Kinan stated that one of the problems with a laptop is that it has very limited battery life. Just try to do the kind of computing I do on my iBook with my cell phone and see just how long that battery will last. I’m sorry Kinan, unless they come up with a mental interface with my cell phone it will never replace my laptop.

Now that I have my rant out of the way here are my notes. (in bulleted form of course)