I'm going to show you how to survive

Today I set up a demonstration workstation. While helping to clear obsolete programs from the machine, I took a moment to scan some of the new features in Java. The most eye catching item on the list was the ability to mix scripting code with Java. I don't know what to think about this.

I would think that when mixing interpreted languages with compiled languages, it would be important to make both sets of code work independently. The ability to reference Java classes from scripting code clearly violates this tenet, as the resulting code will not work outside of the Java execution engine.

I would also think that, if one was going to mix interpreted languages with compiled languages, it would not be a great idea to compile the interpreted code. Interpreted code is likely to be interpreted code for a reason, and if one is going to compile it, one might as well write compilable code.

I applaud the idea of being able to run scripting code from an engine within Java, but some of these features make me queasy, the same kind of queasy that I feel from embedded SQL. Not roller coaster queasy. More like watching a grown man eat raw zebra from a tattered carcass queasy.

For life, there's always alcohol

Taking a cab through a White Castle drive through at four o'clock in the morning because the attendee at the window won't let pedestrians order.

$10.00.

Having the Senegalese cab driver invite us to visit his country afterwards.

Priceless.

Hmm... grease-cutting formula in a lemon fresh scent

While at work today, I started to wonder what AJAX is for. It's an interesting question semantically, because it begs another question. Where does the user interface boundary lie when developing web applications? Is it defined at the server script level or at the client script level?

This isn't an academic question. If the boundary is defined at the server script level, then the primary purpose of AJAX is to send valid DHTML from the server script to the client script. If the boundary is defined at the client script level, then the primary purpose of AJAX is to pass messages back and forth between the client script and the server script, and it is the client script's responsibility to turn those messages, whatever they might be, into DHTML.

I realize that there may be an entire spectrum of views on this issue. There are also other aspects that are important to consider, such as how REST/SOAP interfaces may benefit from each of these approaches. My gut tells me, however, that AJAX should primarily be used to pass messages between client and server scripts, and that client scripts should be responsible for interpreting those messages.

Somehow, it seems a tad more lemony fresh.

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria!

Today was all about web development using Java. It's definitely a transition from using the .NET framework. Because Java runs on multiple operating systems, you can't take anything for granted, such as what a path separator might be in the deployment environment.

I can turn to the system properties for a lot of these issues, but it's still a new world to me that involves more detail oriented work than I am used to in order to avoid deployment fiascos. It's hard enough to write code that correctly adapts to different deployment environments with one operating system to worry about. Adapting to the needs of different operating systems introduces a whole new layer of kludgy, gooey pain.

I also spent time this morning with the Mozilla console, ChromEdit, and Venkman. I never had the opportunity to use this combination before because I was locked into the Visual Studio development environment, which already has a pretty sweet DHTML debugger. Everything worked really well, however, and it was nice to play with a different set of tools. It felt a little funny at first, but then I got used to it.

Sort of like Gerald's mom.

P.S. While rocking out today in the car to Leo Laporte and geek love goddess Amber MacArthur, I found out about a little slice of internet television history known as "The Broken". Check it out... unless you are way ahead of me. In that case, just shake your head at this post and move on with your life, possibly removing me from your feed list.