obsessing about a new technology. a new framework, a new programming
language.. or something .. it’s now time to start going OCD on
something new. for the past year or so, i have spent a TON of time in
the world of ruby on rails. while i totally still like ruby on rails,
i have found that lately, i have been writing things that are more
like web applications than web sites. i have found where alot of the
limitations of javascript an rails programming are, and i would like
to try out something a little different. i have narrowed it down to
two candidates. i would love some input on this:
-
Seaside – this is a really neat web app framework built on squeak smalltalk. a few months ago, i read a whole bunch of the tutorials,
and did a bunch of them. i spent some time getting the gist of
squeak, but i really didn’t have the time to get a complete grasp on
it. i was considering it for a project i was working on, but i
wasn’t able to find the libraries to make it fit my needs. i
finally used rails for the project. now, i would like to give
seaside another shot.. doing something fun.. and learning
smalltalk. not that smalltalk will be terribly transferable to other
projects, but it would just be fun. -
Google Web Toolkit – this is google’s offering in the ajax arena. my
only worry is that this will not interface well with a database. the
other thing to consider is i haven’t worked seriously in java for
four years or so. i figure i can read a book and get up to speed
pretty quickly, so i am not too worried about that. i have also
wanted to get back up to speed with java to learn to program the
blackberry and tivo platforms. i am also totally interested in the
debugging possibilities with running jruby on rails.
while i really really think the whole idea of smalltalk and seaside
sound interesting as hell, i still can’t make a decision on what to
obsess on next. if smalltalk/seaside catches on, i will be way ahead
of the game, and have lots of fun. java is probably not going
anywhere, so this would be a good option also.
what do you guys think?
