Ken Januski

I haven't been here in a year or probably more. But when I saw David was the guest I wanted to stop by. I've just finished my second reading of The Well-Grounded Rubyist and thoroughly enjoyed it. For me it's the best book I've read on Ruby, though it may also be that this is partially due to the fact that I've also read Ruby for Rails, Programming Ruby and The Ruby Programming Language and this book just clarifies all that I've picked up from them.

I don't think that's the case though and even if it was that would make it very valuable. More likely this is just one very fine book, especially for people somewhat knew to Ruby.

Hope you enjoy your visit David.

I wonder if anyone would care to elaborate on why it's not worth the effort? I'm not at all disagreeing with the statement and am also not trying to bash JSF.

I've toyed with it a bit in the little Java programming that I currently do. And it also didn't seem worth it. But I'd be interested in knowing if more active Java programmers don't think it's worth the time because rich internet applications just aren't worth the time, because they are but it's too much work to do it with JSF, because they are but it's easier to do it with Ajax, with RubyOnRails and Ajax, with .net, or whether it has nothing to do with rich internet applications and it's not worth it for some other reasons.

Really just a request for greater detail from anyone who has the time to answer.

Ken

I'm not sure about NetBeans since I haven't used it in a few years, but one compelling feature of Eclipse is the ability to use it to code in other languages. It works beautifully for Perl. I'm told it will work with Ruby and plan to try that soon and I once did a toy program in C# with Mono just to prove that it would work. This may not be important for you but for some people it's really great to be able to use the same IDE for more than one language.

I don't really think that "who has the time to learn a new language" is going to stop RoR? At some point someone could have said the same thing about Java, C#, Perl, or whatever. You may not have the time to learn it but someone else will, probably someone who finds that this newer language, even though it's really not newer, is more appealing than an older one like Java.

A number of years ago I happened to read most of The Pragmatic Programmer and seem to recall that the authors suggested learning more than one language. Though I really don't have time to do so I have tried to spend some time on learning both C# and Ruby. One reason to do so, at least in my mind, is that it always gives you a new perspective and maybe better understanding of the languages that you do know. So I think that there will always be some people who do have the time to learn a new language. If it offers them something that others languages don't then the language will probably be successful.

Thanks for this thoughtful reply. Given the hype surrounding RoR it's hard to tell how much anyone might like/dislike RoR based on their reaction to the hype and how much is based on an honest reaction to it. I've been very impressed with both Rs in RoR based on very limited experience.

But I wanted to know what someone who's used it quite a bit, and written a book on it, had to say about it. Hope others will find your response useful as well.

ok, well you know the next question the: why is ruby such a desirable language?

i have my own ideas, based on 2 months experience, but i'd like to hear your ideas.

i'd also like a greater elaboration on why rails might be appealing to java developers. i have my own ideas based on very little experience but i think many people would benefit from a more in-depth answer. of course that may be what the book is for..............

I've just started with Ruby and Rails but I'd say a likely candidate for RoR, and why you'd want to read this excellent book. is someone like me who comes from a Perl background and likes the speed and brevity of it compared to Java, but who also has done some Java programming with Servlets and JSP and sees the value of a predictable config files, directory structure, exposure to server environment, session management, etc. In other words at this beginning stage it seems like a wonderful combination of some of the strengths of Perl and Java. I'm not deep enough into it yet to see how it's error checking compares to the robust error-checking of Java and "what do you mean by error-checking" of perl.

I've never paid any attention to "Agile" programming but from what I've read of this book it makes a lot of sense for some projects and ROR seems like a great way to do it.

hi,

never be embarrassed about asking questons. that's what the forums are for. what is perfectly clear to one person in a book may be quite murky to another. when you ask a question you might very well be asking that others have wondered about as well.

httpsessionbindinglistener has always seemed a bit odd to me and i'm sure it has to some other people as well. so i'm not surprised that you asked the question, and i think you got some informative answers.

so keep asking questions...

ken

Take a closer look at your xml. You have <sevlet-name>. I'd guess that this is also on the same line number that the error mentions.

i bought a discounted version of an scwcd exam about a year ago thinking that i'd get around to taking it much more quickly than i have. and now i find it expires in about 3 weeks so i've been reading up just so i can take it. (i haven't actually been doing much java coding recently so it's been on back burner.)

in any case now that this thread brings up the fact that there are two different exams it reminds me that i most likely bought the upgrade since i already have the 1.2 certification. so just in the nick of time you have reminded me that i might want to concentrate my limited study time on the newer parts of scwcd!!

P.S. I've never seen any financial advisor say to take a Roth IRA, normal IRA, or anything else before a 401k, whether or not the funds are matched. The theory, as I said above, is that it will continue to grow and you won't be taxed on any of it until you take it out at retirement. At that point many people will be taxed at a lower rate.

I've seen some pretty bad advice given here. This is important so take a look at any number of financial sites, quicken, motley fool, vanguard, and see what they say about 401ks. My advice is to take it. But the best advice is to go find some good advice and choose for yourself. I can say that I've always learned to live on what I get out of my paycheck after money is siphoned off to a 401k. My point is that you probably can afford to put some money in a 401k and you probably won't notice that you don't have it in your wallet.

If you do decide to buy mutual funds, esp.for a 401k, then make sure you DIVERSIFY! That's the best way to make sure that even if part of the market goes down you're most likely making money in another part of the market.

The other reason to put money in a 401k is that often it's the equivalent of forced savings. If it's taken out at work you sort of forget that you're even getting it. You learn to live on what is not taken out and in the meantime you're saving money and probably seeing profits. As someone else said the theory is that once you retire you'll have a lower income and thus you'll pay a lower tax rate on what you take out than if you got it in your paycheck when you earned it.

Finally I think that the person who said investing individually is great if you're willing to work at it is probably right. I'm not one of those people but I know a number of them. They love investing for themselves, doing the research, reaping the rewards, etc. Of course any profits are still taxed at a higher rate than they most likely would be if you put the money in a 401k.

Hi,

I'm also reading both books in parallel. I passed the original SCWCD a few years ago but want to do the 1.4 version in order to learn a bit more about tags, EL, etc. I used the first version of the Study Kit for that certification and was happy with it. I wasn't really that fond of Head First Java so I've been surprised each time I find myself impressed with HFS&J. JSP and Servlets have gotten pretty complicated (maybe too complicated) and I think HFS&J does a good job of making sure you understand the simple structure below the complexity, like why in the world you'd want to use EL. (though I still feel that everyone is trying to convince themselves that mixing html and code is far worse than it really is but that's another question). In any case I think that HFS&J really does make sense of all this, and by berating you into doing the exercises, probably does a better job of getting you to learn it. On the other hand if you already understand the logic of jsps and servlets and just want to cover all the technical details that will help you pass the test then maybe the Study Kit is better. I know that the humorous aspect of HFS&J will just be too much for some people and a breath of fresh air for others. All in all though I like them both but HFS&J is no doubt much more humorous than the Study Kit. I'd almost go so far as to say that you ought to pick up HFS&J and look at the pictures when you're in a foul mood. They'll bring a smile to your face. I do think that makes it a little easier to pick up the book when you really don't feel like studying anything.

It's correct. If you have a string "abcd", substring(0,2) will give you "ab". That's because the first argument is 0 based, so you get "a",a nd the second is not 0 based, so you get "b". Absolutely inconsistent but correct.

Answering my own question, removing "align='left'" from table definition solved the problem. Though I'm not sure why it was a problem.