DRb and Rinda for Distributed Computation Prototyping

Posted by Eric Stewart Tue, 29 Aug 2006 03:51:00 GMT

Earlier this year I ventured back from a very enjoyable year building and deploying a project in Ruby on Rails into the familiar territory of Java. Ruby has become cemented as a valuable tool that will certainly remain near the top of my tool box, ready for use.

Right now, however, I’m working on problems that are outside the realm of where Ruby shines (though I’m certain it’ll catch up soon enough). In particular, I recently had the need to research some ideas on creating a solution for a problem that lends itself to distributed computation.

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Ruby Sightings: amaroK

Posted by Eric Stewart Sun, 12 Mar 2006 08:03:00 GMT

I never realized the amaroK developers had any affinity toward Ruby.

As a part time user of Linux, usually Kubuntu these days, I occasionally use amaroK for playing music to work by. As Linux music player + library applications go, it’s one of the nicest you can find with some features that you don’t find in many other players.

amaroK, like an increasing amount of modern software, supports scripting to allow users to extend the software’s capabilities. They do this by taking advantage of amaroK’s DCOP interface.

This makes it possible to write scripts in almost any programming language, like Ruby, Python or bash scripting. The recommended programming language is Ruby, which is easy to learn and very well suited for amaroK scripting. The amaroK team will be happy to assist you if you have questions regarding Ruby programming.

Not surprisingly, they even recommend Ruby as a nice way to script the application, though they support other languages.

As development goes on, in fact, they are converting compiled portions of code to scripts that can be customized or replaced. This solution came to light after requests by users to support additional sources of song lyrics and deal with the brittle way they interfaced with such sites.

Sooooo, what to do? Scripts to the rescue! What I did is, ripped the hardcoded Lyrc code out. Ported the C++ code to Ruby. Then added a couple of DCOP calls and script notifications for the communication Script <—> amaroK. Added a slice of XML, and you get your spicy new Scriptable Lyrics Feature, mmh.

There was a bit of reaction in the post referenced above to the dependency on Ruby for the newly converted portion of default functionality. If KDE had a default scripting language (similar to the OS X/Applescript relationship) I’d understand those complaints a little more. But then again, OS X installs Python and Ruby by default along with Applescript and nobody really complains.

Is a dependency on a language runtime very different from a dependency on a given library?

Update: As Cornelius Schumacher points out, other KDE projects beginning to do similar things.

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Did somebody pull the plug?

Posted by Eric Stewart Fri, 17 Feb 2006 04:06:00 GMT

Is Alexander Muse right? In Brain Drain for Austin he muses that Austin is losing ground to our neighbor up the road, Dallas.

Another hi-tech company has given up the ghost and decided to leave Austin for the Dallas suburb of Plano. General Bandwidth, …

This loss follows several high profile losses for the city including Tyco’s departure last year.  And one of several big wins for Dallas including Wednesdays announcement of QI System’s move to the city from Canada.  I think we are witnessing a gravitational shift from Austin to Dallas – Austin will still be important, but the resources (human and otherwise) available in Dallas will irresistable for companies seeking a place to live.

Certainly Dallas is a much bigger city, but Austin has always had a strong tech presence including big players like IBM, Motorola (now Freescale), AMD, and National Instruments just to name a few. Not to mention the multitude of smaller players and startups. In fact, Austin just recently won out in a battle over the new future headquarters of Freescale. There is a ton of talent here.

Or is there?

By far, most of the jobs I see listed in the Austin market are for generic J2EE web/enterprise shops. I know there are companies with other software/hardware products out there. Has Austin’s talent pool become too heavy in one area? Are there just not enough tech workers? Or is it just the usual tax incentives game?

Maybe Alexander is jumping the gun. I hope not. If so, what can be done to attract more companies?

I’m not really sure either, but can someone check the plug just to be safe?

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X Compositing Is Slick

Posted by Eric Stewart Thu, 09 Feb 2006 01:57:00 GMT

Not long ago I finally upgraded my Kubuntu Linux machine from Hoary Hedgehog to Breezy Badger. Since I was in a masochistic mood (although the upgrade went surprisingly well with only a few minor hiccups), I decided to try enabling compositing in XWindows.

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Google Accessibility Petition

Posted by Eric Stewart Sat, 21 Jan 2006 19:47:00 GMT

All you web developers and users out there should go take a look at the Google Word Verification Accessiblity Petition that was started by Blind Access Journal.

In a nutshell, it’s asking Google to make their captcha scheme used in registering for services accessible. A user that doesn’t see so well hits a roadblock when they are presented with those crazy little captcha graphics.

The typical solution for most cases of this problem is to provide an audio equivalent.

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