It really get’s hot within the Rails developer community. Joyent, the creator of Rails-web-based collaboration applications from California, is developing Slingshot: By using Slingshot you can deploy Rails applications as stand-alone apps on Mac OS X or Windows. The Rails apps can be used without the browser and in an offline environment. Back online the stand-alone Slingshot application and the online server based app can be synchronized.
The project is in an early stage – although it proves again that the Ruby-on-Rails community is pure innovation in these days. Slingshot is another argument for elegant coding with Ruby-on-Rails.
By the way, also Adobe is trying to merge the Web online and the Desktop offline world with their Apollo project. However they do not use Ruby-on-Rails but their Flash programming environment Flex.

Sources & Picture: joyent.com, joyent-com/developers/slingshot, labs.adobe.com/technologies/apollo/

As a web developer you are spoilt for choice: Which script language should you focus on? Which one suites best for your future projects? Which framework speeds up your development? Furthermore the development of the script language and the framework are often open source projects nowadays. Behind PHP the company Zend is also a key driver. So the question here is: Which open source project is developing best over time? Compared to the established solution PHP, the community around the Rails framework written in the script language Ruby is fast-paced. And Rails promises clear, structured, elegant and above all fast coding. What road to take? Mehr …

From June 11 to 15 it’s all about the Mac developer community in San Francisco under the warm sun of California: At the Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference the whole hardware and software developer community is gathering to get and exchange Mac first-hand insights.
The company is running a scholarship program for students developing for the Mac – 500 students will get scholarships to enter the conference for free (a US $ 1,559 $ value). But coming to California has to be arranged by the student him- or herself.
Application deadline is March 19, 2007 – so, if you are a student and want to join the conference, apply now.

Source: development.apple.com

The UNIX foundation of Mac OS X and JAVA as a platform independent programming language show their advantages when you search for development tools on the Mac.
You better don’t look back to the times of Mac OS 7, 8 or 9 and the beginning of the web revolution: most of the time you had to deal with stone-age tools as a web developer on the Mac.
But, how can you setup a productive web development environment on the Mac, today? Which software supports the development of server- and database-based web applications? Mehr …