Nick Sieger: Category java

ActiveRecord JDBC adapter as Rails plugin

2006-06-26T17:53:00+00:00

I’ve got things set up in my svn repo such that you pull down my ActiveRecord JDBC adapter as a Rails plugin. Although it appears that using ‘script/plugin’ inside of JRuby may have some issues. So for now, use C Ruby. Inside your Rails app, do:

ruby script/plugin install http://svn.caldersphere.net/svn/main/activerecord-jdbc/trunk/activerecord_jdbc/

This should pull down and configure the JDBC adapter for you with no additional setup. If it doesn’t, let me know and we’ll work through it. I haven’t yet tried running a Rails app inside of JRuby yet but I hope to in the next couple of days.

I am also starting to investigate testing with another database, hsqldb. I think the driver could benefit from attempting to use some additional databases, if we’re ever going to fulfill the promise of leveraging any JDBC data source, and also I think it would be cool to use an embedded database in the spirit of SQLite which has become popular with smaller Rails apps in C Ruby-based Rails land.

Update: it turns out you can’t easily install a new ActiveRecord adapter as a Rails plugin at this point with out some extra finagling, because of the way Rails::Initializer initializes the database before any of the plugins. For now, I’ve got the plugin set up to re-initialize all of the ActiveRecord infrastructure, so in order to use the JDBC adapter plugin, you’ll need to add the following to your config/environment.rb. Note that you’re not “skipping” ActiveRecord, just initializing it later.

  # Skip frameworks you're not going to use
  config.frameworks -= [:active_record]

Why does an array index start at 0, not 1

2006-07-27T14:57:00+00:00

If you were looking for an answer to this question, you apparently cannot get a straight one in the java forums. Just one of many choice quotes:

Anyway, any logically counting would start at 0.

I tried that once. I referred to my son as “Number Zero Son”. Got a definitely negative response.

JRuby and Sun

2006-09-08T15:11:00+00:00

The noise is deafening by now, but I’m feeling the desire to chime in publicly with my congratulations and support for Charlie and Tom. JRuby has come a long way in the past six months, and this is strong validation of that fact.

As I hinted back in May, this is getting big, and it’s been a pleasure to have been on the JRuby train! The future is bright for Ruby and Java the platform, and JRuby is leading the way.

Gig: Speaking at RailsConf Europe 2007

2007-09-14T05:33:00+00:00

Speaking of keeping busy, I’ll be speaking alongside my colleague Craig McClanahan at RailsConf Europe in Berlin next week.

Sun is a Diamond Sponsor at RailsConf again, just like in Portland last May. Part of that sponsorship money pays for a brief keynote spot (filled by Craig) as well as a session or two. So no, I didn’t get my spot through an accepted proposal submission, but that doesn’t mean that the session is going to be a big marketing shill.

No, actually Craig and I are part of a small group at Sun that’s embracing Rails in a big way, and we’re going to be launching a site built mostly on Rails later this fall. We’re taking what we think are some novel approaches to building a Rails-based application and we thought we’d share some of those thoughts with you rather than drone on for the session about how great Sun is and what snazzy tools we make. (Although expect to see a subtle plug or two for Sun hardware and tools. Call it product placement rather than overt selling.)

I titled the session “Rails Hydra” because the central idea of the structure of our application is not one Rails app, but many. The UI and views don’t even talk to a database; instead they make use of ActiveResource and RESTful web services, talking to the models living in other Rails applications in the backend. One key point is we’re deploying .war files to JRuby running on Glassfish, thus avoiding headaches of morbidly multiplying Mongrel math. We’ll elaborate on this arrangement and talk about some of the other tools and tricks we’re using.

Also, Charlie, Tom and Ola will be there, so we’ll certainly have a JRuby summit at some point. Stop by and say hello!