Halogen Labs

I’ve decided to step away from the Cocoon community, and I’ve unsubscribed from the relevant mailing lists. Here’s a copy of the message I sent:

Hey everyone,

After thinking long and hard, I’ve decided to unsubscribe from the Cocoon mailing lists and step away from the community.

I have a few reasons for it, but the main ones are:

- My job involves Struts, and there’s no chance of having Cocoon in here any time soon.

- I’ve never built a production site with Cocoon, and it’s starting to look like I never will have the chance.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but I was mostly prompted by a quote in Ugo’s latest blogging:

“For an uncommon number of developers, the lure of an untried API or the novelty of a new development model is simply irresistible. Such folks seem to be focused on the journey rather than the destination – which is philosophically delightful but practically frustrating. The urge to play with a new toy seems to overwhelm the ability to rationally evaluate a technology on its merits, as if it’s ‘newness’ excused any faults and weaknesses it might have.”

Indeed, the journey was a great one. I’ve met a bunch of virtual friends (sorry for never getting to a GT). I picked up a ton of skills: XML, Java, Servlets, etc. I got to review new books for Cocoon before they came out. I was exposed to thinks like Hibernate, Castor, and a ton of good practices. I probably also have the strongest XSLT skills of any of my co-workers ;)

Like Ugo, my current obsession is Rails. Unfortunately, I’m being paid to write apps in JSP and Struts, and there’s no chance of things being moved to Cocoon or Rails. Thus, I’ve decided that although using Cocoon was at one point in my life relevant (I once held a job where it was actually going to be used), I’ve been “holding on” mostly for the novelty of it and it’s not worth my time to try to keep up with what’s going on in the project.

In the meantime, I’m planning on ramping up my blogging.. so keep in touch.

So long,
Tony

(via Agylen, and weblog.rubyonrails.com)

A lucid example and case for moving from Java to Rails. Well thought-out arguments, and weighs the pros and cons of migrating from Java to the Ruby world.

Although there are still some lingering questions about things like scalability and I18N/L10N, I’m sure they’ll be answered in good time. Rails is still a young framework, and there are some really bright minds guiding the direction of it.

Wow, I’ve been at my new job for seven months already. Time flies when you’re actually busy doing work :)

• Sylvain has a new blog
• Cocoon 2.1.8 was released
• Like many people, I’ve been learning Ruby and making things with Rails

Unfortunately, my involvement with the Cocoon community has dwindled, partly due to my job having nothing to do with Cocoon (Struts.. don’t get me started!), but also to not having any time or interest in doing this kind of stuff in my freetime.

I’ve also rekindled efforts in my Skunkworks project called openWeather, which is probably at least as old as this blog, and I still have nothing to show for it :) I’ve mainly been looking at rewriting the stuff I have that uses Castor XML/Hibernate/Cocoon into Ruby/Rails.

Also on my plate: openTraffic. The local Dept. of Transportation pushes a *large* XML file of traffic flow information for the local freeways every 30 seconds, and there could be a lot of interesting stuff in that area as well.

All that being said, I miss blogging, and will probably re-launch this blog, but remove the Cocoon focus and try to be a little more general in topic. Stay tuned.