IronJS – A new JavaScript Compiler for the DLR

Source: InfoQ

With Jscript.NET more or less abandoned by Microsoft, there is an opening for a new JavaScript compatible language on the CLR. Fredrik Holmström is trying to fill the void with IronJS. Like the other Iron languages by Microsoft and independent developers, it is based on the Dynamic Language Runtime. This includes the DLR’s hosting framework and unified object model.

While still in the early stages, IronJS currently runs CLR 2 and Mono 2.6 and can compile jQuery 1.4. IronJS is being offered on github under the Microsoft Public License.

Google pulls plug on Google Gears, leaves developers stranded

Source: Garret Rogers

Google Gears was a plugin for modern browsers that gave developers a great way to bring their web applications offline. An example of this would be offline support in Gmail — where you would be able to basically use the service regardless of your internet connection status. Unfortunately, this is the end of the road for the feature.

Pulling the plug, is the responsible thing for Google to do, though it’s not going to be popular. Browsers are natively beginning to support new web standards, like HTML5, that basically make Google Gears functionality extraneous. Keeping such a product alive simply adds unnecessary fragmentation.

Why won’t it be popular? There are lots of companies that embraced Google Gears. They spent a lot of time and effort developing applications that take full advantage of the plugin — and now it’s being discontinued. Google will support Google gears, but it doesn’t sound like there will be any active development on it.

Working with Vzaar via jQuery and JSON

For those who wants to use Vzaar from HTML based applications, here is the little hint for you, actually few. First of all use ‘official API’ URLs, here http://developer.vzaar.com/docs/ you can find all necessary information about how to make an account, how to connect to Vzaar,  and what parameters you can send to API in order to get your data in format you need including with some filtering applied.

You also have to be aware of that on Vzaar you can have two types of of accounts one is sandbox account that you are using for ‘trial’ and testing purposes and another one is ‘live mode’ account. For both accounts you need to generate token if you are going to use some video manipulations and want to have access to private videos. If you are just about to make ‘another Youtube’ service and want to play some videos from other users, you can do it without token, as long as someone’s video is public it can be embedded anywhere.

Vzaar API available with XML and JSON interfaces, following example shows how to connect to ‘Video List’ end point described here http://developer.vzaar.com/docs/version_1.0/public/video_list

In this example we are using jQuery in order to access Vzaar API, following code extracts list of videos and shows video thumbnail and video title one after another one.

$(function() {
   $.getJSON('http://vzaar.com/api/skitsanos/videos.json?callback=?', function (videos) {
    for (var i = 0, l = videos.length; i < l; i++) {
     var video = videos[i];
     $('<tr><td><img src="' + video.thumbnail + '"/><br/><div class="ui-widget-header">' + video.title + '</div></td></tr>').appendTo('#videos');
    }
   });
  });

URL like this http://vzaar.com/api/skitsanos/videos.json?callback=? will tell you that I’m connecting on live mode API account (otherwise it would be sandbox.vzaar.com) for user skitsanos and i want my data in JSON format. Last parameter callback=? tells jQuery that function handler is embedded within my getJSON body. As result of this service call i will receive Videos object as it described here http://developer.vzaar.com/docs/version_1.0/public/video_list

You can download complete working sample from here http://vzaar.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/api/php/trunk/tests/jQueryCallbacks/

Predictive Fetch with jQuery and the ASP.NET Ajax Library

Dino Esposito builds upon his exploration of new data binding features coming in the ASP.NET Ajax Library, explaining how to implement the predictive fetch design pattern.

Last month I discussed the implementation of master-detail views using the new features coming with the ASP.NET Ajax Library. The list of new features includes a syntax for client-side live data binding and a rich rendering component, exemplified by the DataView client control. By putting these features together, you can easily build nested views to represent one-to-many data relationships.

In the ASP.NET Ajax Library, the mechanics of master-detail views are largely defined in the logic of the DataView component and in the way the component handles and exposes its events.

This month I’ll go one step further and discuss how to implement a common and popular AJAX design pattern—predictive fetch—on top of the ASP.NET Ajax Library. Basically, I’ll extend last month’s example—a relatively standard drill-down view into customer details—to automatically and asynchronously download and display related orders, if any exist. In doing so, I’ll touch on some jQuery stuff and take a look at the new jQuery integration API in the ASP.NET Ajax Library.

Continue reading…