ErlyWeb 0.2

Yari Sadan is going gang busters with his ErlyWeb MVC framework written in Erlang. I have been meaning to get into Erlang just to learn about it to some extent, so this maybe the perfect opportunity to do so. ErlyWeb 2.0 just came out. Go get it while its hot!

Some interesting Ruby Code

Just so I don't forget, this has some good examples of reading and scanning files and building a new config file out of it. Incidentally, this creates a Django admin interface from a RoR schema.rb file. But that is not the purpose of me posting it here, this is more as a future reference type thingy. :)

The same thing, in nice ruby syntax hightlighted form is available at "Rails to Django" pastie.

#!/usr/local/bin/ruby

def tablize(word)
a = word.split(/_/).map {|l| l.capitalize}.join("")
a[-1].chr[/s/i] ? a[0..-2] : a
end

def args_mapper(args)
@float = nil
hash = args.split(/,\s+/).inject({}) do |hsh, cur|
key, value = cur.split(" => ")
key.strip!
key = key[/^:/] ? key[1..-1] : key
value = value.capitalize if ["true", "false"].include?(value)
@float = true if key.eql?("default") and value[/^\d+\.\d+$/] and @float.nil?
case key
when "limit"
hsh["maxlength"] = value
else
hsh[key] = value unless value.empty?
end
hsh
end
if @float
hash["max_digits"] = hash.delete("maxlength")
hash["decimal_places"] = 2
end
hash
end

def column_mapper(column)
case column
when "string"
column = "Char"
when "datetime"
column = "DateTime"
else
column = tablize(column)
end
column + "Field"
end

def mapper(line)
line.scan(/t.column\s+"(\w+)".*?:(\w+),?(.*)/) do |column, column_type, args|
if fk = column[/(\w+)_id/, 1]
return [fk, "ForeignKey", "'%s'" % tablize(fk)]
end
return [column, column_mapper(column_type), args_mapper(args)]
end
end

schema = IO.read("schema.rb")
django = ["from django.db import models", "import datetime"]
schema.scan(/create_table\s(.*?)end/m).flatten.each do |chunk|
chunk.scan(/(\w+)",\s:force\s=>\strue\sdo\s\|t\|\n(.*)$/m).each do |table, data|
django << "class %s(models.Model):" % tablize(table)
data.chomp.split("\n").each do |line|
column, column_type, args = mapper(line)
args["maxlength"] = 255 if column_type.eql?("CharField") and args["maxlength"].nil?
unless column.nil? or column_type.nil? or args.nil?
@first = column if @first.nil? and not column_type.eql?("ForeignKey")
args = args.is_a?(Hash) ? args.map {|k, v| "%s=%s" % [k, v]}.join(", ") : args
django << " %s = models.%s(%s)" % [column, column_type, args]
end
end
django << " class Meta:"
django << " db_table = '%s'" % table
django << " class Admin:"
django << " pass"
unless @first.nil?
django << " def __str__(self):"
django << " return self.%s" % @first
end
end
django << "\n\n"
@first = nil
end

open("django.txt", "w+") do |file|
file.write(django.join("\n"))
end


Jumping off of Rails (for now)

I think it doesn't make business sense for meto use Rails for my site right now. PHP has more off the shelf parts available while every rails job seems to be custom job and rails developers are so much in demand that no one wants to charge less than 150 bucks an hour yup!! and that is if they deem you worthy enough to talk to you.

Basically, the mom and pop outfits are either supposed to roll their own or go bankrupt (OR, use PHP off the shelf scripts if they are fortunate enough to be entering familiar terrain).

So, I think I have made up my mind that Forums, Classifieds, business Directory and some kind of a social bookmarking digg like functionality Would be done via PHP for tingoo.com

I only need to figure out how I am going to make the transition and how exactly I am going to get a proper look and feel designed for the site. Currently it has my design fu, and I gotta admit, IT SUCKS :-) hehe...

But one thing is for sure, I need to focus on the business end and stop bullshitting on the latest chrome coming out of the Rails shop because most of that is too magicky for me to use properly (for now). Hopefully, when I get more time, I'll get back into converting the site into Rails, but right now it is a bit much for me.

Hoping this approach works out from a business perspective.