This Week on developerworks: Ruby, AIX, collaboration, BPM, Blogger API Episode date: 10-06-2011 developerworks: Welcome to This Week On developerworks. I'm Scott Laningham in Austin, Texas, and John Swanson joins me over Skype from Boston, Massachusetts, as usual. John, good to have you on, buddy. Swanson: How are you doing, Scott? developerworks: I'm doing good. And everybody of course knows that developerworks is IBM's premiere technical resource for software developers with tools, code, and education on IBM products and open standards technology. John and I are here every week to give you a quick run down of what's new on the site, and we're going to do that again today. But first, the new iphone came out yesterday. Swanson: You got yours? developerworks: No. I don't have an iphone. It's still cool, though. It came out. It's cool. Swanson: It's very cool. I'm not. developerworks: Do you have an iphone? Swanson: No, no, I don't. I know someone who does. Does that count? developerworks: Yes, it does. And, you know what? Now, the iphone 3G, or whatever it is, is free with the new contract. Now, there's one for everybody in the family: the free people, the $99 people, and the $500,000 phone. Swanson: I gotta go. [ LAUGHTER ] developerworks: Okay. On to what's important here. John, what have you got going this week in the newsletter? Swanson: This week's newsletter, we're shining a spotlight on, IBM's got some new software they're rolling out for business agility basically helping businesses to sort of take advantage of the uncertainty of change and complexity and to harness that...and basically make the most of that, because agile businesses are the ones that are really going to succeed going forward in the marketplace right now. So this is really their time. And IBM has a package of solutions that I think that we believe can really, really put businesses at the forefront and take on the competition and take 'em down. developerworks: Yes. We've got some great experts in the field of agile software development, like Scott Ambler and others that we've interviewed
before. We may even see Scott at Information on Demand in a couple of weeks. So a very interesting subject, you know, the idea of being agile, being flexible, adaptable, whether you're a software development team or a business in general. Swanson: Yes. developerworks: Or a family or an individual or a country. You know, I mean, those are critical skills more and more with each passing year, aren't they? Swanson: Indeed. And the reality is that in this day and age if you want to survive in the marketplace, you really have to be agile. And that's the key, and that is really the critical component of all of this. We're going to be launching, I believe this week there is a new agile business agility resource, and I believe it's on the WebSphere section of the developerworks, the WebSphere Zone, but it does really apply to a wide range of interests, so it's really worth checking out from just about any standpoint of anyone who is interested in what's going on in developerworks. developerworks: So John's focus this week in the newsletter, IBM software for business agility, lots of good content there. Be sure and check that out and of course, subscribe if you're not subscribed. We tell you that every week and you need to really get subscribed to those newsletters. Swanson: Are you listening? Are you listening, people? [ LAUGHTER ] developerworks: Let's jump to the home page now on developerworks, ibm.com/developerworks and quickly give you a sense of what's new on the home page this week. The feature story this week is data mining with Ruby and Twitter. Learn how Twitter is a treasure trove of information about behaviors of users as well as trends at the local and global levels. Examine simple scripts using the Ruby language and the Twitter gem and API wrapper for Twitter. Discover why Twitter is not only a real-time social networking tool; it's also a source of rich information that's ripe for data mining. Swanson: On the AIX and UNIX zone, we've got set up a firewall on AIX using TCP/IP filtering. And it shows readers how to configure an AIX server to filter TCP/IP traffic and implement an extra layer of security. Readers will begin with a short review of TCP/IP networks and then look at the packages, steps, and commands required to enable and set up TCP/IP filtering capabilities. developerworks: Next, from the Java Technology Zone, we have a piece in the functional thinking series. This one is coupling and composition, part two. Programmers accustomed to using the building blocks of object
orientation, like inheritance, polymorphism and so on, can become blind both to its shortcomings and to alternatives. So functional programming using different building blocks to achieve reuse based on more generalpurpose concepts like list transformations and portable code. This installment of functional thinking compares coupling via inheritance with composition as reuse mechanisms and pinpoints one of the key differences between imperative and functional programming. Swanson: In the Linux Zone, we've got an internationalization piece, specifically internationalization in mixed Linux/Windows environments. It says here, mixed environments create special issues for companies using non-ascii character sets along with older versions of Windows and Samba. Readers will learn how to work with code pages for those situations where Unicode is not supported. developerworks: Next in the Rational Zone, we have why software quality assurance and IT security need to work together. Clearly they do, right? So here, this article describes a new approach to security with a software development and software quality assurance teams working together to be exponentially more effective. It explains how quality assurance processes can help IT be more secure and how IT security can help secure the test environment more efficiently. Readers will also learn how to incorporate security testing better into the software development life cycle. Swanson: The WebSphere Zone has rolled out another edition of the IBM Business Process Management Journal, and this particular issue shows readers how to maximize business values through integration of the IBM Business Process Manager as well as show them how to achieve end-to-end visibility of their business systems. That and a whole lot more in the latest Business Process Management Journal. developerworks: I didn't know there was an IBM BPM journal. IBM...I said IPM. IBM BPM. You say that three times real fast, John. Swanson: Say it 10 times fast. developerworks: IBM BPM. Swanson: IBM Journal. Yes, indeed we do, and it's only a few issues old, I believe. So you can't be blamed too much for not knowing that. developerworks: Okay. Well, clearly business process management is becoming more important all the time. So no wonder we have a journal for it. Lastly, from the XML Zone, one more piece, integrate Blogger content with PHP applications using the Blogger data API. Of course, most people here will know Blogger is a free popular blogging platform that lets users create their own web blogs and post messages and news through a WYSIWYG editing interface. With the Blogger data API, which is REST-based, you can access Blogger content through any XML-compliant programming tool kit. In this article, learn how to use the Blogger data API to list blog content, add or edit blog posts, and manipulate blog comments with the
Zend frameworks Zen-Gdata component. You'll build a simple application that demonstrates the power of the Blogger API. Very cool. Have you ever used Blogger? Swanson: I have never used Blogger, but I was going to say, this begs the question, Scott, have you updated your blog today? developerworks: You know, I will be shortly. Swanson: Oh, okay. developerworks: I will be. Swanson: By the time this is out there on the interwebs, it will be updated. developerworks: This will be going on to my blog, absolutely. This is the post of Wednesday. Swanson: I always look forward to reading your latest. developerworks: Well, thank you. And I, of course, as I've said in the past, I look forward to reading your blog, even though you told me you don't have one. But I know you blog on a group blog, so, and that one again, is that the developerworks enthusiast's blog? Which blog do you group blog on? Swanson: developerworks enthusiast's blog is where I post the intro every week, and I welcome anyone and everyone. Come see it and of course even more so, I welcome new subscribers. developerworks: Absolutely. And so everyone, you can find John's blogging on the developerworks enthusiast's blog on developerworks. If you search in our blog section, you can find mine under my name, Scott Laningham, and developerworks new media, I think is what it says. And we try to, between us, we try to let you know about all the great content, at least from the standpoint of what we're publishing in new media or on the newsletter each week. So you can describe to those feeds there. You can describe to John's newsletter, again, John's newsletter, the customizable developerworks newsletter at ibm.com/developerworks/newsletter. And of course follow all this stuff that we're doing on our YouTube channel and on itunes and we have a Livestream channel now as well, which is going to be used for certain types of long form content and maybe some live events that we stream from conferences and things like that. And that is livestream.com/ibmdeveloperworks. There's only one piece of content in it today, but we're going to be adding more this week. There's a new interview...actually a keynote address given by Robert LaBlanc, senior IBM VP in the middleware area in Software Group. And he's talking about IBM at a hundred years old, the
centennial, of course, this year. And it's a very interesting talk that he gave, so I encourage people to check that out on our Livesstream channel. So I guess that's enough. I guess we can let people go. Swanson: No shortage of options here. developerworks: They've got a work week ahead of them. Swanson: Overwhelmed all of us. developerworks: I'm Scott Laningham with John Swanson. John, thanks for being here. Swanson: Thanks, Scott. developerworks: Thank you all for listening to This Week On developerworks. We'll see you next week. [ MUSIC ]