Leopard Installed

It's my second day running with Leopard and just about everything has gone smoothly.  I installed it without too much trouble on my MacBook and my PowerMac G5.  I say not too much trouble because not everything was perfect.  

Twice since installing Leopard on my G5 it's not gone to sleep on demand.  Instead it goes into a coma and starts snoring.  By that I mean all the USB devices shut off, the video signal goes away but the computer doesn't quite sleep.  Instead, all the fans start to spin up. For anyone that's never heard a G5's fans go nuts... it's like a small jet engine.  The only recourse is a hard restart.  I installed the first Leopard update and it hasn't repeated this stunt but I'm keeping an eye on it just in case.

The second thing is that MySQL won't start.  I've read a few things on the Internet and it just doesn't look the MySQL project is ready for Leopard. They had bug reports before 10.5 shipped but decided to just wait until it went gold. I guess I'll just have to patiently wait for an update.  No biggie.  I'll just use the built-in SQLite instead.

The third thing that I wasn't prepared for was the retirement of Classic OS 9 support.  I don't personally use any OS 9 apps  but my kids used to play the occasional game.  Sorry Rolly McFly.  Your days are over.

The last thing that isn't too big of a problem but a big disappointment is that the Java 6 SDK is MIA.  I guess I never really saw official mention of it, but I really expected Java 6 to ship with Leopard.  C'mon Apple!  I was there when Steve Jobs and Avie Tevanian stood up at JavaOne and said they'd have the best Java implementation on any platform.  You're definitely letting me down on this one.

Now onto the good news.  Everything else just works!  Mail is cool.  Safari is blazingly fast.  Dropped network connections don't mean a frozen finder anymore. Quick Look is sweet.  And Ruby is built-in.  I just deleted my old custom Ruby installation and everything (other than MySQL) continues to work.  My IDEs function properly (Eclipse & NetBeans) and despite the lack of Java 6, Java 5 on my Mac is still noticeably faster than Java 5 on Windows at work.  I don't mind the translucent menu bar and Cover Flow in the finder is nice but mostly unnecessary for me.  

The biggest shock to the system was the developer tools.  I've built the occasional Mac app, and while I'm no wizard at it, I got along just fine thanks.  So naturally I wanted to try the Ruby/Cocoa integration.  Then I opened Interface Builder.  Yikes!  That certainly  got a major overhaul!  Looks better, but now I see that I need to spend some time trying to figure out what's what.

So if someone asks whether they should upgrade or not.  I'd definitely give it the thumbs up.  Just make sure you don't need classic and if you're a geek like me, be prepared for a little bit of adjustment to the changes under that spiffy new exterior.

JRuby and Rails in the Enterprise

At work, management is finally getting the message about dynamic languages like Ruby and starting to recognize that frameworks like Rails may have productivity benefits.  We're actually going to look at doing a pilot project.  I like to think that I've had some influence in that but you never know...

Anyway, I would love to make this work but this is a Java shop through and through.  We can only deploy to a Java web container, specifically Weblogic 8.1 (the transition to Weblogic 10 is happening but it's months away).  I've used JRuby (works great BTW) and the JRuby extras to help me deploy an app to Tomcat, but I can't manage to get JRuby and Rails working in Weblogic 8.1.  Any ideas?

Secondly, Groovy and Grails is the other contender.  I like the idea behind Groovy and Grails but I can't help feel that it's a pale imitation of Ruby and Rails.  Anybody have enough experience to compare and share?

Finally, I'm not naive enough to think that this will cure all the ills of working in the "big enterprise".  When I think about all the things that bug me, the technology is probably the smallest thing that causes me pain.  But on the other hand, this would be a wonderful distraction. :-)

Leopard

I think it's fair to say that I could be characterized as a Mac "fanboy" from time to time.  I've been known to spout pro-Mac statements occasionally.  I take some unfounded pride in the fact that Apple's market cap is now bigger than IBM or Intel. And I love the fact that Apple just had yet another record quarter....

Perhaps it's just the validation of what I've felt in all the years that I've used a Mac, it's just plain better than Windows!  So now I sit here waiting for my pre-order of Mac OS X - Leopard to get to my house.  It's supposed to arrive tomorrow but the status already changed to "shipped".  To fill some of my waiting time I watched Apple's guided tour. I read some of the reviews (evolutionary not revolutionary) but I still can't help but be excited.  It's like a little bit of Christmas in October.

I'm sure I'll be underwhelmed a bit once the glow of a new OS has worn off but for awhile I'll revel in my fanboyism.  So if you too are a bit excited about the next Mac OS release, roll over to AppleInsider and feel free to take part in the unbridled Mac love fest and read some of the "Road to Mac OS X Leopard" series. Some of them are quite well written and will give you a good perspective of where Apple and NeXT have been and how the features in Leopard came to be.  Ignore the fact that some of the statements are a little too biased toward Apple and just enjoy the moment...