BigUniverse.com - A Site Built Using Rails, OpenLaszlo and Other Open Source Tools

Big Universe® is an award winning web community devoted to beautiful children's picture books. Read hundreds of offerings from today's best children's book publishers, Create e-books with the help of an easy-to-use Author Tool, and Connect with other Big Universe members to share your creations and to learn what books they have read, created, or recommend.

Effectively Developing Software

• View a 24-slide presentation (14MB PDF) on how to effectively develop software using agile processes and models.
• See an Agile Model Driven Development (AMDD) 8-week project illustrated using comics.

Agile Draw is a lightweight, expressive convention for application modeling and design, in a drawing context. It uses simple shapes and drawing concepts to efficiently convey meaning. It promotes expressive communication over tools, and understanding over processes. Read more about it.

Development Technologies : Java and Ruby

• View a presentation from JavaOne 2008 (PDF; 8.4 MB), titled "From Java to Ruby... and Back." Learn how and why Java and Ruby work so well together.
• See crude performance benchmarks between these two languages.

Book: Agile Java™ Development with Spring, Hibernate and Eclipse

• Thousands of copies sold!
• Finalists in 2007 Java Developer's Journal Readers' Choice Awards.
  Available in English, Chinese, Portuguese & German.
• Download (.ppt/9.0MB, .pdf/46.9MB!) the 2-hour presentation based on this book ... delivered to over 1,600+ people in 4 continents (8 countries, 14 cities).
• Read the sample chapters, forewords, testimonials, and more; and/or, download the time sheet application used in the book.
  

The idea behind this concept is to show project stakeholders continuous progress of a software being constructed; it also allows developers to see where their piece fits into the big picture.

Click here to view global polls on topics such as Ruby, UML, IDEs, and more.

Concept: Build a Wiki System with Rails

Download RailsWiki (v0.5), a simple yet powerful Ruby based Wiki system built using the Rails, Crypt, and RedCloth gems. Features include basic file management, a text markup language for HTML formatting, blowfish cipher for storing encrypted wiki files on the server, CSS for easy style control, and more.

• BackOnline - Robust 100% Java Client-Server Personal Backup Software (free!)
• Home grown model: Application Flow Map
• Opinion: UML Diagrams
• Resources: Cool Tools