Every few years, I learn a new approach to software development or a new set of tools, that once mastered, leaves me thinking that I finally really understand how to do my job. Instead of being concerned that up to that point I hadn’t really known what I was doing, I am reassured that now, finally, I have a firm grasp of whatever it is that I think I should be doing. But, as I said, I seem to go through this every few years, and as I’ve discussed this with other software developers, it seems that I am not alone.

I have come to look forward to these periods of graduated evolution in my career, and I think that perhaps by the end of 2007, I may have completed another of these phases. So, in this post, rather than embarrass myself making belated predictions for what will be hot in 2007, and almost certainly getting it wrong, I’d like to reflect on a few things the value of which I have slowly begun to realize and which I would like to incorporate into my development practices in the near future.

So, I set out to find an open source RSS aggregator that would allow for a default set of feeds to be available to everyone on the home page, but also allow for multiple users to save, view, and share their own feeds. I also wanted something I could deploy, configure and support easily.

I didn’t find the perfect software package for my needs, but I found something that fit my general philosophy that I could comfortably customize: Lylina, a open source, LAMP based aggregator that supports multiple users, default feeds, searching capabilities and a “river of news” approach to viewing posts by date posted, not by the site to which they belong. This blog post focuses on my installation and configuration of this software, its good points and bad.

I am a Django newbie: I have gotten my feet wet exploring Django and have started building my first serious application with it. I am having more fun with Django than I have had with any other software tool in a long time, and I would like to share a few things I have learned along the way so far, that might help other newbies. If you are a more experienced Django-neer reading this and notice areas for improvement or outright mistakes, I would be very grateful for the feedback.

As I suggested in an earlier post, I’d like to discuss the choices that we as software developers have when it comes to implementing applications. These choices can be as fundamental as your programming language, your choice of tools, such as your IDE, or the libraries you use, such as your ORM or AJAX choice. There seems to be a number of people who seem embarrassed by the amount of choice available; they believe there should only be one correct choice of a programming language, IDE, application framework, etc., and we should be able to objectively decide what these choices should be and use that set of tools from now until we retire. Of course, the choices they have objectively chosen are correct, and if you believe otherwise, then you should be treated with a mixture of pity and scorn.

We have all seen these religious battles rage. They are not new, and they will continue to flourish every so often. Most recently, the theater of combat is Ruby on Rails (RoR) vs. Django and usually close on its heals: Ruby vs. Python.