Rhino on Rails: JavaScript MVC on the server
Date : 2008 01 30 Category : Tech & Development
AjaxianCross posted from my personal blog
Last week we posted about Jaxer which offers an approach of turtles all the way down where JavaScript is used on the client and the server.
Then, I got to interview Steve Yegge. Last year, Steve posted about Rhino on Rails, his port of Ruby on Rails to the JavaScript language on the Rhino runtime.
Ever since he presented on the ‘Google Rails Clone’ at FooCamp and he posted about the internal Google Rhino on Rails project, people have been curious to learn more.
What does it mean to port Rails to JavaScript? What can’t you do since JavaScript doesn’t have the same meta programming facilities? Rails = a group of Active*, so did you re-implement everything? What do you gain out of having JavaScript all the way down? Does it actually make sense to have jjs? Server side JavaScript generating client side JavaScript? Argh! What is the state of Rhino? Will Rhino support JavaScript 2?And of course, the big questions:
When do I get to see it!
I happen to be in Seattle at the Google offices, so I was able to ask all of these questions and more. Steve was a fantastic host, and I really enjoyed chatting with him.
This is the kind of video I want to explore at Google. We have many great developers working on cool technology. I want to get them on camera, participating with the community when I can. Sometimes we can talk about products and APIs, but sometimes we will talk about fun ideas and projects that we are working on such as Rhino on Rails.
Anyway, give it a watch and let me know what you think:
This also lead me to the fun idea of Java and JavaScript flip-flopping:
