I've been hearing a lot about Ruby as a programming language, and Rails as a Ruby-based web development framework. Today I saw that ONLamp.com had a feature on Ajax on Rails. Ever since I started using GMail and Google Maps, I've had an interest in Ajax. I read the initial article on Adaptive Path in which they dub the Google incorporation of various technologies Ajax, for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. For me, the most interesting part of Ajax is the asynchronous part. I'd be interested in seeing if I can apply asynchronous techniques to my own web applications in an intelligent manner.

The ONLamp article really clinched things for me. Even though there are usability pitfalls, I'd like to try out this Rails thing I've been hearing about (and maybe come up with a way around said pitfalls). I downloaded the basic Ruby development environment a few weeks ago to play around in, but I hope to take some time to get serious about it, so I can move up to learning Rails and then Ajax on Rails.

I like that Google seems to be always coming up with new ideas or takes on existing technologies that seem to knock people off their feet. To me, it seems wholly appropriate that a fresh perspective on Dynamic HTML is coming out of such a dynamic company.

Web Dev note for the day: Nothing highlights CSS box-model issues like setting different background colors for various divs and other elements. I think I've discovered my new favorite CSS debugging method. Although now that I think about it, colored backgrounds is exactly how the fine folk at Position Is Everything graphically present CSS errors.