Digging into the email archives we find ….

[28 Feb 1995 - Robert S. Thau] As to the product, we seem to have decided to call it Apache. (If you’re wondering about the name, say “Apache server” ten times fast. Europeans may want to fake their best American accent while trying this).

[10 Mar 1995 - Randy Terbush] I personally like the name ‘apache’. As for comments about offending native americans, I see the choice of ‘apache’ being made out of respect for the efficiency and robustness of these native tribes.
As with many things historic, there seem to be two reasons. Because it sounds like “a patchy” (server) and as a tribute to the native Apache tribes.

I’m surprised no one mentioned the helicopter! :)

So, how many times have you said to yourself: “Ummm, we had that problem before … and what did we do?”

If you’re like me, wayyyy to many times)

Lately, I’ve started to keep a “Common Problems” page on the project’s wiki to log incidental problems and quick-fixes. There’s an example at the Anvil site.

Simple. Effective. Easy to do. (So, just do it!)

If nothing else, after spending an hour banging your head against a simple problem, you’ll have something to show for it :)

People often comment on the number of Java web development frameworks. The Evolutionary Goo blog has an excellent summary of Java web framework taxonomies.

Now, can someone do the same for Ajax libraries? I’ve heard tell that there are about 200 Ajax libraries in use today – which puts the Java framework community to shame, especially when we’ve had a five-year head start. :)

Dojo has cachet, but the Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) Library has got the goods. YUI is fast, well-designed, and well-documented. Yes, documented. Not just API docs, but tutorial-style documentation with honest-to-goodness examples.

Here’s the catch: the YUI site is organized like an encyclopedia. Everything is in arbitrary, alphabetic order. Great for looking stuff up later. Bad for getting started now.

If you’re ready for Ajax, but your JavaScript skills are not, first spend a quality day with the Crockford Clips, courtesy of YUI Theatre. It’s just enough knowledge to make an object-orientated programmer dangerous.

Once you are over the OO JavaScript hurdle, the remaining challenge is ramping up with YUI itself.

To get started with YUI, I recommend reviewing the slide overview from XTech Developers Day, and and then following the “Happy Trails“ through the documentation. If you take your time and try some of the exercises on your own machine, it could take a day or three to get through it all. (Though, if you’re like me, about half-way through, you’ll be off coding your own application, and leaving the rest for later!)

Read Me First

• Ajax XTech Slides

The Happy Trails

After browsing the XTech slides, I suggest reviewing the YUI documentation in a step-by-step order. I’ve divided the trail into three legs.

First Leg - YUI builds on several “backbone” packages that hold the library together.

• Yahoo Global
• Dom

• Event

  • Event-Driven Application Design

• Element

• Logger
• Connection
• Animation

• Drag and Drop
  Second Leg - The library provides several workhorse packages that manage and display data.

• Container

• Module, Overlay, Panel, Tooltip, Dialog,
   

• SimpleDialog

• Menu
• Tabview
• TreeView
• DataSource
• DataTable
   

Home Stretch - Other library controls provides special effects, like sliders, buttons, and calendars, along with browser history management, and grid-based layouts.

• Autocomplete
• Button
• Slider
• Calendar
• Browser History Manager
• Reset, Fonts, and Grids (This could also be viewed first.)
  The mass of YUI documentation can seem imposing at first, but if you break it down, and follow the trail, you’ll be up and running in a New York minute. :)

> Is the source code download from
> Struts in Action still available?

At that very, very bottom of the Manning page, there’s a link to the companion source download to the book. The download is also available at the SourceForge, and Struts sandbox code for Scaffold is now available in the “archive” branch.

Though, for the data access portions of Scaffold, I’d strongly recommend using Apache iBATIS instead.

Of course, if you have some latitude as to what version of Struts to use, do take a look at Struts 2 :)

Except for “WebWork in Action”, I don’t believe there are any S2 books quite yet, but the materials from my S2 training course are available online.