Ruby on Rails1.1 has been released with an impressive set of new features for a point release. For a comprehensive list of new features, check out Scott Raymond's postor the official annoucement.

The Ajax related features include:

• RJS templates - Javascript generation in Ruby for common Ajax updates. Now in addition to .rhtml and .rxml, you'll have .rjs files with ruby to generate your javascript. For example, taking from Scott's example, the following pre-RJS JavaScript code:
  varCart = {
  add: function(product_id) {
  Element. addClassName('product_'+ product_id, 'incart')
  newAjax. Request('/account/add_to_cart/'+ product_id,
  {method: 'post', onComplete: Cart.refresh })
  },
  remove: function(product_id) {
  Element. removeClassName('product_'+ product_id, 'incart')
  newAjax. Request('/account/remove_from_cart/'+ product_id,
  {method: 'post', onComplete: Cart.refresh })
  },
  refresh: function() {
  newAjax. Updater('cartbox', '/products/cartbox')
  newAjax. Updater('num_items', '/products/num_items')
  }
  }

  Becomes this in Ruby using RJS:

  page.replace_html 'cartbox', :partial => 'cart'
  page.replace_html 'num_items', :partial => 'num_items'
  page.send :record, "Element.addClassName('product_#{@params[:id]}', 'incart')"

  See the rdocor Cody's blogfor more information and examples.

• DRYcontrollers for Ajax clients, non-Ajax clients, and anyone else by responding to the HTTP Accept header. Davidgoes into more detail as well as Jamis, but the basic idea is to let the client tell you what data format it wants back using the Accept header so that Rails can respond easily with one controller method. The following create method can handles requests from any browser that needs plain html, from a browser with JavaScript support (returns a RJS template by default), and from a web services call expecting XML (returns a HTTP 201 "created" code and nothing else).
  
  def create
  @comment= Comment.create (params[:comment])
  
  respond_to do|type|
  type.html {redirect_to :action => "index" }
  type.js
  type.xml do
  headers ["Location"]=
  url_for (:action => "show", :id => @comment.id)
  render (:nothing, :status => "201 Created")
  end
  end
• Easy xml serialization with to_xml:
  
  @person.to_xml(:include => @company)
  produces
  <person>
  <id>...</id>
  ...
  <company>
  <id>...</id>
  <name>...</name>
  ...
  </company>
  </person>
• End to end integration testingbaked in
• Updates Scriptaculousto 1.6 and Prototypeto 1.5.

Whew. The core teamis definitely not resting on their laurels. With 1.1 out and over fifteenRuby or Rails books coming out this year, Ruby on Rails does not appear to be losing any momentum.

What is XSTM?

XSTMis made of three projects. The Java implementation is called JSTMand is the base from which the other versions are derived. An adapted version made with Luciano, the author of GWM , is available for GWT . It allowsthis library to be used in a browser. NSTM is a .NET port based on IKVM.

All implementations are compatible with each other so object replication can take place e.g. between a Java server and a .NET Smart Client.

sql like json query lib.

Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is an open source Java software development framework that makes writing AJAX applications like Google Mapsand Gmaileasy for developers who don't speak browser quirks as a second language. Writing dynamic web applications today is a tedious and error-prone process; you spend 90% of your time working around subtle incompatibilities between web browsers and platforms, and JavaScript's lack of modularity makes sharing, testing, and reusing AJAX components difficult and fragile.

GWT lets you avoid many of these headaches while offering your users the same dynamic, standards-compliant experience. You write your front end in the Javaprogramming language, and the GWT compiler converts your Java classes to browser-compliant JavaScript and HTML.