I want to send props out to Chris Zumbrunn of Helma fame. What is Helma you ask?

There has been a recent surge of interest in more light weight approaches for rapid web application development, highlighted by the rise in popularity of RubyOnRails, especially amongst the Java/J2EE developer community.

But using a framework like RoR means Java developers need to learn not only a new language, but a new class library and completely different ways of working, giving up their very valuable experience and knowledge of the Java and J2EE.

Helma, a server-side Javascript web development framework offers a compelling alternative. Built on the Java platform and using technologies (Servlets, JDBC, etc) familiar to Java web application developers, it provides much of the same functionality as RoR while still letting Java developers have easy access to any Java libraries they need. Likewise, using JavaScript as the scripting language means that Java developers have a more familiar language to work with and one they may already be familiar with if they are building AJAXy, Web 2.0 style applications.

Helma is also being featured in the latest OpenExpo which looks to be shaping up to be a great event. (Note: You might need to know German to get the full value of the event - no I do not speak or understand German but google translate does a decent job)

It was also featured in a Linux Journal in and around September 2007 (I’ll post the issue when I look it up again) from it I started HelmaBlog.com which can help you get a simple feed reader project under way.

Helma is worth checking out if you are into JavaScript development. I’m working on a comparison of Helma and Grails and Groovy On Rails - we’ll see where that goes.

Thanks to Ian Irving for helping us come up with a new tagline for this site: “Asynchronous Beer and Geeking“. Heck, it’s a lot better than the ones I came up with.

How bad are the ones I came up with, you ask? Well, for your entertainment (and my personal embarrassment), I present you with my list of rejected site taglines (I want to warn you in advance that a lot of these—if not all of them—are kinda out of left field, and didn’t quite represent both the Ajax and Pub Nite aspects in a way I liked, which is why they were rejected), so bear with me):

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Ajax Pub Nite #1 was a smashing success! We had around 25 people show up—not at all bad for a first event—and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves quite well. We were at The Rhino—same place as Rails Pub Nites, and a appropriate venue, if I do say so myself. Thanks to everyone who came out!I was so caught up in all the whole thing that I forgot to call to attention two things I wanted to discuss: coming up with a half-decent tagline for the site Update: that’s been resolved, and brainstorming some ideas for a good enough parody for JSOFF (as opposed to JSON). Oh well, there’s always next month I suppose :-).

Brent took some photos, as did I:

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I’ll start with the About blurb:

We’re here to build a community around Ajax and create opportunities to meet face to face at events small and large.

Ajax is a unifying word that brings a number of technologies and techniques together to express one concept - a way to build compelling browser-based applications that comprise the foundation of the future of the web.

Let’s start with a Toronto-based Ajax Pub Nite, informal and unstructured. Once some community is established we can introduce evening Ajax Presentations and Demos and/or Ajax Workshops and build up to an eventual full-day Ajax Camp, perhaps inspiring people from different locales to join in here and set up their own events worldwide.

Sooo, our first Ajax Pub Nite will be Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 7pm at

The Rhino (map)
1249 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON
M6K 1L5, Canada
(416) 535-8089

Subsequent Ajax Pub Nites will be on the second Monday of each month, same place and time.

Comment here or drop us an email at info{at}ajaxcamp.org to let us know you’re coming.

Update: You can also RSVP on the Facebook event page (and we recommend that you do)!

Dion Almaer has posted Ajaxian’s Monthly Roundup for November and it’s been a remarkably busy month in the Ajax world.