Thomas Fuchs
Hi, I'm Thomas Fuchs. I'm the author of Zepto.js, of script.aculo.us, and I'm a Ruby on Rails core alumnus. With Amy Hoy I'm building cheerful software, like Noko Time Tracking and Every Time Zone and write books like Retinafy.me.
   Want me to speak at your conference? Contact me!

Prototype Developer Day

July 31st, 2008

prototype dev day The first ever Prototype Developer Day will be held during The Ajax Experience conference in Boston, MA on September 29, 2008.

The best thing is: it’s completely free, and you get to hang out with some of the peeps from the Prototype core team.

Read more about this exciting opportunity, and see the preliminary agenda over at the Prototype blog!

And then sign up (again, for free) over at the special signup form.

Practical Prototype and script.aculo.us book hot off the presses

July 21st, 2008

Practical Prototype and script.aculo.usPrototype Core team member Andrew Dupont’s new book Practical Prototype and script.aculo.us is now available, and it’s a super no-nonsense guide to getting up to speed with the libraries, fast.

Andrew, being a UI developer by heart, doesn’t mess around and gives you hands-on examples for just about everything you can do with the “fraternal twins” Prototype and script.aculo.us.

You’ll learn how to really use all those fancy Prototype collection helpers (like each, detect, select, reject, partition, etc.), master the cool new custom events system, and seriously mess with the DOM; and how’ll see how Prototype can help you with everyday programming tasks with its extensions to functional programming and OOP. Plus of course how to make the most of Ajax and JSON. Last but not least, visual effects are explained, and also how they work by taking advantage of the DOM and how web browsers render websites.

The very interesting closing chapter shows you why things are as they are in Prototype, and will help you read the source code—and write JavaScript, Prototype-style.

New Prototype and script.aculo.us support mailing list

July 14th, 2008

Subscribers to the Rails Spinoffs mailing list should switch to our new, better-named list: Prototype & script.aculo.us.

While these two venerable libraries are, in truth, spinoffs of the Rails project, we’ve come to realize it’s far more user-friendly to have the libraries’ names in the name of the mailing list. This should help guide users to the right spot and reduce the amount of support traffic on the Prototype Core mailing list — which is for discussion of Prototype’s development process, not support.

Because list spam is a sad reality, your first post to the list will be held for moderation. Once it’s approved, though, you’ll be able to post with impunity.

(Original article at Prototype blog)

Apple launches MobileMe, we launch creativescrape

July 11th, 2008

Today marks the launch of two great sites which are both partly powered by Prototype and script.aculo.us:

First, off, kudos to Apple to launch their new web service MobileMe, which (hopefully!) will save me much time and hassle in the future by automatically push-syncing contacts, calendar events, bookmarks, etc. between my Macs and my iPhone.

Even cooler is the microapp Amy and I have put together this week… Check out creativescrape, an inspration utility for those moments when you just seem to be braindead. It comes with a OS X screensaver for your enjoyment.

creative scrape

Now off again to the sekret thing I’m working on most of the time.