Radiant 0.6.6 was released over the weekend, shortly after the release of Radiant 0.6.5.  Obviously, 0.6.6 of this built with Ruby on Rails CMS was released to fix some bugs in 0.6.5.  So instead of focusing on the bugs, let's focus on what is new in 0.6.5/6 since Radiant 0.6.4 was released in November 2006.

Since Radiant 0.6.4, the latest versions of the software introduced two major changes:

• Rails 2.0.2 included (0.6.4 used Rails 1.2.5)
• RSpec 1.1.4 is used in core and supported in extensions

Building Dynamic Web 2.0 Websites with Ruby on Rails is a new book from Packt which helps users to design, develop, and deploy a fully featured website using Ruby on Rails. Written by A. P. Rajshekhar, this book is a tutorial to create a complete Web 2.0 website with Ruby on Rails.

Ruby on Rails is an open-source web application framework ideally suited to building business applications; accelerating and simplifying the creation of database-driven websites. Often shortened to Rails or RoR, it provides a stack of tools to rapidly build web applications based on the Model-View-Controller design pattern.

Each chapter in this book adds a new feature to the site, adding new knowledge, skills, and techniques. This book is for anyone who has basic concepts of object-oriented programming as well as relational databases and wants to develop online applications using Ruby on Rails. Prior knowledge of Ruby or Rails is not expected.

For more details on the book, please visit http://www.packtpub.com/building-dynamic-websites-with-ruby-on-rails/book.

"Version 2.0 of Ruby on Rails,
the popular open-source Web application development framework, was
released Friday morning, according to the developer of the framework, David Heinemeier Hansson.

Key to this release is its reliance on Representational State Transfer
(REST) Web services instead of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) Web
services. Security enhancements also are featured. Available for
download at the Ruby on Rails Web site, the framework leverages the Ruby programming language."

Complete Story

"Ryan Heneise, of Art of Mission, has just launched a new service built on Radiant. It’s called Radiant Factory. Basically, Ryan is offering professional assistance to anyone who needs help getting up and running with Radiant."

Complete Story

Ruby on Rails Enterprise Application Development is a new book from Packt that helps readers to build a complete Ruby on Rails Business Application from start to finish. Written by Elliott Smith and Rob Nichols, this book concentrates on application development as a whole process and is intended to complement existing Rails tutorials. Each chapter deals with a key feature or functional area of a complex, full-scale Rails application.

All businesses have processes that can be automated via computer applications, thereby reducing costs and simplifying everyday operations. This book demonstrates that a modern web application framework makes an ideal platform for such applications. It shows how the attributes that make the Rails framework so successful for Internet applications also provide great benefit within a business intranet. These attributes include easy roll-out and update of applications, centralized processing and data handling, simple maintenance, straightforward code development, and scalability.

"The rails core team has released ruby on rails 1.2.6 to address a bug
in the fix for session fixation attacks (CVE-2007-5380). The CVE Identifier for this new issue is CVE-2007-6077."

Complete Story

Just a brief note that Radiant 0.6.4 a Ruby on Rails based content management system, has been released. Radiant 0.6.4 contains a few major changes as well as numerous bug-fixes
and enhancements.

As mentioned in the official announcement, included in the release are:

• Rails 1.2.5, Prototype
  1.6 and script.aculo.us 1.8.
• Significant refactoring has been done to
  the administrative user interface Javascripts.
• Better support for MS SQL Server via Rails ticket/patch #8886
• Stricter XHTML compatibility.

Be sure to check RadiantCMS.org for further details.

Coach Wei, Java developer, asks the following question on his blog.

Here is a question that I have been pondering on and off for quite a while: Why do "cool kids" choose Ruby or PHP to build websites instead of Java?

At work we're actually moving many of our in-house desktop applications from Python to Java. I wouldn't be too surprised to see us migrate more PHP Web applications over to Java too for some of the reasons Wei gives in his blog post. But I have a theory as to why PHP and Ruby could be considered "cool" and it has less to do with Java's features and more to do with the culture of open source.