Coffee, Code and Candor

The Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI) is a robust set of JavaScript controls and utilities for building interactive web applications. The library is released under the BSD license so it is free for use in all kinds of applications. Some of the available utilities include drag and drop, eventing, animation and a connection manager. The library controls include auto-complete, calendar, container, menu, slider, tree view and tab view.

Aptana is “The Web IDE,” a “robust JavaScript-focused IDE for building dynamic web applications.” It provides full code-assist and JavaScript debugging. It ships (that is, electronically) with some of the YUI libraries so you can quickly create projects leveraging YUI to try them on for size. Aptana is supported on Windows, Mac, Linux, and as an Eclipse plug-in (and thus virtually any modern platform).

I haven’t yet had the pleasure of using either of these tools but now that I know about them I hope to have the pleasure soon. If you’ve used them, tell me what you think.

I never drank coffee growing up, even after reaching the age when it becomes acceptable to drink coffee (whatever age that is). I didn’t drink it when I went to school and I didn’t drink it when I started working after graduation. The exception was that every now and again I might shell out five bucks for a fancy cup of something from the likes of Starbucks and Caribou Coffee. But this was a very rare occurance. It t wasn’t until recently when my in-laws were visiting that I started to drink coffee regularly. Strange how it happened. I knew they liked coffee and the only coffee I ever drank was fancy stuff from the coffee shops, so I went down to the local Caribou Coffee and paid about $8 for half a pound of Mocha Java. I nearly died when she told me it was $12.99/pound and that’s when I settled for half a pound.

I brewed some up that night and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. The next morning we brewed it again and then again the next night. Before I knew it I was drinking coffee morning and night and very much enjoying it.

I prefer a good dark roast. I’ve been buying coffee from Trader Joe’s for a while now and I like the Ultra-Dark Sumatra the best. It’s true to its name — very, very dark and full of flavor. I’ve tried Trader Joe’s Yemen Mocha and Mocha Java, both of which are good (Yemen Mocha being better than the Mocha Java) but I think I still prefer the Ultra-Dark Sumatra. It seems to have more flavor and it’s a good bit cheaper, too. With as much as I’m drinking coffee now it’s gotta be exceptionally great to shell out an extra $5/12oz. The crazy thing is I’ll do it just to try something to see if it’s any good. I never, ever would have spent that kind of money on coffee before.

But I sure do like to enjoy a good cup of joe.