Open source Openspace

Openspace had finally reached a stage of maturity to be released as some sort of alpha-release open source. Justifications:

1. It had been used as the operating framework for up to 5 major projects to-date.
2. It had also proven its use in the fast creation of various widgets and tools. (The To-Do list seems like a popular choice)
3. A pool of developers had emerged to pick it up quite easily and quickly
4. At least a team of developers within a company with established commercial projects using Openspace had committed to open source contribution

Once the code had been cleaned-up, expect it to be available on Google Projects via SVN. Since this is starting up, we would welcome all forms of participatory help in coding, design and etc. The next stage of development involves things like genericisation (especially DB) and more semantics / ontological features. Would certainly not like to reinvent the wheel, will be glad to merge or join any other project teams if we're heading towards the same direction. Do drop me a mail too for such.

Gambit

The Gambit feature for Openspace is ready! Inspired by Automator (for Macs), Scheduler (for Windows) and the unix cron, it is a really useful tool to help automate tasks based on a programmable Action -> Reaction rule. E.g. When the clock strikes 10, throw out the garbage, you get what I mean. There are a range of other Actions (something like a listener), such as OnAdminLogon, OnLogOff and etc.

Date/Time related Meta-level methods

I had written two new Openspace Meta class methods today. sf_getUnixTimestamp($id,$att,$iatt,$obj) returns the total seconds of a given object value since epoc. The second one (which rides on the prior function) sf_getZendDate($id,$att,$iatt,$obj) returns a ZendDate object. How are these function useful? The first is to do a DB query of a timestamp datatype without having to convert the resulting value into some readable format. ZF docs say this is the fastest means of getting data out of a database, using it to create a Zend_Date object. That is of course, what the second function does. Bottom line, Openspace developers now have a easy way to create Zend_Date objects, and this in turn, makes date and time manipulation so much more easier. Weeehoooooo!

Microtime()

Never thought I will ever come across the use of a microsecond but I did today. In churning out temporary files with a unique filename at a rate of about 16 per second, the microsecond comes in really useful, much more convenient and safe than using random numbers to gain uniqueness. The microtime() function is magic.

OCAMS (Full Class)

Finally!!! Full class creation with class level method creation is fully coded. Besides creating static methods, developers can now code class methods. Persistency is built-in, and recalling a persistant object is automated.

Enhancement to type sensitivities for ListObject method

Added sensitivities to the ListObject method, the enhanced ListObject can handle Timestamp types better by also echoing the minutes and seconds.