Author Archives: bojan

GitStats – check your git statistics

Posted on by
Reply

After about a 2 year working on a project (huh, it’s pretty much time, am I doing something wrong?!) I got interested in stats how much code lines I did write or commits made. From the very beginning of project we have used Git, which I think is an excellent choice as CVS. Only what I needed is a tool which can create some statistics to view.

Googling around I found a Git statistics generator named GitStats. What’s it doing is examining the repository and produces some interesting statistics from history which is represented in a HTML format. It has several categories created:

  • General – represents info from repository as when was it initiated, how many lines of code it has, total files, age (in days), total commits, authors etc.
  • Activity – weekly, hour of day, day of week, hour of week, month of year, commit by year/month
  • Authors – lists all the authors with number of commits, + lines, – lines, first commit, last commit, age, active days; author of month, author of year
  • Files – list of file extensions, number of files by extension
  • Tags – list tags and it’s info like name, date, commits and authors

I founded very interesting the activity part, which can represent you some of your working behaviors like I done most of my commits on Wednesday.

Day of Week Commits

It’s also pretty easy to use it, after you got your version and met all the requirements of application, you have to run it and only specify the path to directory where is your repository and path where to generate the reports.

$ ./gitstats /var/www/project /var/www/project-stats

GitStats looks like it’s made well, maybe there could be added some statistics also for branches if they exist in repository.

 

Book Review: Beginning Google Maps API 3 by Gabriel Svennerberg

Posted on by
Reply

I guess most of people today already heard about Google’s service Google Maps, it is one of the most popular mapping service available on Internet. Google Maps API (Application Interface Programming) is also the most popular API over Internet, there are web applications and sites which are combining data or functionality from two or more sources with a map – mashups. As the title says this book is for the developers who wants to learn the basics or getting started with Google Maps API 3.

The book is generally very well organized. After some information of book and author itself we can start to dig into world of Google Maps API 3. Gabriel, the author, firstly introduces the subject of book – Google Maps API, and some interesting numbers related to it which he collected from Internet. Then comes right away Chapter 2  how to transfer API from version 2 to 3. Chapter 3 describes how to setup a map, and Chapter 4 explains how to take map further with MapOptions. Following Chapters 5 and 6 describes markers and how can be markers customized. How to create a InfoWindow is in Chapter 7, and Polylines and Polygons are covered by Chapter 8. Last two Chapters are introducing some really nasty things how can be used, like how to deal with large number of markers and some geolocating. Oh, and the appendix with API Reference at the end is super useful stuff!

Now to mention some parts of book which I really liked. Right on beginning in Chapter 1 I found very good the short description what is Google Maps API, what brings the new version 3, and reviewed some mapping fundamentals – this is something very useful for beginners. Chapter 3 will introduce you basic structures of XHTML pages which is used later for implementing code examples, how to insert reference to the Google Maps API, some JavaScript basics which I think is also very good and gives with it a very complete chapter, and at the end of chapter you’ll set up the map. In Chapter 4 I found good the really detailed description of MapOptions, how to add controls to user interface, how to change control styles, how to control map container, and how to control map settings with methods. It’s all there what you have to know as beginner about MapOptions. There is a lot interesting information and examples about markers, beside how to put standard google markers (you know, the one which look like pins) in Chapter 6 is explained how can create your own – custom markers with images of your choice. Also there is lot more explained about markers, how to define it’s clickable area, how to use sprites with it, so it’s a very well covered topic. Chapter 9 has an interesting topic – how to show massive number of markers on your map. This isn’t directly connected to API (like some property from it), but it helps you with markers which are part of API. There are described few methods how can you decrease amount of displayed markers, code examples, and introduced third party libraries.

Through book there are some great tips provided by author, mostly of them are some web pages which explains or describes more the current reading topic, I really liked that. Also there are lot of pictures from code examples what you should get as result.

This is a very good book for those developers who want to learn Google Maps API 3 basics, I highly recommend for them. Book is written clearly, and it is easy to follow. You can get your copy of the book from Apress. If you’re interested you can check Gabriels website for some examples and posts related to Google Maps API or follow him on Twitter @Svennerberg. I’d like to thank Gabriel for this possibility to write a review of his book, and the copy of book he sent me.

Zend Framework Book Review by Robert Bašić

Posted on by
2
Picture from robertbasic.com

Picture from robertbasic.com

Few days ago my friend Robert Bašić has posted his review of a book named “Zend Framework 1.8 Web Application Development” on his blog. Here is a short quote from that review:

The book starts off with a basic application (yep, “Hello world!”), explains the bootstrapping, configuring, working with action controllers, views and handling errors… The second chapter continues with explaining the MVC architecture, the front controller, router, dispatcher… It even has a nice flowchart about the whole dispatch process, great stuff.

It’s a not too long, but a well written and informative review. So, if you’re interested in whole review and what’s Robert saying about the book, I recommend you to visit his blog and read his nice post!