HAML is a new template language for Ruby on Rails developed by Hampton Catlin, a Canadian Rails developer. It's a high-level, heavily semantic language that breaks the mold of RHTML and makes it very hard to make markup errors. In a way similar to Python, HAML relies on indentation, which it uses to enforce DOM hierarchy.

I want to look at the history of the BASIC language, the uptake of novice programmers, and how Ruby could capitalize on them in the future.

Peter Armstrong has just released the initial version of his PDF-only book, Flexible Rails. It's available for $20, and anyone who buys the book now will get free PDF copies of every subsequent version of the first edition of the book. You can also order the book in 5 copy, 10 copy, and 30 copy editions for use in the workplace.

Chronic is a natural language (English only, at present, I think) time and date parser written entirely in Ruby. It supports a staggering number of different ways of expressing the date and time. For example:

Chris Wanstrath has put together a 'mix tape' of useful tips and tricks for irb and Rails' script/console. Some great bits and pieces in there, and people are leaving even more tricks and tips in the comments!

Charles Nutter, one of the developers of JRuby, a Ruby implemention running on the JVM, has announced that he and Thomas Enebo are becoming Sun Microsystems employees later this month with the responsibility of working on JRuby full-time!

Bob Silva presents a rundown of some new features due in Rails 1.2. These minor features are in addition to the full REST support and ActiveResource (supposedly not just yet), as previously covered by a multitude of blogs.

Josh Catone looks at the results of SitePoint's State of Web Development 2006 survey. Josh says: