#llustre

[thestylemill]

Some interior styling shots from LLUSTRE when we did our Get The Look series online

Happily that Brita Sweden blanket is mine but I'm still coveting the Seletti vases & Kirath Ghundoo wallpaper

[broadleaf]

Mustache: Effective Parallel Web Development Using Logic-less Templates

I thought it would be fitting to share some of my thoughts on the process, patterns, and technologies that were used during a recent fast & agile Java e-commerce project. We were able to successfully launch a full-featured flash sales site (Llustre.com) in six weeks using agile methodologies to implement new technologies such as Broadleaf Commerce and Mustache, the logic-less template.

Just to give you some background, we worked in a development model that many companies have started to use. Over the past few years, there’s been a growing movement to completely separate UI development from the back end. With good reason: there has been a significant advancement in client-side technologies and frameworks. Demand and adoption have risen and the availability of good client-side developers is no longer a rarity. Now I myself have worked with both the front-end and server-side. Lately, I’ve been working mostly on server-side e-commerce development (Broadleaf Commerce), but have worked on the front-end quite a bit before. I know enough to be dangerous. I know enough to appreciate very clean and semantic HTML as well as clean and readable JavaScript. That being said, and being in a role as a server-side developer, I would hate to see front-end guys adding logic in my controllers. As a front-end guy, I would expect the same. It really makes sense to separate the two responsibilities. Leave the look and feel up to the business. Have the designers and front-end developers work on the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript independently of the server-side developers.

As companies start adopting the process of completely separating UI, UX, and Development, the effectiveness of server-side frameworks that generate front-end code (i.e. GWT, JSF, etc…) really come into question. Why would anyone want to mess with ugly generated code that is hard to customize, especially if the look and feel is going to be determined by the business, which it almost always will be.

But, how do you effectively achieve that? How can two teams work separately, know nothing about each others code, but still progressively move forward to a reasonable project completion? How do you effectively integrate once both sides are complete?

Continue

[shadowedsouls-blog]

Fuck it, I did it. Sometimes you have to grab the bull by the horns and just go for it. The only other things people were offering were a microwave, a pair of Grenson Brogues (maybe it would mean more if I knew how expensive Grenson Brogues were?), a delicious Jubilee cream tea & a print by Francisca Prieto (I'd definitely take that!! Her prints are just beautiful). So I offered them either my trusty typewriter OR for me to spend a few days in London working with them. I guess I'll find out soon enough if my Swaps were good enough.