Sergey Vlasov – Instant Gratification AddictJust another tagline here

Here is an overview of Spring Data Graph features:

• Support for property graphs (nodes connected via relationships, each with arbitrary properties)
• Transparent mapping of annotated POJO entities
• Neo4jTemplate with convenient API, exception translation and optional transaction management
• Different type representation strategies for keeping type information in the graph
• Dynamic type projections (duck typing)
• Spring Data Commons Repositories Support
• Cross-store support for partial JPA – Graph Entities
• Neo4j Traversal support on dynamic fields and via repository methods
• Neo4j Indexing support (including full-text and numeric range queries)
• Support for JSR-303 (Bean Validation)
• Support for the Neo4j Server
• Support for running as extensions in the Neo4j Server

Recently I’ve browsed the GitHub website and indeed encountered a page with this very name, “Interesting Repositories”. There is no point to duplicate this constantly mutating list. Rather I would enlist here some of them, which currently are of interest for me. So, here we go.

1. mirrors / linux-2.6 – Mirror of Linus Torvald’s Kernel Tree. Linux Kernel 2.6 is currently used and developed version.
2. git / git    – Git Source Code Mirror – Git was developed as dedicated version control system for Linux Kernel. Inspired the whole GitHub project. Recommended reading: Pragmatic Guide to Git
3. jquery / jquery – jQuery JavaScript Library. jQuery is huge relief for any JavaScript developer/designer. Very easy to pick up, very easy to extend. It’s so popular, it seems like folks sometimes forget there still is ol’ good JS. Kinda ‘golden hammer’ stuff. Recommended reading: jQuery in Action, Second Edition
4. sstephenson / prototype – Prototype JavaScript framework – used to be the default JS/AJAX framework supported by Rails. Featured in a PragProg’s book alongside with scriptaculous. Recommended reading: Prototype and script.aculo.us: You Never Knew JavaScript Could Do This!
5. madrobby / scriptaculous – script.aculo.us is an open-source JavaScript framework for visual effects and interface behaviours.
6. yui / yui3 – YUI 3.x Source Tree – Yahoo UI is a vast collection of JavaScript UI components(widgets) and utilities (AJAX etc.). One of the most mature. Used to be the ExtJS’s base to built upon.
7. rails / rails – Ruby on Rails - served as the platform for GitHub itself (and many others); had huge impact on the whole webdev landscape; matured to version3; has been merged with more modular Merb; dropped Prototype as default JS framework for views in favor of jQuery; now supporting Ruby 1.9. It’s really impossible to pick one book to learn about Rails, but in my opinion AWDwR wouldn’t be totally wrong choice. Four editions since the very early versions of Rails, what else title could brag about such a success?! Recommeded reading: Agile Web Development with Rails (4th edition)
8. symfony / symfony – popular PHP web framework (are there non-web PHP frameworks?) still supported by latest versions of NetBeans. Why “still”? Well, they’ve recently dropped Ruby/Rails support.
9. sinatra / sinatra – lightweight alternative to Rails.
10. dpp / liftweb – very productive Scala web framewok. So, how it compares to Rails? It takes completely different approach, being non-MVC one.
11. mongodb / mongo – very popular non-SQL(or non-relational) data store. This is one is of so-called document-oriented type.
12. antirez / redis – just like MongoDB, another popular non-SQL DB, but unlike MongoDB,  it is a key-value-pair oriented.
13. ruby / ruby – perl-like, multi-paradigmatic, expressive, dynamic, agile, yadda-yadda… e.g. awesome enough for convincing DHH to pick it up for Rails development. Ruby, along with Clojure and Erlang, is one of seven languages, picked by Bruce Tate for his (in)famous “7 languages in 7 weeks” book.
14.  richhickey / clojure – Lisp on Java VM. Seems like both my favorite publishers got good enough books about Clojure. See both Programming Clojure and The Joy of Clojure
15. erlang / otp – an exception in the list. They made ‘only’ 943 watchers, but this project definitely deserves an extra credit to be included. Functional language, suited for concurrent programming. CouchDB and RabbitMQ – the two post prominent Erlang-based projects. Recommended reading: Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World
16. jashkenas / coffee-script – JavaScript without its usual boilerplate.
17. FooBarWidget / passenger – Rails deployment made easy.
18. documentcloud / underscore – Powerhouse of JavaScript utility functions which fits your back pocket.
19. DmitryBaranovskiy / raphael – Got some creative skills? Try Rafael to draw on JavaScript Canvas.
20. wayneeseguin / rvm – RVM(Ruby Version Manager). There are indeed too many versions of Ruby around. Matz’s 1.8 and 1.9, JRuby (v. 1.6 currently supports both 1.8 and 1.9 modes), Ruby Enterprise Edition, Rubinius etc. Too much to try to install all of them side by side correctly and in a manner which would allow you to easily switch between them. This is exactly problem which RVM resolves. The installation is not that complicated, but isn’t trivial either. Close keeping to the up-to-date manual is advised.

I tried to keep the list no more than 20 items long, so many very interesting repos were put aside.

Among others I’ve mostly omitted:

• Python projects. Ignoring Python is unforgivable. So I’m not ignoring it. Python books are on my reading queue already.
• All Apple platforms/Objective-C projects. I’m not yet there, even remotely. Yes, it’s huge deal now. Just as .Net was and is.
• All .Net projects. Yes, I know, I should not ignore this part of the world. Probably I’ll consider that more closely, probably later.

There are still several projects I would like to see on the list but they aren’t there. Which ones I’m missing?

Node.js – o’kay, there is V8 in the original GitHub’s list, which somewhat compensates the ‘loss’.

CouchDB – it’s here, in the original list, but seems like it doesn’t generate enough interest, being shaded out by MongoDB probably.

RabbitMQ – developed by folks affiliated with SpringSource/VMWare. It’s a group of repos hosted on GitHub along with many other SpringSource’s projects. Only 54 watchers for rabbitmq-server. And it didn’t draw enough interest to even be included into the ‘Interesting Repositories’ list.

Spring Roo – productivity tool for Spring developers.

WirdPress & Drupal – because they are great publishing platforms.

Three hugely popular projects upgrading their version numbers almost simultaneously. With WordPress leading the ‘race’(it’s already 3.1.1 as I’m writing it), the other two are reporting about their upcoming 3.1 releases.

It’s a rather strange observation for me to see like so disparate projects going in sync with their version upgrades. I really don’t know know whether it is a pure coincidence or a deep meaning synchronousness, but in my opinion, every one of the three is an example of brilliance in PHP, Ruby and Java respectively.

All three share similar philosophy and practical attitude. Concentration on usability, happiness and productivity. Every one of those  three has a brilliant mind behind it who created it and brilliant and passionate community.