Robby on Rails comments

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"Have my dream job!" by Roger

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:16:39 -0500

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"Email. Twice daily. No more, no less." by Jaime Iniesta

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:18:18 -0500

Thanks for the tip, I’m being strict now with this, and I feel much more focused, relaxed and happier.

"Are you a console master?" by Daniel Rosenstark

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:33:45 -0500

Hi Robby, thanks for the article. Here is my short (and derivative :) article on how to get at the controller with the console…

http://compileyouidontevenknowyou.blogspot.com/2009/06/using-rails-console-for-controller.html

"Are you a console master?" by Daniel Rosenstark

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:54:44 -0500

@ajey, check out this post

http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/600

about getting into the controller. I might post something soon based on the comments in that same post.

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Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:33:07 -0500

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"Switch to Passenger (mod_rails) in development on OSX in less than 7 minutes or your money back!" by kajaco

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:26:28 -0500

Just got the socket-debugger installed. Workarounds I needed (new-BEE here):

Firewall at work wouldn’t allow git access. Eventually noticed the download button (tar or zip). Extracted to RAILS_ROOT/vendor/plugins and installation is finished.
The server must be restarted at this point (touch tmp/restart.txt from RAILS_ROOT).
Only then will rake debug:socket work.

Will try using it as I look at a Ruby debug screencast.

"Email. Twice daily. No more, no less." by Management Training

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:21:45 -0500

What are the benefits of continually improving a Business?

"Using model constants for project sanity" by Geoff Buesing

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:06:00 -0500

I share Rob Sanheim’s concerns about loading models when the class gets loaded. Would be cleaner to just set the constants as the codes, like so:


class Division < ActiveRecord::Base
  # country codes
  AFRICA = 'XYU238'
  ASIA = 'XIUHR73'
  ...
  # rules for who gets what feed
  WANTS_XML_FEED = [USA, CANADA]
  WANTS_CSV_FEED = [AUSTRALIA, NEW_ZEALAND]

...and then instance methods can check against these codes:


def wants_xml_feed?
  WANTS_XML_FEED.include? code
end

def wants_csv_feed?
  WANTS_CSV_FEED.include? code
end

Controller methods then don’t have to contain rules about who gets what feed type, they just need to deliver as appropriate:


def feed
  ...
  if division.wants_xml_feed?
    # deliver xml
  elsif divison.wants_csv_feed?
    # deliver csv
  else
   # send email
  end
end

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"Using model constants for project sanity" by Rob Sanheim

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:29:20 -0500

I’m actually going to comment on the specific technique you talk about here, as opposed to the overall design. :)

I’ve been burned in the past by defining top level constants in models that do ActiveRecord finds. The reason is that those finds get executed whenever the class gets loaded, instead of later on when the constant is actually needed. This means that your app ends up calling the database at times when you don’t expect it – for example when executing any rake task that happens to end up referring to Division.

This can also bite you if you ever want to decouple your app more from the database, in order to use something like UnitRecord for example. Oh, it also means its really hard to stub or mock those values in tests as well (hello Object.const_set nastiness as opposed to Division.stubs(:usa) )

I usually go right to class methods in approaches like this. Its just as clear, and its much more flexible – you can memoize it (or not), you can stub/mock like any other methods, and they don’t get loaded at class eval time.

"Using model constants for project sanity" by Guoliang Cao

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:36:31 -0500

We are in similar situation here. In our application, we have to support several countries (US, CA, UK) and in many places, the behavior is slightly different. When those are initially implemented, we used if Locale.current.canada? to encapsulate the logic. Later I created a LocaleAware class and LogicForDefault, LogicForCanada classes. So I could use if LocaleAware.support_cpni? and have all canada specific logic in one place to look and change. This has worked well in many cases. There are still some cases we feel it is probably better to leave the “if country” there though.

"Using model constants for project sanity" by grosser

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:42:13 -0500

We got the same problem here, but resolved it using something like


    %w[foo bar foz].each{|name| define_method(name+'?'){ region == name }}

"Using model constants for project sanity" by Tal Rotbart

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:36:57 -0500

Without diving into patternitis, this sounds like a case for the Strategy pattern

class Division 
...

  def process_invoice
    invoice_strategy.perform(self)
  end

...
end

With invoice_strategy being either:

a simple attr_accessor method which contains an InvoicingStrategy instance that was chosen when you initialised the division constant, or
a method which uses logic to decide which kind of invoicing strategy is required for that specific division (and/or even that request).

This way the code for processing invoices by email is kept as one (testable) class while the code for processing invoices by rube-goldberg machine is kept separately as one (testable) class, etc.

"Using model constants for project sanity" by Peter Harkins

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:04:13 -0500

Why do you find yourself looking over the code to compare divisions? Could you write a tool to extract the ‘process_invoice’ someone suggested to display them all side-by-side?

I just really don’t like spreading logic out from the object into other scripts. Every time I’ve done it I’ve later realized that my code is clunky or hard to test or flaky because half the code for an object lives outside that object, making it harder to test and reason about.

In any case, this issue is tangential to your post, which is quite nice, and I don’t mean to be the “ur doin it rong!” guy. Thanks for sharing it.

"Using model constants for project sanity" by Chris Gunther

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:02:35 -0500

Hey guys,

Nice article. I had a question about performance though. How often are those constant definitions called? Since in a production environment the classes are cached, would it be executed once then live until the server is restarted?

Thanks, Chris

"Using model constants for project sanity" by Robby Russell

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:34:36 -0500

With regard to moving some of this into individual modules (per-division), one concern with this is that it makes it more difficult to look over the business rules for all the divisions within a specific method being called.

For example, take the invoicing functionality.

In our client application, we actually have rules like this:

if Canada or USA
  # send via XML to 3rd party service (we call another method here)
elsif Australia or New Zealand
  # build CSVs and FTP them
else # rest of divisions
  # send emails
end

If we moved these down into modules (and separated them out), it’d make it much more daunting to check on an issue if we had to sift through multiple areas of code to figure out which regions were doing what and how.

We do have a lot of methods in our Division model that we rely on for determining stuff, but still find ourselves needing to do comparisons in various places of the application.

"Speaking at Rails Underground 2009" by Ric Roberts

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:32:45 -0500

Booked my ticket to Rails Underground last week. Looks like it’s shaping up to be a great conference. :)

"Using model constants for project sanity" by Peter Harkins

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:14:20 -0500

Maybe you have other reasons to keep doing things this way, but it sounds like case where Tell, Don’t Ask would improve your code. In this situation, I’d probably give a Division an after_initialize to include a country-specific module of code.

Or at the least, write ‘if division.invoice_by_email? ...’ because that’s the important question you’re asking that location is only a proxy for.

"Using model constants for project sanity" by Morgan Roderick

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:48:35 -0500

If you’ve got such a short list and mostly use it for branching in your code, perhaps a few instance methods would go a long way towards (even more) readable code?


if division.canada?
# canada specific stuff
end

Would that work with case statements?

"Using model constants for project sanity" by Emilien

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:59:53 -0500

Hello Robby, What about using the “type” magic column and processing the custom behaviours in subclasses ?

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"Using model constants for project sanity" by shane

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:50:48 -0500

First thought as I skimmed the article … often when I see ‘if’ statements I wonder about refactoring to move the behaviour to the objects … so you can just call division.process_invoices.

"Using model constants for project sanity" by Nathan de Vries

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:27:45 -0500

What about using ActiveSupport::StringInquirer to achieve something like “division.name.australia?” or “division.name.usa?”?

"Aliasing resources in Ruby on Rails" by Koen Van der Auwera

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:45:26 -0500

It’s documented over here in the part ‘options to customize the resulting routes’. ;)

"Aliasing resources in Ruby on Rails" by Chris Lloyd

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:45:25 -0500

Here are the docs

"Using model constants for project sanity" by Robby Russell

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:12:27 -0500

Neil,

Yeah, we do that quite a bit as well. There are some cases where we’re just doing something quirky (like changing copy in a flash message for one specific division, handling different tax rates, etc.). Using methods like you’ve suggested comes in handy, but mileage varies. :-)

"Using model constants for project sanity" by Neil

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:07:46 -0500

Hi Robby

Would it be possible to extract the country codes out and use a method that determines whether or not a region code record wants invoices emailed right away or by third party? E.g.

if division.needs_invoices_processing?

But perhaps it’s a bad suggestion if you won’t be adding any more region codes or if all region codes need different behaviour from the rest….

"Email. Twice daily. No more, no less." by Robby Russell

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:00:05 -0500

Obie,

RE: weekends? No, not currently. I have been trying to not check email at all on weekends, but that’s not easy. What I want to avoid is checking email every few hours on the weekends when any urgent requests could be made via a phone call to my mobile. (where clients know they can reach me)

"Installing Ruby on Rails and PostgreSQL on OS X, Third Edition" by Carl

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:09:25 -0500

Another happy customer. Thanks Robby!

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Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:23:37 -0500

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"PostgreSQL vs MySQL with Rails" by fart

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:10:58 -0500

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"Email. Twice daily. No more, no less." by Obie Fernandez

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:02:55 -0500

Do you follow the same rule on the weekends?

"Estimating versus Timeboxing, part 1" by Robby Russell

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:16:34 -0500

” Does that sum it up? Seems reasonable”

Indeed.

"Estimating versus Timeboxing, part 1" by Pat Maddox

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:20:39 -0500

Okay so basically your developers are more accurate when asked “how much can you get done in X hours” as opposed to “how long will it take you to do task Y.” Does that sum it up? Seems reasonable.

"Estimating versus Timeboxing, part 1" by Robby Russell

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:18:17 -0500

Pat asks,

“So what do you guys do when it turns out you under-budgeted”

While this does happen, it happens less often than it used to. We rely on each of our team members to track their progress as they go. If they get half way through their timebox and aren’t feeling confident, they bring it up. If we need to renegotiate the terms with our client, we do this at that point in time. Often times, we can avoid this by trying to simplify it. However, if we don’t think we’re going to go over our mark by ~20%, we might just push through and finish it. The cost of redefining the scope of the deliverable might take longer than the additional cost in time. As I mentioned, we place timeboxes on smaller activities the collectively build a deliverable. So, our overages/underages are usually within a small handful of hours within a 100-150 hour iteration.

The goal here is to simplify the process so that:

we are working within a constraint from the start
we have incentive to stay within our budgeted time
we try to deliver the most bang for the buck (ROI)
spend less time daydreaming about ways to approach a problem

It’s not a silver bullet. Nor is it a extremely different way to how you probably already handle estimating. What it has been for us is a way to establish scope early and use that as a guiding light throughout our process.

"Email. Twice daily. No more, no less." by Robby Russell

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:07:12 -0500

“This works well for some, but what about those who keep track of the status of your websites? Do they watch mail just twice a day?”

@Bryanl, good question. This was something that I had to take into account. My follow-up to that would be to ask, what type of status changes are you trying to keep track of?

Are we keeping an eye out for servers/site outages? Would these be urgent requests? There are other ways to get peoples attention. Perhaps a text message when something critical comes up? You could also outsource that process to a company that will call the right people when there are certain types of events. The big thing here is to try and automate that process as much as possible so that urgent issues find their way to your attention (assuming you’re the person that should be notified). The big change here that I’m advocating is that email shouldn’t be relied on as a tool to facilitate anything urgent.

If you’re business is relying on you checking your email every 20-30 minutes, you might want to step back and consider a new strategy. :-)

@Will says, “You might want to look at “Getting Things Done” by David Allen.”

Thanks for the suggestion. I actually own a few copies of this (one at home and at the studio) and his other books. I’m currently reading Making it all Work by him on my Kindle.

"Email. Twice daily. No more, no less." by bryanl

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:25:56 -0500

This works well for some, but what about those who keep track of the status of your websites? Do they watch mail just twice a day?

"Estimating versus Timeboxing, part 1" by Pat Maddox

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:48:26 -0500

several of the tasks that we would budget hours for (versus estimate hours for) were proving to be more accurate

What do you mean by budget vs estimate? In particular I’m wondering what’s different if you budget/estimate a task to take 2 hours, you reach the 2 hour mark and aren’t done. In my interpretation of timeboxing, you would stop working and revert the incomplete work. If you estimated on the other hand, you would then reevaluate the problem and estimate remaining work to see if it’s worth it to continue. So what do you guys do when it turns out you under-budgeted? Or are you finding that the initial budget places a constraint that makes your developers more effective at estimating how long a task will really take?

The following steps would entail your team trying to find ways to reduce your estimate.

Can you elaborate on that? I guess this means you look for ways to reduce the scope of the feature as well. What else might allow you to reduce the estimate?

Looks like the key might be to break work into chunks estimated to take 4 hours or less.

"Email. Twice daily. No more, no less." by will

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:24:15 -0500

You might want to look at “Getting Things Done” by David Allen.

He also did a talk at Google Corp.

You can see it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo7vUdKTlhk

"PostgreSQL vs MySQL with Rails" by Bob

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:24:45 -0500

Robby,

You hit the nail on the head:

"... I try to develop applications under the assumption that it will
never be the only interface to the data set that it uses."

If your application is successful the data it accumulates will become valuable in its own right. Once that happens, somebody somewhere will get a bright idea about how to use that data. If you haven’t made the schema’s referential integrity airtight then I feel sorry for you. Other users will break your application’s expectations of how the data should hang together, and good luck ever getting it straightened out.

"Switch to Passenger (mod_rails) in development on OSX in less than 7 minutes or your money back!" by Joel Greutman

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:16:00 -0500

One question, is there any way to use the prefpane to set this up for a wildcard? I tried the normal *.domain.local, and nothing. Any help would be appreciated.

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Wed, 10 Jun 2009 06:40:56 -0500

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"Switch to Passenger (mod_rails) in development on OSX in less than 7 minutes or your money back!" by Joel Greutman

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:22:45 -0500

Ok, seriously, I finally got around to installing passenger and the prefpane. HOLY CRAP THIS IS AWESOME. This will make it so much easier to test and produce apps based on subdomains! Thanks so much for the write-up!

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Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:56:20 -0500

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Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:37:56 -0500

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Inconsolata at 18pt, using Ciaran Walsh’s TerminalColours thinger to switch colors to Ubuntu’s default color scheme.

"82,520 minutes on Phusion Passenger" by wtn

Sun, 31 May 2009 18:50:33 -0500

passenger supports nginx too

"Parsing a RSS Feed" by grosser

Thu, 28 May 2009 14:03:40 -0500

this can also be done with acts_as_feed http://github.com/grosser/acts_as_feed , which will represent the feed as feed model or as addition to a model, and parsing can be offloaded to a background process.

"Show me your and I'll show you mine (terminal prompts with git branches)" by Ehren Murdick

Wed, 27 May 2009 08:51:16 -0500

I forgot to mention, I’m on zsh and all my config stuff is in a public repo on github: http://github.com/ehrenmurdick/config/tree/master

"Show me your and I'll show you mine (terminal prompts with git branches)" by Ehren Murdick

Wed, 27 May 2009 08:48:51 -0500

http://img.skitch.com/20090527-qx1wihtgms6c8a6mrbpb4hcwpn.jpg

Teal on the left is working directory, purple is the name of the project I’m in, (determined with $HOME/projects/(project_name)/*) The yellow is the current git branch name. The gray asterisk means my working copy is dirty, ie there are un-checked-in changes, and the lightning bolt means I have a local commit that I have not pushed to origin.

"Are you a console master?" by Christopher

Mon, 25 May 2009 22:45:05 -0500

something I do all the time to get a useful list of methods:

Foo.methods.sort.select{|a| not Object.respond_to? a}

"Is BDD kinkier than TDD?" by Jason

Sat, 16 May 2009 10:38:53 -0500

I actually prefer the terseness of tdd/test unit. That’s one of the things I liked about Ruby/Rails (coming form the Java world years ago).

I’ve worked on multiple projects that used rspec and test unit. While I understand the behavior element to testing, I still don’t totally buy into it. I do tend to agree that it’s a little more work for work’s sake. However, on a new side project I decided to use a small bdd framework called testy.

http://github.com/ahoward/testy/tree/master

I like the philosophy/reasons behind it. Maybe others will find it useful.

"Subdomain accounts with Ruby on Rails explained" by forex trading tools

Fri, 15 May 2009 06:23:34 -0500

In my opinion, you should use the last subdomain, “request.subdomains.last” instead of the first. For our online stores at Storenvy, I’ve seen a lot of users try “www.subdomain.storenvy.com”. I’ve even seen store owners publish their links in that format. So, I figured I should just make it work for people.Any reason why one shouldn’t do this? I noticed Basecamp redirects if you put “www” at the start of the URL . But is that necessarily better?

"Hug Your Designer Day, part 2" by mini forex

Fri, 15 May 2009 03:16:02 -0500

Your point about designers need to work only with CSS is very questionable at the current state of browser support for CSS (IE6 still has a majority of users). One must be a pretty skillful designer (really hard to find such people) to express all presentation details only through CSS. So it makes a life much easier if you can control HTML output. And about Now just try to do that in some other Web framework! :-): Well, tapestry 5 uses this approach in Grid component (but you can override HTML output there!). Tapestry 4 too, though it’s a bit more complicated there.

"Deploying Rails with an interactive Capistrano recipe to your Boxcar" by Jesus Granados

Thu, 14 May 2009 12:41:31 -0500

Hi there.. I want to ask if it is possible to setup an enviroment for one master and four slave Mysql databases.. where slaves are going to be creating and sending all the record to the master.. using a RoR application.. installed in all 4 laptops..

Master would be only for receiving information and getting reports..

"Installing Ruby on Rails and PostgreSQL on OS X, Second Edition" by Clifford Heath

Tue, 12 May 2009 19:23:12 -0500

With postgresql83, the user postgres is added with no shell, so you get the error “su: /dev/null: Permission denied” when you try to create the default database. The solution is to add a shell to that user, using the Mac command: “sudo dscl . -create /Users/postgres UserShell /bin/sh”

"Ruby 1.8.7 on MacPorts causing some problems" by Sofien Mahjoub

Fri, 08 May 2009 03:57:19 -0500

i have ruby version 1.8.6 and rails 2.2.2 .i need to run my app with mysql or postgrisql but I can’t i have a problem with gem mysql i tried your solution but not less…

mac os tiger (sys) someone have any ideas because i need a help .thx

"Installing Ruby on Rails and PostgreSQL on OS X, Third Edition" by Max Lapshin

Wed, 06 May 2009 06:11:43 -0500

I want advise my tool for migrating from mysql to postgresql

http://github.com/maxlapshin/mysql2postgres

It can autodetect booleans and translates databases rather fast.

Also, I’ve started plugin http://github.com/maxlapshin/postgresql_complex_types — it is for supporting postgresql complex types in Rails.

"Installing Ruby on Rails and PostgreSQL on OS X, Second Edition" by mulan

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 02:05:34 -0500

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"Parsing a RSS Feed" by etagwerker

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:05:01 -0500

Hi, this is very useful.

I will had to add some rescue statements for what I want to do, but this is a good start.

Thank you!

"Ruby 1.8.7 on MacPorts causing some problems" by Giles Bowkett

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:50:50 -0500

Ugh, you have to go here:

http://trac.macports.org/log/trunk/dports/lang/ruby/Portfile

Where you will discover they jumped straight from 1.8.6 p114 to 1.8.7.

I don’t see the sense in that, but they must have had some kind of reason. Anyway thanks – I’ll use this to fix my install.

"Ruby 1.8.7 on MacPorts causing some problems" by Giles Bowkett

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:48:29 -0500

This is awesome, but how do I find out which revision number I need for my desired patchlevel? The current rev on svn.macports.org is 50160, I need patchlevel 287, which as far as I can tell is somewhere between your 36429 and macports’ insane 50160. IIRC svn uses a global commit number, so that 15K-commit distance may or may not even cover any real territory.

"Installing Ruby on Rails and PostgreSQL on OS X, Second Edition" by Liam

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:53:49 -0500

ruby-pg is now the official postgres ruby gem: http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-interfaces/2007-12/msg00003.php

"Review: Highrise, part 2" by John Limak Lara

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:27:21 -0500

My company uses Basecamp as well. And I have to agree with Will that this has the best potential for getting me and my collegues through the initial startup fase without having to implement so and so automorph application. It can only bring more problems in the end.

John Limak Lara

"PL/Ruby loves RubyGems and DRb" by William T Nelson

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:59:39 -0500

Postgres 8.0 and later removes the ‘make install-all-headers’ requirement.

"Installing Ruby on Rails and PostgreSQL on OS X, Third Edition" by Adam

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:18:43 -0500

If you ever do a restore from Time Machine you may need to do the following.

1) Re-Hide Apple’s Ruby, Gems, and Rails 2) Add mac-ports and postgres back to your path

After doing the steps above I was back in business. Thanks for the awesome instructions Robby!

"20 articles on Cucumber and a free beverage recipe!" by Dick Davies

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 07:55:34 -0500

Thanks for the linkdump.

Not so much for the recipe; to quote Samuel Johnson:

“It has been a common saying of physicians in England, that a cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.”

"Switch to Passenger (mod_rails) in development on OSX in less than 7 minutes or your money back!" by José Tiburcio Ribeiro Netto

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 05:39:19 -0500

Very cool and productive tip (err… preference pane)!

I like the fact that you have a single url for an application… And also the fork made by Erik Caster, who gives it DNS multicast support, so you can access from within your local net.

Thanks Robby!

"Switch to Passenger (mod_rails) in development on OSX in less than 7 minutes or your money back!" by Kevin Hillabolt

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:37:02 -0500

Note that installing rb-cocoa, forced a port install of Ruby due to a dependency. This caused my Rubygems to no longer work properly.

Received: ruby: No such file to load—ubygems (LoadError)

To fix, I just aliased ‘ruby’=’/usr/bin/ruby’ in my .bash_profile file and everything started working again.

Just thought I would pass along…

"82,520 minutes on Phusion Passenger" by woody

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 01:24:40 -0500

have you/anyone heard of nginx? any idea about its performance with mongrel?

"20 articles on Cucumber and a free beverage recipe!" by bryanl

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:21:08 -0500

How about…

http://smartic.us/2009/04/01/introduction-to-acceptance-testing-ruby-web-applications/

"20 articles on Cucumber and a free beverage recipe!" by MEPatterson

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:19:09 -0500

Ozmox has a great step-by-step on BDD and Cucumber:

http://www.ozmox.com/2009/03/29/bdd-step-by-step-example-part-1/

"20 articles on Cucumber and a free beverage recipe!" by Aslak Hellesøy

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:15:55 -0500

There are so many Cucumber articles now that I can’t even keep up with all of them myself. Excellent compilation Robby. I’m not sure you’re aware of it – there is a list of blog posts over at the Cucumber Wiki too. (And it looks like we missed a few).

I have a good Cucumber drink or two up my sleeve myself. Try Hendricks gin & tonic with cucumber slices instead of lime/lemon.

I’ll serve an other one – alcohol free – at my Cucumber talk in Las Vegas

"Get to know a gem: Ghost" by Jon Brenner

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 19:13:36 -0500

This post was fun right up until I got to the part about installing Ruby Cocoa for the pref pane. Trying to installing Ruby Cocoa from macports along side my current 1.9 macports install didn’t work out too well for me.

"Switch to Passenger (mod_rails) in development on OSX in less than 7 minutes or your money back!" by tekkub

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:52:28 -0500

Man, I can’t thank you enough. I just spent an hour fighting with apache and the other passenger install guides, then trying to undo all that mess. The other guides out there seem to be older than the “now works with mac’s default apache install” fix… sure they have a small note about this, but it should be a BIG BOLD NOTE!

Anwho, after all that frustration, your guide here got me up and running, and with the added bonus of the prefpane. You rock. The official passenger docs should link to this, not to that other outdated guide.

"82,520 minutes on Phusion Passenger" by Ric

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 17:55:35 -0500

I love passenger too. Not given me any problems, and easy to configure.

"20 articles on Cucumber and a free beverage recipe!" by Reinaldo Junior

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:04:10 -0500

Great! But the link #21 is wrong. The right is http://www.softwarebloat.com/2008/11/19/continuous-integration-blueprints-how-to-build-an-army-of-killer-robots-with-hudson-and-cucumber/

"20 articles on Cucumber and a free beverage recipe!" by Daniel Lopes

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:42:35 -0500

Thanks.

"20 articles on Cucumber and a free beverage recipe!" by Matt Hooks

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:51:11 -0500

Cool! Thanks for compiling these links. I just started using cucumber and I’m digging it a lot.

Looks like you’re missing this Confreaks BDD with Cucumber talk by Ben Mabey:

http://mwrc2009.confreaks.com/14-mar-2009-15-00-bdd-with-cucumber-ben-mabey.html

"20 articles on Cucumber and a free beverage recipe!" by Alan

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:22:17 -0500

If you’re using Netbeans and want it to color the text of your cucumber feature files, there’s a plugin for that

"The Rails Hosting Survey 2009 Survey results are in!" by Bernardo

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:54:50 -0500

The “Capistrano” vs. “Vlad” result is something expected, but the “mod_rails” beating “mongrel” was a little unforeseen. “So, can Rails scale? ;)” YES! Very nice survey.

"20 articles on Cucumber and a free beverage recipe!" by Roland

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:37:39 -0500

cucumber water… sounds strange but I’ll try ;-)

"Audit Your Rails Development Team" by John

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:54:00 -0500

According to the creator of Rails, David Heinemeier Hansson, there is no official exam or certification for Rails, none that he’s permitted anyway. The only certification that exists are for completion of online courses/tutorials, like VTC.com

"Multiple Database Connections in Ruby on Rails" by Joe

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:10:15 -0500

Cool stuff. How does this affect testing with multiple databases?

"Working in Portland Coffee Shops and Cafes Reviews, part 2" by Roger

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:30:47 -0500

Nice post! Just an update that Pharmacy Cafe is gone, and is now a silly sports bar with a bulldog for a logo.

Also checked out your photostream of planetargon, only to find pictures of….Dawn! Had no idea she worked for you guys.

Great site. :)