Everyday Rails

More advice on legacy data migration in Rails

2011-12-11T00:00:00-06:00

What do you do if your legacy data defies convention or is just generally complex? Here are some notes from my recent experience using rake to accomplish difficult data migrations.

How I've been developing an administrative backend with ActiveAdmin

2011-11-11T00:00:00-06:00

Rails developers with deadlines will love ActiveAdmin for building high-quality interfaces for managing a site's data.

Authorization advice for Rails 3 and beyond

2011-10-06T00:00:00-05:00

Here's the general process I follow whenever adding authorization—the logic that says what a user's allowed to do—to my Rails applications.

Rails authentication today: Options for 3.0 and 3.1

2011-09-21T00:00:00-05:00

There's no shortage of approaches to adding password-based security to your Rails applications. Here's a look at the current lineup.

Migrate data to Rails applications with Trucker

2011-09-16T00:00:00-05:00

Get legacy data? Trucker makes moving it from old codebases into new Rails apps with relative ease.

MailForm: Easy e-mail contact forms for your Rails apps

2011-09-07T00:00:00-05:00

Get e-mail feedback from your site's visitors though this simple-to-implement web form.

Simple, user-friendly cancel links for your Rails forms

2011-06-16T00:00:00-05:00

Let your users opt out of a form and return to the page they came from with this simple helper.

Better SMTP handling in Rails application development

2011-05-26T00:00:00-05:00

You don't need to send out e-mail messages to real addresses during development with these two easy-to-use options for SMTP handling.

Install Rails 3.1 beta with RVM gemsets (a public service announcement)

2011-05-08T00:00:00-05:00

Don't forget, RVM gemsets are great for trying out pre-release versions of Rails without interfering with other work. Here's a reminder on how to set that up.

try(), try() again in Rails

2011-04-28T00:00:00-05:00

The very convenient try() method has been available to Rails developers since version 2.3, but it's easy to forget if you're not in the habit of using it. Here's a brief primer.