Jamie van Dyke

Web Development with Source Code Management Basics (A Basic Guide)

2009-08-30T00:00:00+01:00

Pre-Amble I remember when I first started development. Even more fun was doing the same but over a remote ftp connection through Transmit, or just directly on the server. I got used to pretty GUI’s doing things for me and visually feedback for whether I’d got it right. Oh, how...

Twitter + World of Warcraft Announcements

2009-05-03T00:00:00+01:00

It’s been a while since I posted anything, and I intend to fix that with smaller posts that describe things I’m doing. So let’s start off this new regime with a little post about a tiny script I wrote the other day for my WoW guild. We are now using a twitter account to post...

Building a Gem Using BDD

2009-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

I wrote this article for the first edition of “The Rubyist”, and having left it a good set of months, I’m posting it here for your perusal. The internet is full of tutorials and blogs on Rails, but lacking in the Ruby Gem building department, and as part of my work for Engine...

Ruby on Rails Handout

2008-12-09T00:00:00+00:00

A while ago I gave away my Ruby on Rails handout for beginners. It was a PDF that contained the real basics for getting started or at least understanding the fundamentals of what Ruby on Rails is all about. However, my blog changed, the article url moved and ultimately it disappeared. Well here...

Red and Yellow And...

2008-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

One of my last projects required me to spend a ridiculous amount of time categorising images into groups of colour. What a pain in the gluteus maximus. So bollocks to that, let’s see if we can’t automate it a little to cut down on the flak. Prepare So, the tools for today’s...

...And So Our Journey Begins!

2008-12-05T00:00:00+00:00

It is with great pleasure and humility that I present to you, my new writings. I have decided to focus more on my real name and less on my dreamt up internet persona. Greetings everyone, for I am Jamie van Dyke a.k.a. fearoffish. I have a new beginning. A new venture. Going back, shall we say,...

Oh, the Memories

2008-05-03T00:00:00+01:00

Let’s pretend that you’re busy making a kick ass template maker, and you’d like to keep backups of the file you generate. You certainly don’t want to write over it every time, in case there’s customer changes that have been made since the last time you did. What if you...

Simple AJAX and Inline Javascript With Rails

2008-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve noticed a lot of people asking questions about ajax, rjs, scriptaculous and other whizzy cool effects lately. So I thought I’d document a couple here so there’s less confusion about some of the simpler effects. I’ve included an element toggle on a hyper link, a simple...

Filtering Passwords in the Rails Log

2008-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

Every time a user logs on to your Rails site, they enter a username or password. The login form you’ve created no doubt POST’s that value to your Rails application, which it then kindly logs in your production.log. This is fine for development, but what about when you deploy your site...

Apple Leopard REXML Bug

2007-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

Just in case any of you wonder why when you use REXML’s write method on ruby 1.8.6 (2007-09-24 patchlevel 111) [universal-darwin9.0] and possibly other versions, you get errors, it’s a bug in Apple’s REXML library. See this: def write(writer=$stdout, indent=-1, transitive=false,...

Thanks to the Patchers

2007-10-03T00:00:00+01:00

As you may have seen on the Riding Rails article, I got a thanks for the patches I added for documentation and other bits and bobs. I’d just like to extend that thanks out to everyone in the Caboose Documentation Project (who were also mentioned) and everyone who donated to the fund. You...

Interviewed

2007-09-28T00:00:00+01:00

I was recently interviewed by Satish Talim for Ruby Learning, it was a pleasure being among the 13 that were published, others included Jamie Buck and Ola Bini and more. Check out the article here: http://rubylearning.com/blog/2007/09/27/advice-for-ruby-beginners-1/

Beginning Ruby by Peter Cooper

2007-05-17T00:00:00+01:00

Highly Recommended It’s taken me a while to get through Peter’s book, but I’m certainly happy I put the time in. This has to be the best book for Ruby beginners, whether it be for scripting or for moving towards Rails. Beginning Ruby is broken into three parts, Foundations and...