Learning Git

It took a second to really get why git was any better then svn and why I should care. Reading helped but I would say start a github account, put a project up and just learn the workflow.

Here are some resources that got me stared:

• Peepcode
• Gitcasts
• All my other git links

Quirkey on git

Most importantly, in line with above I’ve moved all of my projects and even put some new ones that are in development up there:

http://github.com/quirkey/

Another thing I didn't quite get/like about some of the ActionMailer setup is that even though you're putting all the email body text in a file somewhere that's not your Mailer class, you put the text of you're subject in there. Some more snooping in the source reveals setting the subject from within the template is easy - your Mailer instance is exposed to the template as 'controller':

<% controller.subject = 'Change of subject' %>
Hello <%= @user.display_name %>

Thank you for your order. 

Love <%= controller.from %>

It struck me as weird that with ActionView you can have a whole array (really Array) of view/template paths that are iteratively searched for a matching template, however, with ActionMailer (even though it uses ActionView) you can only define or override the single template_root.

Bizarre, right? I bet rails core had some good reason for this, but in this specific project I'm relying heavily on using ActionView::Base.prepend_view_path() to have the app structured with default templates that are easily replaced by dropping templates in to a different view path. So if I'm doing that for an entire site it would make sense to do the same for my 'Notification' templates as well. The rails docs were pretty unhelpful, but a quick dive into the source proved fruitful. If you drop the code below into config/initializers/action_mailer_extensions.rb:

module ActionMailer
  class Base
    class_inheritable_accessor :view_paths
    
    def self.prepend_view_path(path)
      view_paths.unshift(*path)
      ActionView::TemplateFinder.process_view_paths(path)
    end

    def self.append_view_path(path)
      view_paths.push(*path)
      ActionView::TemplateFinder.process_view_paths(path)
    end

    private
    def self.view_paths
      @@view_paths ||= [template_root]
    end
    
    def view_paths
      self.class.view_paths
    end
    
    def initialize_template_class(assigns)
      ActionView::Base.new(view_paths, assigns, self)
    end

  end
end

ActionMailer::Base.prepend_view_path('/my/other/path/to/search/first/')
# or
ActionMailer::Base.append_view_path('/my/other/path/to/search/last/')

Here’s the big reveal of the biggest thing I’ve been working on over the past forever: The Scout.

There’s a lot to say about this, but my partner in the project, Tom Ran, already said it much more eloquently in an interview with psfk.

I can, however, speak to the technical aspects of the project. It is (of course??) running on Ruby on Rails. I can pat myself on the back about it’s very powerful but easy to use CMS. Were working on adding a lot more articles right now and the whole set up seems to be chugging along without a hitch.

The whole project was a beautiful idea about a year ago but after a lot of lunch and dinner conversations I can finally say that it’s a reality.

I learned a lot on the project and used it as an excuse to grok some new technologies (or at lest new to me) like the Google Maps API.

Were hoping to continue to push our features and content in the coming weeks and months. To keep up:

1. Join the mailing list
2. “follow the site’s RSS Feeds: Blog, Retail, Dining/Bars, Features, and Tours
3. follow thescout on twitter

If you’re interested in contributing email info at the scout mag dot com.

Were just so excited it’s real.

So it’s been a little while. I’ve missed writing and I am resolved to make QuirkeyBlog full of words once more. This summer has been amzingly busy, but I can say that, though this blog has heard nothing of it, I’ve gotten a a lot done. I’m going to be a little self-serving and separate them out so look out for more after this.

Another brash decision - I’m going to keep this blog preety strictly about development and projects. Twitter will henceforth (such a great excuse to use that word) be my personal log. You’ll soon see new outlets for my other disparate interests.

In other words, Stay tuned . . .

Besides going to learn some interesting tidbits, Intersect is also on a mission to find some people to help out on upcoming projects.

If you’re going and your reading this, come find me!

Me:

class Hash

  def deep_value(key_array)
    value = self
    Array(key_array).each do |key|
      value = value.fetch(key, nil) 
    end
    value
  rescue NoMethodError
    nil
  end

end

# Examples

h = {1 => {2 => {3 => 4}}}

h.deep_value(1)       #=> {2 => {3 => 4}}
h.deep_value([1,2])   #=> {3 => 4}
h.deep_value([1,2,3,4]) #=> nil

h = {"farm" => {"animals" => ['sheep','pigs']},
     "people" => {"farmers" => ['bill','joe'],
                  "children" => 'tommy'
                  }
    }
    
h.deep_value(["farm","animals"]) #=> ['sheep','pigs']
h.deep_value(["farm","animals","edible"]) #=> nil 
h.deep_value(["farm","people","farmers"]) #=> ['bill','joe']
h.deep_value(["farm","city folk"]) #=> nil

The Whitney Museum, one of the best and most renowned art museums in New York (and thus the world) is using Flickr to promote their Biennial Show. Regardless of the fact that the lovely woman in charge of this project happens to be my lovely girlfriend, this is an awesome use of Flickr as a tool. I’ve always firmly believed that Flickr’s strength lies not only in its community but by how it can be used as a leap pad for inspiration and exploration of mediums beyond just photography. It’s cool to see bigger institutions jump on the bandwagon and open up to the social web, and in turn the youngin’s.

See also:
The Facebook Biennial
The Whitney Biennial 2008
Friend & Stranger