ruby, eh?

Dynamically created methods in Ruby

Thu, 15 May 2008 14:00:41 -0400

Dynamically created methods in Ruby: Use def, avoid define_method

"Imagine trying to make a Rails project LSB compliant — your database.yaml file would need to..."

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:41:15 -0400

“Imagine trying to make a Rails project LSB compliant — your database.yaml file would need to be in /etc, your log directory would need to be in /var, and your actual code would need to be in /usr. There went all of your fancy Rails “convention over configuration”, and you’re suddenly fighting Rails instead of using it, and everyone you ask for help just tells you to “put it in vendor”.”

- Puppet Blog: Development and More

flamefest: Twitter Said To Be Abandoning Ruby on Rails

Thu, 01 May 2008 18:00:02 -0400

flamefest: Twitter Said To Be Abandoning Ruby on Rails

rails: Using Thin Instead Of Mongrel

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:04:21 -0400

rails: Using Thin Instead Of Mongrel

rails: From Param: How URL-Based Fetching Ought to Be

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:16:34 -0400

rails: From Param: How URL-Based Fetching Ought to Be: From Param will auto-magically save the to_param of your model to the specified parameter column (defaults to “param” but you can set it by calling set_param_column) and then automatically know to find by that column if it exists when from_param is called. This way, all you have to do is define a to_param that will be unique to your record and everything else is handled for you!

"the only writing that is of great value anymore is that which explains why something matters"

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:36:41 -0400

“the only writing that is of great value anymore is that which explains why something matters”

- Rex Hammock

"It may be easier than ever to build something and, perhaps because of social networking, easier to..."

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:38:55 -0400

“It may be easier than ever to build something and, perhaps because of social networking, easier to get an audience. But all of the syntactic sugar in the world doesn’t make it any easier to scale an application.”

- Why Johnny Can’t Scale

Hey Rails, nice Rack!

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:25:21 -0400

Hey Rails, nice Rack!: Ezra is putting rack support into his fork of Rails.

Building a Social Network Site in Rails

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:14:28 -0400

Building a Social Network Site in Rails: Pretty awesome list of plugins for building a new site.

rails: Database agnostic != database ignorant

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:44:31 -0400

rails: Database agnostic != database ignorant: Basic SQL stuff that people using Rails need to know.

What's up in Ruby? - Niche search engine

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:39:34 -0400

What's up in Ruby? - Niche search engine

rails: Creating More Using Less Effort with Ruby on Rails

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:36:35 -0400

rails: Creating More Using Less Effort with Ruby on Rails: Decent intro guide for people who want to know what Rails is at 50,000 feet.

rails: Fail Early with misconfigured MySql adapter

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:58:55 -0400

rails: Fail Early with misconfigured MySql adapter:

Here’s another case where this idea is useful. It’s well-known that the Ruby-based MySQL driver included with Rails isn’t suitable for use in production. In fact, Rails will produce this warning in the log if it is in use:

WARNING: You’re using the Ruby-based MySQL library that ships
with Rails. This library is not suited for production. Please 
install the C-based MySQL library instead (gem install mysql).

This can go unnoticed in the log. Instead, we can write a short initializer that detects this condition and aborts the application start if the production server is misconfigured.

Better Redirects in Rails

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:08:45 -0400

Better Redirects in Rails: Simple ways to redirect the user back-and-forth between pages. Like ‘edit then return to where you started the edit from’

msysgit - Windows git Client

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:27:03 -0400

msysgit - Windows git Client

Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on git

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:25:45 -0400

Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on git

"Do stuff, instead of trying to make the non-stuff you are doing seem important."

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:54:03 -0400

“Do stuff, instead of trying to make the non-stuff you are doing seem important.”

- AJ Valliant

The new attack on the RDBMS

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:55:11 -0400

The new attack on the RDBMS: AppEngine / SimpleDB / CouchDB are coming up with new ways of doing scalable DBs. Will we have SQLite on the client and something else on the backend soon?

"anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at..."

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:44:22 -0400

“anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.”

- Robert Benchley

Using InnoSetup to Build a Self-Extracting Shoes App on Windows

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 22:34:00 -0400

I’m going to go into this one in more detail on the main blog sometime in the future. But I’m happy to say I was able to build Shoes app as a self-extracting Windows executable (~7MB).

This is my file structure

myprogram\Rakefile
# This is where I stick static files that will be copied in the distribution
myprogram\meta
# full shoes install, with gems unpacked into the libs
myprogram\shoes\*
# my program
myprogram\shoes\app\app.rb

Here’s my Rakefile I use for building the self-installer using Inno Setup.

You can download the app here (for Windows).