Literate Programming

Ditching Google: Chat with Your Own XMPP Server

2013-05-15T17:00:00-07:00

Last week, I decided that it was time to migrate one of my services away from Google: XMPP for IM. The nice thing about XMPP is that you don't have to totally drop support for your old identity: since...

Upgrading from Rust 0.5 to 0.6

2013-04-06T17:00:00-07:00

Here are some error messages that I got when updating Rust for Rubyists from Rust 0.5 to the new 0.6, and how to fix those errors.Error:rust.rs:1:4: 1:16 error: unresolved name rust.rs:1 use task::spa...

Travis build matrix for Rails

2013-03-09T16:00:00-08:00

Do you have a gem that needs to test against multiple versions of Rails? Doing it all can be complex, and while I have lots to say about this topic, but here's one of the pieces: Travis build matrix.H...

Using Puma on Heroku

2013-02-23T16:00:00-08:00

I'm a big fan of Puma these days. Today, I converted my blog over to use Puma, and I figured I'd share how I did it. This blog uses Sinatra.If you want to look ahead, here is the commit.GemfileInstall...

I'm writing 'Rails 4 in Action.'

2013-02-12T16:00:00-08:00

Last night, I took a big step forward in my writing career: I'll be building upon the work Ryan Bigg was doing to take "Rails 3 in Action" and move it to Rails 4. I signed the contract a few weeks ago...

The next iteration of Designing Hypermedia APIs

2013-02-11T16:00:00-08:00

I sent out an email today to everyone who'd previously purchased Designing Hypermedia APIs. Here's the text:Hey there, First of all, I want to apologize for sending you an email. I try to keep these ...

Ruby on Rails maintenance policy

2013-02-10T16:00:00-08:00

Recently, the Rails team has committed to a specific policy related to release maintenance. Due to the rapid pace of recent releases, it's good to understand how your apps relate to this policy.The po...

Node, Twitter, and Apologies

2013-01-22T16:00:00-08:00

Soooo there's this thing: http://harthur.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/771/First of all, unequivocally, I said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm sorry, and feel terrible that I made someone feel terrib...

Draper 1.0.0 released

2013-01-13T16:00:00-08:00

Today, I released Draper 1.0.0! Draper is a gem that gives you decorators/view models for Rails.Rubygems: https://rubygems.org/gems/draper GitHub: https://github.com/drapergem/draper README: https://g...

2012: Year in Review

2012-12-28T16:00:00-08:00

I always enjoy reading patio11's year in review posts, and while I didn't take enough notes for this year to do a GOOD one, I figure that I should at least leave some notes so that when I do one next ...

An early Christmas present for you!

2012-12-18T16:00:00-08:00

Normally, I'm a bit of a grinch. I'll admit it, I really hate Christmas. It reminds me of all of the worst parts of America: You know, how the baby Jesus commands us to literally shop until we kill ea...

Announcing RequestStore

2012-12-16T16:00:00-08:00

Last night I had some insomnia, so I wrote a gem.Here it is: https://github.com/steveklabnik/request_store.TL;DR:If you're using Thread.current in your Rails app to store global-ish data, don't do it!...

Getting started with chruby

2012-12-12T16:00:00-08:00

If you're looking for crazy simplicity in your 'switch between multiple Rubies' life, you may want to check out chruby. Written by Postmodern, it's basically the simplest possible thing that can work....

Draper 1.0.0.beta2 release

2012-12-02T16:00:00-08:00

I've relased the second beta for Draper 1.0.0! Many thanks to all of you who gave the first beta a shot. We've fixed some issues, and I'd apprecaite you giving this one a try. This solves all known is...

Draper 1.0.0.beta1 release

2012-11-29T16:00:00-08:00

I'm happy to announce the release of Draper 1.0.0.beta1 today. If you use Draper, I'd appreciate you checking out the beta release in your app, kicking the tires, and letting me know what's up.You can...

Introducing the Rails API Project

2012-11-21T16:00:00-08:00

Ruby on Rails is a great tool to build websites incredibly quickly and easily. But what about applications that aren't websites? Rails is still a first-class choice for this use-case, but why settle f...

How to squash commits in a GitHub pull request

2012-11-07T16:00:00-08:00

So you've contributed some code to an open source project, say, Rails. And they'd like you to squash all of the commits in your pull request. But you're not a git wizard; how do you make this happen?N...

Run Rails with custom patches

2012-10-03T17:00:00-07:00

I often see comments like this in the Rails bugtracker. Generally, someone is running an older version of Rails, and some bug they face has been fixed on edge. But they may be running a version that's...

Seriously. Numbers. Use them.

2012-09-26T17:00:00-07:00

Rescuing Resque: Let's do this

2012-09-21T17:00:00-07:00

If you've ever done background job stuff with Rails, you've probably used Resque. Resque is "Yet Another GitHub Project They've Open Sourced and Then Abandoned." But Resque is super awesome: it builds...

Random Ruby Tricks: Class.new

2012-09-08T17:00:00-07:00

If you didn't know, classes are first-class objects in Ruby:1.9.3p194 :001 > String.class => Class 1.9.3p194 :002 > Class.class => Class How is this useful, though?InheritanceYou may create very s...

Random Ruby Tricks: Struct.new

2012-08-31T17:00:00-07:00

One of my favorite classes in Ruby is Struct, but I feel like many Rubyists don't know when to take advantage of it. The standard library has a lot of junk in it, but Struct and OStruct are super awes...

New Blog: Words

2012-08-30T17:00:00-07:00

I've started a new blog: Words.You may have noticed that it's a part of the Svbtle blogging network. I'm super excited about this, but you may be confused. Let me explain.My relationship with writingI...

DayZ: Worse is Better

2012-07-24T17:00:00-07:00

I've recently come across one of the most addicting, interesting experiences I've ever had online: DayZ. I hesitate to call it a 'video game,' because while it is a mod for a first person shooter game...

Sparrow, Part 1

2012-07-20T17:00:00-07:00

I purchased Sparrow back when it was $9, and didn't find it particularly amazing. I did like it, but ended up using the web interface more. I certainly got my $9 of value out of it, though, even thoug...

Why I don't like factory_girl

2012-07-13T17:00:00-07:00

Once upon a time, I was building my First Serious Rails App. I was drawn to Rails in the first place because of automated testing and ActiveRecord; I felt the pain of not using an ORM and spending abo...

How can I contribute to Ruby on Rails?

2012-07-04T17:00:00-07:00

After RailsConf this year, I joined the Rails Issue Team. This means that I help triage issues that people have filed, try to reproduce errors, and point core team members at ones that are most import...

Introducing issue2pr

2012-06-28T17:00:00-07:00

Ever had an issue on GitHub, and then you fixed the bug? Opened a brand new pull request, which becomes a new issue, and then you have to remember to link the two via a comment, or manually go back a...

Show solidarity to all who resist

2012-05-30T17:00:00-07:00

I found this on a flyer in my neighborhood.<hr /> On may 19th, three people associated with the Occupy movement were arrested in Chicago, just before the anti-NATO protest. Two infiltrators had been w...

Finale

2012-05-29T17:00:00-07:00

This morning, my mother woke up and found that my father had passed away in the night.Thanks for all the love and support you all have shown me over the last two months. It's been hard, but you all ha...

Shoes 4 work is starting: get involved

2012-05-24T17:00:00-07:00

As you know, I've been doing a lot of work over the last few years to keep _why's Shoes project going. A few other intrepid individuals have been doing a lot as well. We're starting to work on Shoes 4...

Mixins: A refactoring anti-pattern

2012-05-06T17:00:00-07:00

I spend an unusually large amount of time thinking about interactions between what I call 'past me' and 'future me.' It seems that my life changes significantly every few years, and I like to ground m...

On the eve of #M1GS

2012-04-29T17:00:00-07:00

Walking down the street, a woman cries for help. She's blind, and the curb is large, and she's unsure of herself. Knowing it's not safe, she seeks the help of a stranger to guide her on her way. Three...

Cards for Dad: Follow-up

2012-04-21T17:00:00-07:00

Hey everyone! It's been a few weeks, and I wanted to update you guys on the card situation.First of all, thank you so much. Every single one of you who sent cards, thank you! It was truly amazing to s...

Building StoreEngine

2012-04-04T17:00:00-07:00

So I said I was gonna build antisocialne.ws. But I'm changing gears instead: I'd rather do this project, which has a better spec and needs a reference implementation.<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.c...

About Antisocialne.ws

2012-04-02T17:00:00-07:00

Anti-capitalism 101

2012-03-30T17:00:00-07:00

People are often surprised to find out that I identify as an anti-capitalist. At least in America, many people see capitalism as inevitable, or even as the way things always were. Unfortunately, there...

Birthday Cards for Dad

2012-03-25T17:00:00-07:00

Hey everyone. If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that I've been a bit absent lately. Basically, my dad has angiosarcoma. It's a really rare cancer of the blood vessels. A city the size of Pittsb...

Transmuting Philosophy into Machinery

2012-03-07T16:00:00-08:00

I'm so very close to releasing the beta of Get Some REST. However, I'm about to get on a plane to Poland, and that's a bad time to launch things. ;) wroc_love.rb, here I come!Anyway, I figured I'd gi...

A Hypermedia API Reading List

2012-02-26T16:00:00-08:00

Originally, this post was titled "A RESTful Reading List," but please note that REST is over. Hypermedia API is the new nomenclature.I've been doing an intense amount of research on Hypermedia APIs ov...

REST is OVER!

2012-02-22T16:00:00-08:00

<div style="text-align: center"> <h1 style=" padding:25px 0; margin-left: 40px; margin-right: 40px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; font-size: 800%; letter-spacing: -0.04em; background-color: #4...

Two Pomodoros

2012-02-21T16:00:00-08:00

I'd been thinking about doing this for a while, and yesterday, actually got around to it. The basic idea is this: record me during normal development, and then post it to the internet.Here's the video...

An API Ontology

2012-02-12T16:00:00-08:00

NOTE: The alpha of my book on APIs is out! Check it out at http://designinghypermediaapis.com.As I've done research on APIs for Designing Hypermedia APIs, I've become increasingly interested in differ...

Introducing Metadown

2012-01-22T16:00:00-08:00

Because I don't have enough gems made already, I made another one last night: metadown.What's Metadown do?This blog originally used Jekyll. When I moved it to my own personal blog implementation, I no...

Moving from Sinatra to Rails

2012-01-16T16:00:00-08:00

I love both Sinatra and Rails, for different reasons. I've heard a few different heuristics for which framework would be better for your application, but I'm not sure the answer is all that simple, re...

Implementing HATEOAS with Presenters

2012-01-05T16:00:00-08:00

I'm a big fan of using the presenter pattern to help separate logic from presentation. There's a great gem named Draper that can help facilitate this pattern in your Rails apps. When doing research fo...

ActiveRecord (and Rails) Considered Harmful

2011-12-29T16:00:00-08:00

It is practically impossible to teach OO design to students that have had a prior exposure to Rails: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.Edsger W. Dijkstra...

Redcarpet Is _awesome_!

2011-12-20T16:00:00-08:00

It's true.If you haven't used it yet, Redcarpet is the Markdown parser that GitHub uses to work all that magic on their site. So of course, it's awesome.You can use it and abuse itWhat makes it really...

Write Better Cukes With the Rel Attribute

2011-12-19T16:00:00-08:00

The other day, I was working on some Cucumber features for a project, and I discovered a neat technique that helps you to write better Cucumber steps.Nobody wants to be cuking it wrong, but what does ...

Marx, Anarchism, and Web Standards

2011-12-14T16:00:00-08:00

Fast Rails Tests With CanCan.

2011-12-11T16:00:00-08:00

If you haven't used it, CanCan is a great library for Rails that handles authorization for you. Its calling card is simplicity; just do this:class Ability include CanCan::Ability def initialize(u...

Devise: ActionController::RoutingError (No Route Matches [GET] /users/sign_out)

2011-12-10T16:00:00-08:00

Just a quick note about Devise, and its RESTful implications. I ran across this error today, and thought I'd share.I was trying to log out, so I hit the normal route for such things with my browser. H...

Book Review: New Programmer's Survival Manual

2011-11-27T16:00:00-08:00

Disclaimer: I do have a small credit in this book. A long time ago, the author mentioned that he was looking for people to help out, so I stepped up. It was only participating in discussions like "Wha...

Burnout

2011-11-16T16:00:00-08:00

I have a confession to make: Other than one little stint at RubyC, I haven't really written code in almost a month. And I haven't really written a 'real' blog post in almost six weeks.It happens. I wa...

Your Startup is NOT a Platform

2011-10-24T17:00:00-07:00

No, seriously. This is a public service announcment to all MBAs who want to do startups: 'platform' does not mean 'web site.'I know that 'platform' is a hot thing right now. But seriously, the term ha...

For Science: I'm Killing My Cell Phone

2011-10-18T17:00:00-07:00

Yep. Doin' it. This morning I swung by the Sprint store and picked up a 4G hotspot. Gonna transfer my number to Google Voice this evening.lolwhut?Yep. I'm terribly addicted to my phone right now. This...

Rubinius Is Awesome

2011-10-03T17:00:00-07:00

You walk into work tomorrow morning, and your boss says this:Boss: Hey, we're gonna need to go ahead and have you implement require_relative in rubinius. We have some new servers coming in, and we'll ...

GitHub Is Anarchy for Programmers

2011-09-30T17:00:00-07:00

I finally got to see Zach Holman give his talk, How GitHub Uses GitHub to Build GitHub. It was awesome. Zach is a great speaker, and the slides don't do it justice. I highly recommend catching it on v...

(Real) Modern Ruby Development

2011-09-27T17:00:00-07:00

I came across a blog post the other day titled Modern Ruby Development. While it's a perfectly fine blog post (other than the digs at rvm...) it really should have been titled something more along the...

I'm Deleting My Facebook Tonight.

2011-09-25T17:00:00-07:00

Well, it's the end of the web as we know it. I'd already been thinking about this all weekend, and last night, I decided. I just can't deal with Facebook's crazy privacy stuff anymore. I mean, I alrea...

More rstat.us Refactoring

2011-09-22T17:00:00-07:00

Hey everyone! I just wanted to share One More Thing with you about this rstat.us refactoring.The main thrust of the last article I posted was to show you a technique for extracting a class, getting it...

Extracting Domain Models: A Practical Example

2011-09-21T17:00:00-07:00

Hey everyone! We've been doing a lot of refactoring on rstat.us lately, and I wanted to share with you a refactoring that I did. It's a real-world example of doing the domain models concept that I've ...

Better Ruby Presenters

2011-09-08T17:00:00-07:00

My last blog post caused a bit of a stir in some circles. I got a bunch of emails. Apparently, I need to expand on a few things. So here we go. Let's rap about the Presenter pattern, shall we?No serio...

The Secret to Rails OO Design

2011-09-05T17:00:00-07:00

UPDATE: I also have a follow-up here.I often tell people that I learned Ruby via Rails. This is pretty much the worst way to do it, but I'd learned so many programming languages by then that it didn't...

The Self-Improvement Pomodoro

2011-09-03T17:00:00-07:00

By now, the pomodoro technique is pretty well-known amongst programmers. I forget where I heard of it first, but if you haven't, here it is: Break your day up into 30 minute chunks. Work for 25 minute...

I'm Making It Dead Simple To Contribute To Ruby's Documentation

2011-08-21T17:00:00-07:00

Okay! So, if you'd read my previous article on this, you'd know how easy it is to contribute to Ruby's Documentaiton.But Steve, I'm still kinda scared.Okay, so here we go: I'm making it even easier on...

Matz is Nice So We Are Nice

2011-08-18T17:00:00-07:00

Rubyists have a saying, or at least, we used to. "Matz is nice so we are nice." This has sort of been lost over the years... some people who have been around Ruby for a long time still say this, but i...

We Forget That Open Source is Made of People

2011-08-11T17:00:00-07:00

Programmers like to think that software is the purest form of meritocracy. We like to consider ourselves scientists; what we do is entirely impersonal. I'm at Lone Star Ruby right now, and the first t...

Some People Understand REST and HTTP

2011-08-06T17:00:00-07:00

This is a follow-up post to my post here. You probably want to read that first.UPDATE: Please note that 'REST is over'. 'Hypermedia API' is the proper term now.A few words on standards versus pragmati...

Twitter is too important to be owned by Twitter

2011-07-23T17:00:00-07:00

When I spoke on a panel at RTLM NY '11, I got a little rise out of the crowd when I said "Twitter is too important to be owned by Twitter." This is still absolutely true, and yesterday was a great exa...

Nobody Understands REST or HTTP

2011-07-02T17:00:00-07:00

HI HN, PLEASE READ THIS!!!Since I've posted this, I've refined a few of my positions on things. Everyone learns and grows, and while I still stand by most of what I said, I specifically don't agree th...

Single text, many masters

2011-05-20T17:00:00-07:00

Hey everyone. Here's a draft of an essay I've been working on. I'd love to hear your feedback.The word 'engineering' has a deep connection to the word 'trade-offs' in my mind. Most engineering decisio...

The next iteration of my blog

2011-05-11T17:00:00-07:00

Well well well, some things never change. Long ago, I hosted my own blog, and here we are again. I've moved everything over to Jekyll, if that means anything to you. You can now look at my blog on Git...

Contributing to Ruby's Documentation

2011-05-09T17:00:00-07:00

Update!I'm now making it even easier than this: Read my new post about how I'll do this for you. That said, if you want to do it yourself, the following will tell you how.Original ArticleRuby 1.9.3 is...

The first week of rstat.us: Users, Press, Scaling, oh my!

2011-03-29T17:00:00-07:00

Hey everyone. A lot of people have been asking me about rstat.us lately, so I figured I'd tell a little bit of the story as it's gone down so far.StatsFirst, here's some numbers:Users: 4553 Uniques: 2...

Announcing rstat.us

2011-03-22T17:00:00-07:00

Whew.If you've been following me on Twitter at all lately, you'll know that I've been working hard on a new project lately. Tonight, even though it's late, I'm finally getting it out there. Please wel...

Did you hear? I'm Ruby Mendicant University's first Visiting Teacher

2011-03-17T17:00:00-07:00

I've heard Ruby Mendicant University (also known as RMU, not to confuse you Robert Morris alums!) described as "the best kept secret of the Ruby community." High praise, indeed. If you haven't heard ...

I'm quitting Hacker News

2011-03-02T16:00:00-08:00

I've been thinking about this post for a while.I freaking love Hacker News. It's my favorite place on the Internet. It's incredibly valuable. I have learned so much from my time there. With that said...

A few Notes on Foucault

2011-01-21T16:00:00-08:00

I've almost always been in a habit of reading. When I was younger, I spent a lot of time in the library. I'd just grab an entire series of novels, and read them all, right in a row. Sometimes I'd end ...

Goals for 2011

2011-01-01T16:00:00-08:00

This year I'm happy to report that I have much more upbeat plans than last year's kind of sad post. With that said, here's my 2011 goals:I want to work for other people 2 days per week on average for ...

Hackety Hack v1.0

2010-12-24T16:00:00-08:00

It's been a long journey. I have a lot to say about this, but it'll have to wait until I'm not in the middle of nowhere spending some time with Maria's family. I just wanted to tell you all Merry Chri...

The hardest decision I've ever made.

2010-11-16T16:00:00-08:00

I'll cut to the chase: I've stepped down as CTO of CloudFab. I don't want to discuss details, but life is too short to not be doing what you want with it. And, after a period of careful thought and co...

Trolling is a art

2010-09-23T17:00:00-07:00

I find it incredibly hard not to be judgmental.I'm not sure what part of my personality makes this happen, but even when I try to curb tearing down other people, I end up doing it anyway. I'm not sure...

80% of success is showing up

2010-09-20T17:00:00-07:00

It's funny how true this quote is.There are three people that I really admire: _why, Zed Shaw, and Yehuda Katz. And to simplify my tenses a bit, I'll speak of _why in the present tense. What do these ...

Trouble with Diaspora

2010-09-16T17:00:00-07:00

So, Wednesday, Diaspora was released.If you're not familiar, a few months ago everyone was up in arms about the latest Facebook privacy change. So four college kids started a Kickstarter project with ...

A word about why, whyday, and Hackety Hack

2010-08-18T17:00:00-07:00

Today is Whyday. A programmer's holiday. Today is the day that we don't forget that programming isn't all Agile and driven by behavior and Serious Business. Inside each cubicle, the hacker spirit is t...

A blip in time

2010-07-23T17:00:00-07:00

Sometimes, insight comes from very unlikely places.I'm keenly interested in the music industry, and how it will evolve, or possibly die. I care deeply about music; it's had a profound effect on my lif...

What To Know Before Debating Type Systems

2010-07-16T17:00:00-07:00

Recently, it was brought up on Proggit that Chris Smith's "What to Know Before Debating Type Systems" was no longer online. This is a really great article, and in an effort to make sure it survives, I...

Case Study in being excellent: Divvy

2010-06-29T17:00:00-07:00

The other day I wrote a post about being excellent to each other. Today, I've got a great example of that for you: Divvy.What would you do if you received an email like this?![]3Here's what happened:!...

Productivity Waves

2010-06-07T17:00:00-07:00

Right now, I'm having a bit of a 'darkness before the dawn' kind of moment. I feel like I might soon start to become productive again.It's sort of strange, how these things travel in waves. Just a mon...

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants.

2010-04-30T17:00:00-07:00

I just saw this today. It kind of goes along with my "Move to the Internet" post from a few days ago.Enjoy.Date: Fri, 9 Feb 1996 17:16:35 +0100To: barlow@eff.orgFrom: John Perry Barlow <barlow@eff.org...

A Break with the Past

2010-04-26T17:00:00-07:00

Pretty soon, Twitter is going to turn off Basic Authentication and switch entirely to OAuth. People are upset. It's natural. If apps aren't updated, they'll stop working, entirely. This could be bad.B...

Living in the Cloud

2010-04-23T17:00:00-07:00

I've been joking for a while that I'd like to "move to the Internet." Generally I cite my familiarity and love with online culture as opposed to American culture. I don't really care what's going on i...

Book Review: Rework

2010-03-09T16:00:00-08:00

I've been waiting for this book for a while. "Rework" is the new book by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson from 37signals. It hit stores on Tuesday. Here's a (non-affiliate) link to Rework on A...

Create a more compelling experience for your users through game mechanics

2010-03-07T16:00:00-08:00

Ever wonder why some websites are so addictive? Certain sites always keep you going back, time after time after time. Well, I can't speak for all of them, but there's a subtle reason that some sites d...

Writing a "su" feature with Authlogic

2010-03-04T16:00:00-08:00

Sometimes, when responding to a support request, it's nice to see what your users see. At the same time, you don't want to ask your users for their passwords, out of respect for their privacy. So what...

Why bother creating?

2010-03-02T16:00:00-08:00

Kanye West posted something interesting about the nature of creativity today. I'm going to make a copy of it here, because I find the presentation also interesting. Here's his post, for reference.![]2...

Reddit drama: an interesting look at community values

2010-02-28T16:00:00-08:00

I bet social psychologists are having a field day with the Internet. I know nothing about the field, so I don't know if there are thousands of papers about it already written or not, but there should ...

The Hackety Mainfesto

2009-12-30T16:00:00-08:00

For those of you that don't know, I've taken over a project by someone named _why. He dropped off of the face of the Internet back in March, and the community has picked up his works. Because I'll be ...

The Little Coder's Predicament

2009-12-27T16:00:00-08:00

About Crows

2009-12-01T16:00:00-08:00

A short time ago, the G20 came right here to Pittsburgh. With an event of such worldwide importance happening in our backyards, several people decided to document it via social media. The Mattress Fac...