Spacerobots:
February 24th 2010 Post has 1 notes.
agile development pair programming
"When a developer pair programs for the first time, it feels like the first time being in a locker room. You are around a bunch of naked people and it feels awkward to be naked too."

— http://auberger.com/archives/2005/03/extreme-programming

February 15th 2010 Post has 2 notes.
starwars rails3 rails dev rant

How many languages do you speak?

“How many languages do you speak?” — Owen Lars

“I am fluent in over 6 million forms of communication.” — Protocol Droid


Was Rails 3 one of them?

It sure seems like you have to be C-3PO to make it as a dev:

  • html now html 5, css and now css 3,

  • ruby - modules, mixins, and metaprogramming

  • rails - rails routing, rails responders, validations, migrations, built-in helpers

  • tdd/bdd (whatever you call it this week) - test unit, shoulda, cucumber, rspec,

  • yaml, xml, csv (doubtful that csv actually counts against us tho),

  • erb, haml

  • database - does sql/mysql cut it? nope. now you need to know couchdb, mongodb, redis, friendly, riak, and someflavordb,

  • mashups/apis - aws, ec2, ebs, s3 (sheesh Amazon), and whatever api so-and-so came up with that you want to eat, SOAP, REST

  • javascript and jquery and gotta know all the plugin options too,

  • and then there is the command line:

  • rails <command> (formerly script/<command> <option>), gem <command> <option>, cap <in your ass>, rake <or sake>, thor <Wotan love 'im>,

  • version control - svn, now git,

  • "dare i mention our great friend and sometimes nemesis, extemporaneously?"[/(re)[a-z]*.*(g).*(ex)/i];[$1, $2, $3] * ''

  • and I haven’t even mentioned essential unix commands -

  • grep, scp, ssh (are you private or pubic?), top, less, tail, head -

  • for the hardcore fans: sed and awk,

  • and we also have our text editor “language” which is really just a human-muscle-memory set -

  • textmate, vim, emacs, xcode, gedit, joe (yes I said joe).

  • how many skillsets do we really have?

  • how many do we need?

  • doesn’t anyone else think this is insanity?

  • ipad.

February 9th 2010 ruby
Scope a variable and clean up your code with .tap

Great case for using .tap to clean up and organize code.

Example

<div class="active_messages">
  <% @active_messages.each do |message| %>
    <h1><%= message.title %></h1>
    <div class="latest_comment">
      <% message.comments.last.tap do |comment| %>
        <div class="avatar">
          <%= avatar_for(comment.creator) %>
        </div>
        Latest comment <%= time_ago_in_words(comment.created_at) %> ago by <%=    comment.creator.full_name %>
      <% end %>
    </div>
  <% end %>
</div>
December 16th 2009 lunch thai

ready for thai

ready for lunch… maybe thai today.

December 16th 2009

Winding down with a tin domestic.

December 16th 2009

laying some #awesome down today

December 16th 2009

I took it and so should you—The Survey For People Who Make Websites, 2009: http://aneventapart.com/survey2009

December 16th 2009

RT @wordfriend: This word made my day- obnubilate: make unclear, indistinct, or blurred http://www.wordfriend.org/words/obnubilate

October 21st 2009

Turned my bad morning into a good afternoon.

October 21st 2009

RT @adamstac: RT @greggpollack: There’s a new contender in the Rails authentication space: Devise - http://is.gd/4th66