Enumerable

SecureRandom -- Stop writing your own random number and string generators

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:58:08 -0400

SecureRandom -- Stop writing your own random number and string generators

Working With Multiple Ruby Versions Has Never Been This Easy

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:30:44 -0400

Working With Multiple Ruby Versions Has Never Been This Easy

Inspecting a MySQL database's storage engine

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:23:00 -0400

Ever wonder what engine your MySQL database tables are stored in? Each table has its own engine setting, it’s not global per database. Use this query to find out what engine each of your tables is using:

SELECT table_name,engine FROM information_schema.tables;

And if you want to, for example, update the users table to use the InnoDB engine, use something like this:

ALTER TABLE users ENGINE=innodb;

Condition Building made easy

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:19:22 -0400

Condition Building made easy:

Just used this technique to build a page which can handle one or more optional conditions. This is definitely the best way I’ve seen to build a set of complex conditions into a single query.

What If A Key/Value Store Mated With A Relational Database System?

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:20:41 -0400

What If A Key/Value Store Mated With A Relational Database System?:

“I find the best way to describe Mongo is the best features of key/values stores, document databases and RDBMS in one.”

Sounds very compelling, but still in its early stages as far as Rails support goes.

Is It JRuby?

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:07:11 -0400

Is It JRuby?:

A simple community site that tells you whether or not a gem is compatible with JRuby.

The Ruby Toolbox

Mon, 18 May 2009 18:03:04 -0400

The Ruby Toolbox

Tips & Tricks for IRB

Thu, 14 May 2009 18:07:00 -0400

Tips & Tricks for IRB:

Most of these I was familiar with except for utility_belt, which is awesome because it lets you edit IRB code using your favourite text editor like TextMate! Just type “mate”, put in all your code in the new window, close when done, and IRB will give you the result. Just one of many tricks in utility_belt’s bag.

A re-introduction to JavaScript - MDC

Sun, 10 May 2009 22:50:54 -0400

A re-introduction to JavaScript - MDC

What you don't know about regular expressions in ruby

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 23:58:14 -0400

What you don't know about regular expressions in ruby:

Using ^ and $ to signify the start and end of an expression can result in expected behaviour, and even presents a security risk.

Prototyping @ Startup Weekend SF

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 02:00:07 -0400

I spent this weekend at Startup Weekend SF 2, and found one more reason to love rails: prototyping. There were at least 5 occasions where I stopped programming, looked over at my teammates and said, “have i mentioned i love rails?”.

I’m no DHH fanatic, but the joy of being able to build out a fully functional app with all my business models and logic implemented in less than 2 hours is just plain awesome. It let me spend the rest of my time working on what programmers should be working on — architecture, design, and feature iterations. By the time Sunday rolled around I had built some rather impressive intelligence under the hood of the bargain hunter project I was working on (it was essentially a Digg, but for online deals).

At the start of the project, I had a choice to stick with Rails or to try out Python (which I have no experience with). I chose rails mostly because I didn’t think I’d have enough time to learn a language from scratch. If I were to do it again, however, I’d probably be a bit more adventurous. All in all, I had an awesome time — the event was an overwhelming success with over 23 companies launched, and couldn’t have been done without some awesome organization by our very own @tylerwillis and co.

Vim eye for the rails guy

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:40:33 -0400

Vim eye for the rails guy:

If you’re a ruby/rails programmer looking to get into the hang of vim (or alternatively macvim), this is a handy cheat sheet you can print out for reference. It’s not a list of every command in the book, rather it’s a condensed list to help you get into the swing of things.

The rubber duck method of debugging

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 02:37:00 -0400

The rubber duck method of debugging

Speed up gem installs (no options necessary)

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:43:00 -0500

Speed up gem installs (no options necessary)

Ruby case statement comparison: apparently a feature, not a bug.

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:27:00 -0500

Ruby case statement comparison: apparently a feature, not a bug.:

The case statement actually does its comparison using the ruby “===” operator, and as a result can sometimes give unexpected results.

Extending route recognition

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:57:19 -0500

Extending route recognition:

An old post by Jamis Buck which outlines an excellent approach to extending rails route recognition. The post gives you a quick rundown of how to add support for additional parameters in your route declarations, allowing you to restrict those routes to a specific host, domain, or any other variable you define. I just used this trick to restrict some of our routes to a particular platform. Awesome stuff.

Easy Ruby Benchmarking

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:06:57 -0500

Easy Ruby Benchmarking:

The Benchmark module in ruby is not nearly as famous as it should be. Use it to easily check the execution time of a single method call, or specify multiple blocks to compare them against each other. What are you waiting for? Fire up that console and start optimizing!

Cache-Money

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:13:00 -0500

Cache-Money:

Recently, we integrated nkallen’s cache-money into our app. Cache-money is an awesome library built on top of ActiveRecord, with the intent of being the complete caching solution for your app. Definitely worth a look if you use memcached in rails.

"Visor for OSX provides a systemwide terminal window accessible via a hot-key, much like the consoles..."

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:29:19 -0500

“Visor for OSX provides a systemwide terminal window accessible via a hot-key, much like the consoles found in games such as Quake.”

- darwin’s visor at master - GitHub

Priit Haamer > Blog > Ruby on Rails dictionary for Mac OS...

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 21:42:00 -0500

Priit Haamer > Blog > Ruby on Rails dictionary for Mac OS X

Wow. Rails 2.2 docs for Lepoard’s Dictionary.app — this very well could be the missing link for easily-accessible Rails documentation on OS X.