Category Archive: Computers

Aug 26

Sometimes More is Just Enough

In the quest for simplicity and maintainability, sometimes we need to add components.  It seems counter intuitive, perhaps, but sometimes it’s true. As an example, I once came across a project which had multiple queries, each of which contained over 40 lines of SQL code.  I don’t know about you, but 40 lines of code …

Continue reading »

Aug 26

Why my code is broken….. (break my code redux)

Yesterday, I posted an article entitled Break my code, please, wherein I posted a very fragile piece of code, with the challenge to find ways in which to break it. What follows is a discussion of the code and why it is bad/fragile/easily broken…..

Continue reading »

Aug 25

Rails Project Setup Script

I got tired of typing the same commands all the time and/or looking up urls for plugins.  Hence this script….  Yes, I know it’s been done before, but this does what I want (for now; I’m sure I’ll edit it). It does the following: Creates rails instance (optionally setting the database, etc.) Installs rspec & …

Continue reading »

Aug 25

Break my code, please

There’s a number of things we can should take into account when writing code — boundary cases, etc., that can make or break a programme.  Yes, testing is important, but I think that developing good defensive programming practices is even more important.  That said; I present the following, fragile, code.  Just about every line has …

Continue reading »

Aug 22

Ruby’s ObjectSpace: Subclasses

One of the (imho) lesser used pieces of the Ruby language is ObjectSpace.  In this article I’ll show one of the things you can do with it — get all the subclasses of a class.

Continue reading »

Aug 20

Oooh Shiny! Magpies don’t know what’s just enough!

Magpie from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Magpie.arp.750pix.jpg

I’ve done it.  I’ve been guilty of ooh shiny development.  You know, those projects where you use the latest and greatest library, tool, or infrastructure not because it’s the best thing to do but because it’s the cool thing to do.

Continue reading »

Aug 19

rspec, restful_authentication, and login_required

This is partly for myself, and partly for anyone after me….. I have a controller generated via rspec_scaffold — yes, I know, it might not be what all the cool kids are doing, but it works.  I also have restful_authentication set up to use rspec.  So, when I go to add before_filter :login_required, autotest frowns …

Continue reading »

Aug 19

autotest reminder (or why did it go boom?)

autotest / zentest are really useful tools.  However, it’s important to remember to run migrations for the test database — otherwise your tests will fail (miserably!) I’ve found the following to be helpful for using autotest: Getting started with Autotest – Continuous Testing Autotest RSpec Notifications for Ubuntu « My Pragmatig life

Aug 19

Computer Books which have made me who I am….

We all have our favorite books, the ones which we won’t let them pry away from our fingers until they’re cold.  Those books which have shaped us, molded us, made us.  The ones for which we’ve bought the first, second, third, and fourth editions.  And not just because you’ve “gotta catch them all”, but because …

Continue reading »

Aug 18

7 Ruby tools which are gems and why I like them

Rubygems, those magickal behind-the-sceneslibraries we all use without thinking too much about them deserve some love.  I’m singing the praises of 7 rubygems out of those installed on my laptop (this isn’t to say that I love them more than others). What are some of y’all’s favorite gems?

Continue reading »

Older posts «

» Newer posts