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Derek
1. Java hearts Ruby
The JRuby team gets assimilated into Sun. So what does JRuby do? Check out Jeremy Voorhis’ Hello World application and this presentation.
2. J2EE RESTful support – not for the faint of heart
Compare RESTful development in Java with Ruby on Rails. Wow – no wonder I’m happier getting up in the morning now. Scraped from Labnotes (pun intended).
3. WebStats: Predator Edition
In the Schwarzenegger flick Predator, the alien could only see infrared light. Turns out it’s also useful when reviewing usage patterns on your website. Checkout the latest useful Rails application, CrazyEgg.
4. Rails 1.2 Preview
Six kids, and still has time for Rails. Bob Silva takes a look at what Rails 1.2 brings to the plate.
5. Finally – an elegant way to test your HTML code
Assaf Akin becomes the first Ruby news maker to make our list twice in one week. The prize – with food, water, and all vaccinations – will arrive tomorrow. Take a look at Assaf’s assert_select when you need to check your HTML output in functional tests.
2 comments
Derek
Here’s a look at the most thought-provoking Ruby on Rails news items of the week as determined by the always unbiased (but not beyond bribes) team at Highgroove:
1. The Enterprise Rails Debate
The best result of the latest “is Rails/Ruby ready for the enterprise debate” (see Joel Spolesky’s and DHH’s original cross-fire) was Justin Gehtland’s clarification of enterprise software. Frankly, Highgroove wouldn’t be in business (and growing) if Rails wasn’t a good choice in building software for the enterprise.
2. Ruby God Jamis Buck emerges from Idaho, releases Capistrano 1.9.1
Everyone’s favorite Rails Deployment tool, Capistrano, gets a major update. Jamis also clears up any confusion on the future development of Capistrano.
3. Are Mocked Models the New Testing Trend?
RubyConf Speaker Kevin Clark looks at a way to speed up your tests in an article on mocking models rather than using fixtures. We’re Test-Driven-Development (TDD) addicts here (it’s true – my recovery group class meets tonight), and faster-running tests is perhaps the greatest way to encourage TDD. Fixtures are great, but when refactoring is needed on a large application, they can be a major pain.
4. Class Variables in Rails
CNET Rails Guru Chris Wanstrath takes a look at class variables in Ruby and in Rails. Class Variables in Rails are often a constant source of confusion for many developers – take a look at this post for some clarity. James thinks Chris should have come right out and said: “Don’t use class variables. Use instance variables of the class instead.”
5. Embrace the CRUD (sounds like a good name for a t-shirt)
This is a little old, but worth noting. Scott Raymond gives a full report on the process of embracing the CRUD and becoming RESTful with a report on refactoring IconBuffet.com to REST. This is the most useful article we’ve seen because it walks through the conversion process rather than starting from scratch.
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Derek
I’ve been lucky enough to work on many client projects that make me (and my friends) generally excited. Blurb, a Highgroove client and a recently launched Ruby on Rails application, is one of those projects.
Blurb makes it look like your portfolio, travel journal, fiction novel, or any other creative print piece belongs in a Borders bookstore with its own SKU. I’m already working on my first book, and I’m confident my creations will be some of the most unique Christmas presents this year (I sure needed it – I don’t even want to talk about my gift-giving history).
Hats off to to Konstantin Gredeskoul, Brent Baker, and the rest of the Blurb team on a job well done.
Posted in What We Wrote, HowTo | 2 comments
James
Just wanted to make sure HighGroove customers and fans are the first to know, my new book is official:
James’s Book on TextMate
If you’re living under a rock, TextMate is the wildly popular text editor for Mac OS X shown off in most Rails screencasts.
It even won the covetted Apple Design Award for Best Developer Tool just a few weeks back.
I’ve been heavily involved with TextMate development for some time now and am excited about the opportunity to show you how to really get the most out of it. The book will cover beginning to advanced editing techniques, built-in automations and how to create your own, even how to teach TextMate new languages. I promise, there’s something for everyone in here.
Some time ago I read a “10 Best Things You Can Do as a Programmer” list and one of the points on that list was: Learn one text editor very well and use it for everything you can. I believe that’s great advice and TextMate was my pick. I’m now ready to pass that knowledge on to all of you!
You’ll be seeing even more news about this book very soon now. (Weeks, not months!) Stay tuned…
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Derek
There’s plenty of ways to scope and develop a web application. But frankly, it’s not that different than planning and implementing any other type of project. A recent San Francisco Chronicle article looked at Chicago and how rapidly the city moves on urban initiatives compared to San Francisco. The similarities between Chicago’s city planning philosophy and agile software development are uncanny.
Former San Francisco planner Sam Assefa, now director of policy for Chicago’s planning department, had this to say about Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley:
Daley’s “innovations don’t come as this grandiose plan or vision,” Assefa said. “It’s about doing the small things well and working up incrementally. He says ‘Here’s an idea. If it works, we’ll set policy and require it citywide.’ “
And more great chunks of information on a San Francisco Sustainability Plan (sound at all like functional requirements?):
Consider the 150-page Sustainability Plan for San Francisco approved in 1997 by the Board of Supervisors. Of the 15 sections, one on “energy, climate change and ozone depletion” was crafted by a 32-member “drafting group” that spells out 62 recommended actions such as “establish neighborhood energy-planning groups” and a vague directive to “create high-visibility demonstration projects.”
Just another great example that the key to better projects isn’t more planning or acronym-filled design philosophies, but small, simple steps.
Posted in Heartbeat, Hosting, Ruby on Rails, Slingshot | 6 comments
CBQ
It’s tough finding a developer who doesn’t like Ruby on Rails. However, it’s also easy finding developers who think “Rails Deployment” is the next release of a horror movie series.
We’ve developed exclusively in Rails over the past 1.5 years, and a major piece missing from our development process was a simple system for deploying, managing, and monitoring our client applications.
Enter Heartbeat and one-click Capistrano deployment. With Heartbeat, you can run any of your applications’ Capistrano recipes and Rake tasks on a remote system from a single web page.
Watch Heartbeat deploy a Rails application [MOV | 6.9 MB]
Born on RailsDay 2006, Heartbeat is helping us overcome the most difficult part of the Rails life cycle. In a couple of weeks, we hope it will do the same for you.
1 comment
Derek
Using a subdomain as an account key (ie – highgroove.heartbeathq.com where “highgroove” is the account key) is a great way to personalize a web application. Rails has a nifty plugin written just for this, but the implementation information is a bit scattered. Here’s a step-by-step guide for implementing, testing, and simulating this powerful feature.
Read more... 
2 comments
CBQ
Highgroove Studios, along with the Atlanta Ruby User Group, the Birmingham Ruby User Group, and several other organizations, is happy to announce that planning and organizing for the Southeast Ruby Conference is underway.
Our first official planning meeting will be held at the September Atlanta Ruby User Group meeting, on September 5, 2006.
With the excitement and pledging of support so far, this is shaping up to be a standout conference.
If you are interested in planning, sponsoring, or just pledging support, contact me (Charles Brian Quinn).
Posted in What We Wrote | 2 comments
James
I’ll be fair with you and tell you right out that I am biased in this matter, but I still have to say:
GO BUY THE RUBY COOKBOOK RIGHT NOW!!!
Yes, I wrote six of the bazillion recipies in the book (on DRb and Rinda), but I do not make money when they sell copies, so you can trust what I am saying here.
Basically we are talking about nearly 1,000 pages of EVERYTHING on Ruby. I don’t care who you are or what you do with Ruby these guys wrote something about your problems. How cool is that?
These recipes are just loaded with code, tips, links to related resources, etc. They even manage to be funny in places. (You will laugh at the dinosaur ad.)
Why are you still reading this?! Get up. Go outside. Hail a cab. Get yourself to a bookstore and pick this up! GO!
(If you have back problems you shoudn’t be carrying books this big, trust me. Instead you can grab the PDF version O’Reilly just made available.)
Posted in Community, Ruby on Rails | 2 comments
James
There are countless links out there that will bury you in suggestions for how to write Rails code, so I’m going to take the road less travelled and give you three non-code tips that I think are really important.
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