rpheath.com comments

Nick on "Railscasts Contest: 5 Rails Tips"

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Hey Ryan -

I really enjoyed this post. I think I’m going to use the nav helper in my next app, as I’m getting tired of recycling my old code. Yours is more elegant, anyways. Thanks for sharing these tips!

robert on "Consuming SOAP services in Ruby"

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Just dropping a note saying you helped at least one person.

Thanks for the great post. Helps a SOAP newb like me figure out what the hell he’s doing when a client decides to ask for integration with ancient technology ;)

Ryan on "Railscasts Contest: 5 Rails Tips"

Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

No problem, I’m glad you find the plugins useful. And thanks for catching the syntax hiccup—it’s fixed now.

deadsunrise on "Railscasts Contest: 5 Rails Tips"

Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Ryan, thanks a lot for the plugins, I’m using the navigation helper in most of my apps.

There is a ) missing from the Fading Messages using jQuery code.

$(document).ready( is not closed.

Nick on "Rails plugin: EasySearch"

Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is pretty cool, but it seems like it has quite a few caveats for what it’s actually able to provide. I do like its simplicity, however.

Kyle on "Railscasts Contest: 5 Rails Tips"

Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Very nice.

Luke on "Ruby conditions"

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Cheers mate, thats exactly what I needed, and I’ll be sure to contact you with how it’s going once I get started :)

Ryan on "Ruby conditions"

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Well, while this may or may not be the best reference around, it’s the one I seem to use the most when I need to lookup something in the documentation: Noobkit.

Here’s a good Ruby on Rails Link Library that I came across a few days ago.

Of course, here’s the Pickaxe (book on Ruby, not Rails). And here’s the online version (it’s not updated, but still a good read for beginners).

After reading the Pickaxe, here’s the AWDWR book (third edition)—a must read for any Rails developer.

Here’s the RailsForum for when you’re stuck on something and ready to pull your hair out.

If you’re going to get into Rails, read a Ruby book first! I cannot stress that enough. Learning Ruby via Rails is not the way to go, as you’ll quickly become confused as to what is Ruby and what is Rails. Plus, not knowing Ruby will dramatically impact how good your Rails code is. Rails is awesome, but blindly depending on all that it does is, in my opinion, is wrong. It’s better to understand what it’s doing, and know how to work around it when things aren’t exactly what you need.

And of course, I’d be happy to help with any initial questions you might have. You can contact me via this site or via email. Hope that helps!

Luke on "Ruby conditions"

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I had some ‘troll’ comment me once. So I banned his IP. Just leave this invalid to practice his abbreviations on YouTube.

Anyway, thats a pretty nifty thing you’ve found. I remember the unless statement from that console you showed me a while back.

Incidientally, since I’ll probably have a look into Rails soon when I leave my job, know any good places to start mate? Tutorials, books, etc.

leet haxor on "Ruby conditions"

Sat, 10 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Someone not realizing that YHBT means

YOU HAVE BEEN TROLLED

is even more fun than all of my previous comments here.

Please learn2internet at your next convenience.

Jay on "Ruby conditions"

Sat, 10 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

That guy is a tool. I don’t understand people who get aroused by leaving meaningless, retarded comments. YHBT??? Did you get that from your BFF???

It seems that Ruby’s increasing popularity makes those who don’t understand it compelled to challenge, when in reality, it doesn’t matter at all. It’s very strange to me.

And to the “leet haxor”, we’re all glad Ruby “fanbois” amuse you. Your immaturity has amused us, so thanks for that. However, it’s time to let it go now. =D

leet haxor on "Ruby conditions"

Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Oh don’t flatter yourself, I don’t “follow your feeds” or check “your site”. In between other things, I checked * my comments *, because Ruby fanbois amuse me.

YHBT, HAND. =D

Ryan on "Ruby conditions"

Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Must be interesting enough for you to have my feed(s), huh? Or do you just like to visit several times over a few hours? Either way, I’m surprised, considering how “boring” this site is for you. Maybe I could check with you before I post something from now on, so that I know it’s worthy. After all, I am just a leet haxor.

Bottom line: I don’t claim to be brilliant or a great programmer or any of the other things that you have somehow taken offense to. So what’s the point you’re trying to make, here? You think ASP.Net is better than Ruby? You’d rather code in C? Great for you!

I program in Ruby because I choose to. I actually happen to like it. I’m sorry to see that it makes you upset. And since I don’t work on sites as big as Twitter, I guess I’m safe from my applications falling over.

leet haxor on "Ruby conditions"

Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Whoa, you really showed this anonymous coward who’s boss around these parts of the intersphere. I just hope you post as interesting of a post when you find out about for loops.

Multiple post statement conditions: Ruby. Being able to run a site bigger than or as big as Twitter without falling over: Perl, PHP, Java, ASP.Net, C, Python

Ryan on "Ruby conditions"

Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

ANONYMOUS COWARD READS POST AND HAS NO IDEA WHAT IT’S ABOUT: MORE RIGHT NOW

Obviously this wasn’t about discovering the unless keyword (which has been with Ruby since the early days, 1993 I believe), but I guess I can’t expect everyone to understand that. It was about using if and unless to handle two opposite conditions, chained together against the same statement, all inline, and reads like English.

Can Perl do that???

And anyway, even if it was solely about discovering the unless keyword, what was the point of that comment? To make you look knowledgeable at the expense of someone else? If so, that sort of backfired.

Maybe next time you should keep your comments to yourself, UNLESS you know what you’re talking about.

leet haxor on "Ruby conditions"

Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The unless keyword? You mean like the one Perl and probably other languages have had for more than 18 years? That one?

RUBY FANBOI LEARNS NEW KEYWORD: BLAHGS ABOUT IT: MORE AT 11

Ryan on "Ruby conditions"

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Ah, yes. Good point.

Aaron H. on "Railscasts Contest: 5 Rails Tips"

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Great tips all.

I’ve seen you mention the nav plugin before, but it’s so good to be reminded about it. I also really like the CSS input one. Such a simple idea but a huge help.

Aaron H. on "Ruby conditions"

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

You are right about the calling order, Ryan. It works outside in. You can test this pretty easily at the command line.

def called_if?
  puts 'called_if'
  true
end

def called_unless?
  puts 'called_unless'
  false
end

x = 1 if called_if? unless called_unless?

called_unless
called_if
=> 1

Ryan on "Ruby conditions"

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I’m not sure how it actually resolves. My guess (and it’s really just a guess) is that it starts at the outer-most condition, working it’s way back to the actual statement to execute, so it’s essentially doing:

unless API.local?
  if user.needs_cached?
    user.cache!
  end
end

Either way, it sort of toys with your mind when you see it inline. I suppose I could download ParseTree to figure it out (maybe?), but I’ll probably just sit back in awe.

Lucas Efe on "Ruby conditions"

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

You blew my mind. I didn`t know abut that.

Question: And how is the resolution of thath condition? First the “user.needs_cached?” and then ” API.local?” or the other way around?

Probably the first API.local?

Anyway, you enlightenme. thanks

Lucas

Michael Cindric on "Testing block helpers with Rspec"

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks for that Ryan l playing with something similar but had not got it yet. Made life a lot easier.

Thanks

Jason on "Rails plugin: navigation helper"

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Never mind,

I managed to do what I wanted. Basically in the construct method where the subtitles are added to the link I am doing

link = link_to(content_tag(:span, SUBTITLES[section]), send("#{section.to_s.downcase}_path"), :title => SUBTITLES[section])

therefore getting the span tag as part of the link which is what I needed.

Cheers!.

Jason on "Rails plugin: navigation helper"

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Hi,

I would like to specify the text of the link instead of the default of the section name. Will appreciate any help on how to tweak this plugin to achieve this.

thanks.

Ryan on "Is Time Machine worth it?"

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Typically, I do keep all of my images for web development in version control. I usually just put a “psd” folder beneath an “images” folder of whatever project I’m working on. I’m back and forth between the iMac and MacBook Pro, and if I want to access stuff from work at home, and vice-versa, it’s almost a necessity.

Of course, the files I tend to deal with aren’t even close to 1 GB, at least not for web development. My post-processed photos can get up there, though. I bought a 500GB external drive thinking my problems would be solved, but I already feel like I need more space!

supaspoida on "Is Time Machine worth it?"

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Do you keep all your source images for web development in version control as well? My files tend to bloat up pretty quickly as I like to try out many different layer combinations etc. and I never felt it was practical to keep huge .psd/.ai files in version control. And for my more artistic files some of them climb up to 1gb each! Def. not a candidate for version control.

supaspoida on "Git and GitHub: Wow."

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a GitNoob as well, started during the beta and I’m already sold on it’s dominance over SVN. Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to play around with it too much, or move all my projects over, because I’m running a windows machine for development right now, and git seems to have some issues with that. I will be setting up my development environment in a linux VM and can’t wait to really dive into Git! Already I keep coming up with ideas that I would like to try and think “if only I could easily branch this and play around.”

Ryan on "Flickr Video"

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I didn’t know they were limiting video to pro members only – that’s definitely a plus, and probably the best filter for video pollution.

Ryan on "Flickr Video: blah"

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

No, it wasn’t your fault. It was mine.

I used to be able to find a post by its permalink with formatted dates. Actually, I still can. So:

http://rpheath.com/posts/2007/08/08/flickr-video-blah

and…

http://rpheath.com/posts/243-flickr-video-blah

both find the same post. Er, that’s the idea :-)

I rebuilt the code base a while back, and converted everything to a more RESTful design. But I didn’t want to break any old bookmarks (like there are any), so I’m supporting both formats, although the latter is the desired format.

However, I forgot to update my feed links, so they were linking to the old format, which essentially filled in the params[:permalink] hash, so this was executed:

@post = Post.find_by_permalink(params[:permalink]) if params[:permalink]

Theoretically, that should have been fine. But somehow I missed validations on the permalink to ensure that they were unique (I literally started fresh on the backend). So what happened was, it posted the new post (which I named the same: “Flickr Video”) and created the same permalink. Really this shouldn’t have posed a problem, as I was linking to the new format everywhere. But since I forgot to update my feed templates with the new format, it was finding the post by permalink, and since the other post was older, it returned that one first.

So, there’s the detailed explanation as to why that was so weird. Sorry for the hiccup, I guess I was rushing through stuff when I rebuilt everything :-)

Note: I’ve changed this title to remove the last (and only) duplicate permalink.

Aaron H. on "Flickr Video"

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I think they did a great job with this and it won’t end up being another YouTube. Not only for all of the reasons you mentioned, but also because only paid members can use it. That should cut down on some of the worst ‘bored kids home movies’ stuff.

I’m not completely sure they will be extending the 90 second limit any time soon. They seem quite committed to the idea of “long photos.”

Either way, I now don’t have to send a separate link to get my mom to see video of the kids along with photos. That for me is worth the price of (my already paid) admission.

Aaron H. on "Flickr Video: blah"

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Ha!

That explains why the article I saw in my feed reader didn’t match the one here. I thought maybe you’d changed your mind and reposted the article or something. I have no idea how I ended up on this story.

Next time, I’ll take a closer look at the posting date.

Ryan on "Flickr Video: blah"

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Aaron—Just in case you’re coming to an old article, I posted a follow-up once Flickr Video was released. I, too, think that they’ve implemented the feature very well. I agree with many of the points you’ve made in your comment.

Aaron H. on "Flickr Video: blah"

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I have to respectfully disagree. I, too, am a fan of one specific tool doing something very well. I’ve also been a long time Flickr user (with a paid account and everything) and I think they’ve done a pretty admirable job.

Most of my friends use Flickr regularly and it’s a great way to keep up with what is going on. After much pleading, most of my family (including my mom!) has a Flickr account so she can see what’s going on from 3000 miles away. Of course, once in a while I want to upload a video and I use my .mac account. It’s a pain to have to send out a link (mom is NEVER gonna’ get an RSS reader), but that is the only way to really do it. It’s somewhat lame and static since .mac doesn’t allow comments. YouTube is just ridiculous for quality of the encoding as well as most of the content on the site.

The smart thing Flickr did was limit it to 90 seconds and require a Pro account to add video. This raises the barrier to entry a great deal. No music videos, no bored 14 year old with a cell phone video.

The other thing is how well integrated it is. There is no difference on any page between video and photos other than the play icon. My mom doesn’t have to go anywhere else to see the things I want to upload – video or photo. I also have the same controls for privacy so I can keep stuff for my family just for my family.

I really think this is a smart move and don’t get why it seems so widely dissed around the web. I think going for the “long photo” aspect was really smart and they’ve struck a great balance with it.

I, for one, welcome our video hosting overlords.

Dave O. on "Is Time Machine worth it?"

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I hook up the drive once a week for use with Time Machine. So I guess I’m with Nick.

Ryan on "Is Time Machine worth it?"

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

@supaspoida—I don’t think I’d hold up very well in an argument for ignoring backups, but honestly (in my case), I use a computer for 3 main reasons:

browsing
web development
photography

The only concern of the above is web development, but I keep everything under version control, so it’s not crucial that those files are backed up. I guess the true test would be to format without thinking about anything before hand. I’d puke more than likely, so the reassurance of backed up data is definitely a desired one, but I might just need to seek another alternative.

@Nick—That’s not a terrible idea to just unplug it when it’s not needed. I also need to look into the Time Machine options, there may be a setting to only back up if I’m idle or something. And you’re right. I shouldn’t complain at all. But if I, the consumer, did not desire faster and faster technologies, where would that put us? (my justification)

Nick on "Is Time Machine worth it?"

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Ryan – Since I have a Powerbook G4 running Leopard, I simply connect to my 500GB external drive every few days for a backup. But, if you’re using it for photos, too, I can see why you’d keep it up and running most or all of the time.

But, if you want my opinion, you are spoiled. :-p

I’m running a 1.67GHz G4 and you’re on Intel…and that iMac is so beautiful… :-)

supaspoida on "Is Time Machine worth it?"

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Not a time machine (or even Mac) user, but when reading about Time Machine that was one of my first concerns. I’m not a fan of having lots of extra things running in the background, and Time Machine sounds like it would easily lead to poor performance and wasted HD space. I recently set up a Raid 1 array, and while it’s not as flashy as Time Machine, and doesn’t protect you from user error (accidentally deleting a file) at least I know I’m protected from drive failure.

And believe me, you definitely do need backups. As someone who has suffered the loss of irreplaceable data, I can attest to this. But there are probably better solutions out there than time machine.

Dewey Finn on "Is Time Machine worth it?"

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Give up, just quit, because in this life, you can’t win. Yeah, you can try, but in the end you’re just gonna lose, big time, because the world is run by the Man. The Man, oh, you don’t know the Man. He’s everywhere. In the White House… down the hall… Ms. Mullins, she’s the Man. And the Man ruined the ozone, he’s burning down the Amazon, and he kidnapped Shamu and put her in a chlorine tank! And there used to be a way to stick it to the Man. It was called rock ‘n roll, but guess what, oh no, the Man ruined that, too, with a little thing called MTV! So don’t waste your time trying to make anything cool or pure or awesome ‘cause the Man is just gonna call you a fat washed up loser and crush your soul. So do yourselves a favor and just GIVE UP!

Ryan on "Afraid of Ruby 1.9"

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I should have known.

I just went back and tried to find the original post, and it was gone. Since I knew it was in Google Reader somewhere, I scoured my ruby/rails feeds until I found it. Of course, the date is April 1, 2007. I read my feeds every 3-4 days anymore, so the dates are a little irrelevant to me. Plus, April fools really plays no part in my life, so I don’t always think about it.

Anyway, the link no longer exists (of course), but here’s the post that made me bite (courtesy of Chris Shea):

Check out the commit message from revision 15890 of Ruby’s trunk:

* eval.c: removed method_missing (too much abuse)

* variable.c: removed const_missing (see above)

This is pretty disconcerting. Part of what makes Ruby so great (at least in my opinion) is how malleable it is, and those two methods are a big part of that.

I don’t think it will be possible to add that functionality back into Ruby. Method and constant resolution will just fail, and we won’t be able to hook into it properly. Unless you want to wrap every constant and every method call in a begin block, rescuing the appropriate error, and slowing things down dramatically, you’ll just have to live with less dynamic code.

The future for frameworks and fun metaprogramming is bleak. Say goodbye to Rails on Ruby 1.9. Say goodbye to Merb, and DataMapper, and GuessMethod, and probably everything interesting done in this little love of ours.

It might even be time to say goodbye to Ruby. This is a sad day.

I should know better than to trust anything in the beginning of April. I should also know better than to believe method_missing was being taken away from Ruby!

Sorry for continuing the nonsense…

_eric on "Afraid of Ruby 1.9"

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I was actually going to ask if this post was some sort of late April Fools joke. ;-)

DHH on "Afraid of Ruby 1.9"

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The removal of method_missing and const_missing as an April Fool’s joke by someone. The removal of send is actually not a removal, but some syntactic vinegar. You can now do the same using send!.

So no cause for alarm or fear ;)

_eric on "Afraid of Ruby 1.9"

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I can’t seem to find any of these in http://eigenclass.org/hiki.rb?Changes+in+Ruby+1.9

Where did you hear about these being removed?

Simon on "Afraid of Ruby 1.9"

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve spent a bit of time googling this, but just wondering where you found out about each of those points—are these definitely being removed? (Or are they just not implemented yet…)

Ryan on "Writing Readable Code"

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Yes, I’ll have to agree with you, your version does feel a bit more Ruby-ish. I’ve taken both approaches in the past, and don’t really have a reason for choosing “user =” over “do |user|” in this particular case (or any case, really). The first time I learned about returning, I believe I took the “user =” approach, and I guess old habits are hard to break :-)

I’ll update the example to reflect your suggestion.

_eric on "Writing Readable Code"

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Actually… I didn’t realize the example for “returning” shows both. That is strange.

I do feel that the version I posted feels a bit more “Ruby” than the other… but I suppose that’s just a matter of personal taste.

_eric on "Writing Readable Code"

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I believe you may be misusing returning a little bit.

This may work a little better:

def process_login(username, password)
  returning Proxy.authenticate(username, password) do |user|
    cache! user if user && user.needs_cached?
  end
end

Luke on "Design is in the details"

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Top site that A List Apart, sent that article over to the designer at work, who was weighed under by his workload, perked him right up :)

Ryan on "Rails plugin: navigation helper"

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Kris -

For my needs, I usually have the tab mapped to a controller’s index action (since it’s the default), which can act as sort of a “dashboard-ish” type of representation (for users it may be the most recently registered users, or whatever). So in your example, I’d have the tab be :users (which would map to the default index action of the users_controller), and use current_user (either via restful_authentication or my own implementation) to represent anything I needed to do that was user-centric.

But I understand that you may have just been using that as an example, and the user you’re referencing above may not be yourself (ie, current_user). In either case, I think that may be getting a little too specific for the plugin, but feel free to hack away if you want to add support for that type of thing.

kris on "Rails plugin: navigation helper"

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Ryan, what about situations where you need to pass a parameter to the named route. For example:

user_path(@user)

How would it work here?

Eric Morand on "Rails plugin: navigation helper"

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks Ryan, it solved my problem. I did know that Rails was building _url helpers but not _path ones.

That works great, thanks for the support and the plugin !