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Keeping ri useful, still
A couple months ago I posted some tips onmaking the ri a bit moreuseful.In the post I mention how installations of anything lower than Ruby 1.9.2 needspecial treatment in order to make ri usable on a day-to-day basis.For my side-projects, I've been using Ruby 1.9.2, so imagine my surprise when... read more
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X is business value
Disclaimer: I hate the term "business value", it's completely subjectiveand generic; it is one of my least favorite synergies.A few weeks ago Christian Trabold posted toTwitter saying "Speed is business value", a simple statement that is oftenforgotten by both developers and non-developers alike in the process ofbuilding and deploying software.... read more
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The only problem with cucumber
I have been exploring the wide world of Behavior DrivenDevelopment latelywith Cucumber. For the longest time I've been fascinatedwith Cucumber from a conceptual standpoint; a written-word testing framework,do go on! I'm quite pleased to finally be able to put it to good use with somerecent projects that I've been working... read more
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Inside ActiveRecord Joins, a quick note
There was once a time when I prided myself on my ignorance of SQL Joins,foolishly proclaiming "if I need to use a JOIN, I've already screwed up."I've slightly changed my opinions since then, mostly because I can no longerafford to avoid JOINs. Sometimes harsh reality is the best cure for... read more
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See you at SCALE10x
It's almost that time of year again! Almost time for Southern California LinuxExpo in Los Angeles!Last year I participated and helped man the openSUSEbooth with the great folks from the openSUSE community. This year there is adistinct possibility that I will help man aJenkins booth!If you've not been, I... read more
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10 poorly chosen Ruby gem names
There's something weird in the Ruby community that has been driving me crazysince I started using the language. There's this habit, by what I hope is aminority, of choosing "clever" gem names instead of useful or descriptivenames. I'm not above a good pun or play on words, but some gem... read more
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IO#popen can suck it
Jørgen pointed out that there's no realcompelling reason to use IO#popen over a combo of Open3#popen3 andIO#select. That said, Open3#popen3 is practically as brain-dead in 1.8 asIO#popen is. Regardless, I'm not going to let that get in the way of a good cathartic rant (the changes in 1.9 are pretty... read more
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Birthday Drinks at 21st Amendment
I figured I'd try something different for my birthday this year, an event whichI normally don't celebrate at all.I'm inviting everybody I know to come hang out at 21stAmendment andhave some drinks together on November 18th.I will likely be heading over to 21st Amendment around 5:30 or so, depending onhow... read more
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Exhibiting poor judgement in race selection
A couple of months ago my wife and I did a10k trail run because, frankly, we're idiots. Continuing in that tradition, wehave a 12k trail run coming up this weekend, again, because we're idiots.The 10k race back in September left me with a painful case of runner'sknee inmy right knee... read more
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Evernote. The Killer App for Tablets
One weekend in the not-so-distant past I started playing withEvernote, reading all sorts of LifeHacker-esquearticles on how to use Evernote for super mega-awesome organization andnote-taking, etc. I was so convinced that I would change everything torevolve around Evernote that weekend, that I went ahead and signed up forEvernote Premium after... read more
