October 2011
3 posts
4 tags
Did you really think about your users' name?
I just stumbled upon a really interesting article which discusses the various name schemas used around the world. And although I thought I knew quite a bit about that topic, I never thought about the implications it has on web- and data design.
So if you are developing apps for people fromm various cultural backgrounds, do them and yourself the favor and read Personal names around the world @wrc...
Did you know about ruby's class_exec?
I just stumbled upon a little gem called “class_exec” while reading ruby’s Module docs. I don’t know about other developers preferences, but I really really hate eval(). It is fine in JavaScript for creating JSON objects, but apart from that I really do not like it. No matter if is a simple eval, instance_eval or class_eval. Writing code in strings and evaluating it...
Declarative cucumber features
Having an active community with lots of active developers and tons of blogs sharing code and setup might be considered great. And usually it is. But in case of cucumber I guess it was not always the best and therefore the removal of web_steps.rb in cucumber 1.1.0 is a huge and important step.
I have to admit, i never really liked cucumber! I t felt wrong and was annoying to maintain. So I sticked...
August 2011
1 post
2 tags
Directly access an object if it's present →
rubyquicktips:
If you want to access an object only if it’s present, you can use Rails’ Object#presence. The API docs on presence have a good explanation:
This is handy for any representation of objects where blank is the same as not present at all. For example, this simplifies a common check for HTTP…
June 2011
1 post
3 tags
Migrating and populating STI models
I just spent quite some time on a “bug” in one of my migrations. Run after run, it failed to populate the database properly. Even after adding the obligatory
MyModel.reset_column_information
But after checking the database carefully, I realized that some rows had the intended data, while others didn’t. Long story short: Don’t forget to reset the column information on...
March 2011
1 post
3 tags
Ruby retry exceptions
I just finished coding my loop when it struck me and I searched for a solution which feels more ruby like.
What I was trying to achieve is executing a piece of code until it ran without an exception. This might sound stupid, but in some cases it makes perfect sense. In this specific case, I was fetching secure data from an external provider via SSL connection. Unfortunately, the SSL connection...
February 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Add errors to base in rails3 (using I18n)
I must have missed the part of the changelog where it states that the errors.add_to_base call will be deprecated. Anyhow, I searched the web and almost every case refers to the new API using
errors[:base] = 'My error message'
or
errors[:base] << 'My error message'
This might be fine for single language apps, but when you have to provide the interface in many languages and want to keep...
How to create a neo4j server plugin (part 1)
In order to properly capture all the relationships between actors and objects in one of my projects, I am currently evaluating the usage of a GraphDB and after some digging I decided to give neo4j a spin. It seems to be rather mature, stable and on the right track to push a proper REST API. Unfortunately, the API is still rather limited and cannot provide all the features I need. As I cannot...
December 2010
3 posts
4 tags
Authlogic + Cucumber + CookieSessionStore...
In case you are using a combination of Authlogic, Cucumber and the CookieSessionStore, be very careful with your domain configuration. As our project is working with various subdomains, we are using /etc/hosts with an .local extension on our dev machines. But be careful with the settings. In rails3 you are not supposed to set the session store in the environment config files, but in an...
3 tags
What I would love to see in Arel / rails3
I would say that with Arel, rails is on the right track to get rid of the SQL statements. But there is still some work which needs to be done. Stuff like Model.where(:name => ‘My stuff’) is already working really smoothly. What I would love to see is an easier access to Arel’s operators such as eq and not_eq. It would be great if the where method would accept a block which...
2 tags
parent_layout in rails3
As I am upgrading one of our projects to rails3 right now, I had to deal with lots of obsolete and not longer working code. And I came across this little gem I picked up from Pratik Naik. It allows you to nest your layouts pretty easily. If you upgrade to rails3 you have to change the code to:
def parent_layout(layout)
@_content_for[:layout] = self.output_buffer
self.output_buffer =...
November 2010
3 posts
code · Video for Everybody! →
“I should patent bad ideas so no-one can ever come up with one again.”
– alloy
20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web →
October 2010
3 posts
Redcar →
RSpec - Relish →
Prüfziffern: Startseite von Prüfziffernberechnung... →
September 2010
3 posts
iTunes 10 Ping annoyance
For those who use iTunes 10 and like the new Ping feature/network as much as I do. Here you will find a few small commands for removing Ping from the general iTunes 10 interface. Launch Terminal.app and enter the following commands (confirm by hitting return)
# Remove the Ping dropdown in the list view defaults write com.apple.iTunes hide-ping-dropdown 1
# Restore the iTunes store link arrows...
8 Must-see UX Diagrams | UX Booth →
August 2010
1 post
June 2010
5 posts
Git Reference →
Explore →
PS Brushes.net - Photoshop Brushes, Your Number... →
Free Photoshop Brushes at Brusheezy! →
Free texture photos for your desktop and designs |... →
May 2010
2 posts
10 Great Tips For Improving Your Web Typography |... →
No More HTML Email Headaches! →
March 2010
2 posts
3 tags
Unobtrusive JavaScript
I just stumbled upon a post by JamisBuck about unobtrusive JavaScript. And while reading the post itself and the comments afterwards, it seems as if there are people out there who do not really like the idea of unobtrusive JavaScript.
After a short time of being shocked and thinking about the argument, I think I understand - although I do not agree. Saying that the JS code should go where it is...
Social Media Icons — Paul Robert Lloyd →
railslove:
A set of standardised icons for popular social networking services and tools
February 2010
8 posts
3 tags
When will you upgrade your apps to rails3 ?
I am wondering when and, more important, how the first larger applications will be ported to rails3. When I check my largest and most important project, I see a lot of gems and plugins which are not yet supported. For some of them there is not even the slightest note on any progress towards rails3 compatibility. I know, as a good citizen of the open source community, I should help and update them...
2 tags
will_paginate 3.0 pre renderer
Probably one of the most used RubyOnRails extensions will use the rails 3 upgrade to introduce some major internal changes as well. Just in case you have implemented your own renderer which inherits from WillPaginate::LinkRenderer, be prepared to update your code. Apart from the fact that the namespace changed to WillPaginate::ViewHelpers::LinkRenderer, the implemented methods and names changed as...
2 tags
rails: as_json vs. to_json
I completly missed the introduction of as_json in rails 2.3.3. And I think I am not the only one, as the there are not many posts about that topic out there. Anyway, using as_json feels so much cleaner than overwriting to_json. And apart from that there is not much more which changes. In your controller you still specify something like
wants.js { render :json => @my_object.to_json }
but it...
Musicians & Ensembles @ comusico.com →
A website for musicians and everyone who is involved in the business of classical music. Musicians and ensembles can sign up an create a personal public profile which they can use a business card /…
3 tags
rails 3 is a pain in the ass
The first day I managed to install the app and do some quick testing on the recently released beta. Everything seemed ok and kept working on my projects.
Three days later I started a project from scratch and directly jumped on the rails3 wagon. And I think I was instantly hooked. Man, this baby is sooooo much fun. Not only gem dependencies are finally working, but ActiveRecord with Arel is just...
3 tags
Your rails 2.3.5 app behaves strange after...
If your 2.3.5 start behaving strangely after installing rails3beta, it might be due to the I18n gem. Previous versions of rails came with an older packed version which was automatically loaded. Now with rails3 and 2.3.5 already, you can actually install the newer I18n gem yourself (and it actually gets loaded). So here is what you might wanna do:
Update your application to work with the new I18n...
3 tags
PivotalTracker integration for GitX
Too bad that GitX is not written in MacRuby. Otherwise I would give a PivotalTracker integration a try. Or is there a custom build in the network which already has this kind of feature? This would be so sweet!
SmartFoxServer and RubyOnRails
Just in case that you are looking into a setup of tight SmartFoxServer integration in one of your rails apps, I can hereby confirm that it is working. I could not find any resources describing a setup of these components, so I will drop a short note about it right here and right now.
Create your rails application and make sure it works
Download and install jRuby and jetty-rails. Change settings...
January 2010
3 posts
2 tags
Is "Facebook Desktop" a joke?
I don’t know if bashing other people’s apps is fair, but the Facebook Desktop app by BitPerSecond has to be a joke. I might understand it if it was more than just a very limited browser based on Webkit. But I guess it is not more than a WebView with some additional buttons for specific Facebook pages. And asking $4.99 for that is just wrong!
I might just found a perfect challenge for...
macruby to get debugging support →
That’s sweet… after heavily working with macruby for the last 10 days this news is really sweet. Although we might have to wait for this feature to become fully functional and stable, I cannot wait to try it ;)
Hot Chicks with Stubbed Toes Making Sex Faces →
December 2009
5 posts
Stronger, Better, Faster Design with CSS3 →
Includes some really nice over-label code
[factory_girl] Associations in attributes_for →
I just had a little fun when using the factory_girl’s attributes_for method in conjunction with a definition which contained associations. factory_girl does not create the associated models, but…
November 2009
2 posts
20 New High Quality Free Fonts - Smashing Magazine →
Deployment Script Spring Cleaning - GitHub →
October 2009
7 posts
Julia Meer →
Technische Grundlagen multimedialer Gestaltung -... →