Rails Already Supports View Components!

The video for the Montreal.rb Ruby Meetup April 3, 2023 talk “Rails Already Supports View Components!” has been posted! This talk will explain the various ways Rails already supports view components out of the box. [more inside]

Skrift - a pure Ruby TrueType font renderer

Skrift is a tiny (<600 lines currently) pure-Ruby rewrite of the libschrift TrueType font renderer. [more inside]

Build Your Own Blockchain Layer 1 (L1) Ordinal Inscription Indexer

is it ordinal summer? i have started (yet) another free online booklet titled “ Programming Ordinal Generatives (Ordgen) / ORC-721 - Step-by-Step Book / Guide” and the first chapter titled Build Your Own Blockchain Layer 1 (L1) Ordinal Inscription Indexer is online using the unisat, ordinals and ordlite gems. Happy blockchain indexing and data analytics programming with ruby.

Introducing Plain: An AI Assistant Engine for Rails 🤖

I’m thrilled to introduce Plain, a Rails engine designed to supercharge your Rails development. It is a GPT Chat on your Rails app that knows the context of your code, so it can help you build new code, explain some features of your app, build specs, do refactors, etc. It also provides a documentation endpoint populated with Markdown files with front-matter support. [more inside]

Building Robust APIs with Ruby on Rails: A Glimpse into Modern Web Development

Dive into Rails API development with insights on CRUD, serialization, testing, and more. Enhance your expertise and elevate your projects! Get the comprehensive guide here:

New minitest-flash Gem for Your Fancy Red/Green Notifications

This just out: minitest-flash reporter – dull as ditchwater yet useful IMO. It simply calls your personal minitest-flash executable (usually a shell script) to trigger whatever fancy red/green notification you like. Safe to use on team projects as nothing happens unless the executable is present. The README showcases my setup for macOS which flashes the menu bar twice in either red or green along with an optional sound effect (mutable in case your ears have better things to do).

Deep dive in N+1 queries in graphql-ruby

After an article about migration which was controversial. :D Let’s dive in N+1 queries in rails with the graphql-ruby and graphql-batch gem.

Intro to GraphqlRails

An alternative way of writing GraphQL in RoR:

Rails and the OpenAI Chat API

Using the OpenAI Chat API, Server-Sent Events and Rails to generate blogposts automatically. [more inside]

The Hidden Complexities of Running Shell Commands in Ruby

Did you know that system supports the equivalent of >dev/null output redirection? Or that backticks raise an exception when a command isn’t found, but system does not? Let’s go on a deep dive into the surprising oddities and capabilities of the Ruby standard library!

The latest issue of Rails Tricks is out!

It is about how I create static pages with Rails and how implicit rendering works in Rails. [more inside]

David Heinemeier Hansson has introduced a breaking change to sprockets.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any documentation; even the changelog was empty, but now I know. [more inside]

Every True Rubyist Builds Their Own Code Editor in Ruby!

Every self respecting Senior Software Engineer out there should build their own code editor, even if just as a toy app to later be discarded in favor of another code editor (though they might grow to prefer their own). And, if they are Rubyists, they should build their code editor in Ruby (whether using MRI Ruby, JRuby or Opal Ruby). If you think of yourself as a Ruby Senior Software Engineer, but cannot build your own code editor in Ruby, there are serious holes in your skillset!! Explore Glimmer libraries for many Ruby options to help you start the code editor building challenge and journey. [more inside]

unisat gem v0.1 - unisat.io lite helpers for full-text search in ordinal inscriptions

is it ordinal summer? i’ve bundled-up scripts in the new unisat gem that let you full-text search via unisat.io in bitcon ordinal inscriptions using an automated “puppeteered” google chrome browser and automagically save / cache the results page-by-page and handle the pagination / batch processing. happy gold mining / searching and data analytics with ruby. ps: it is still the early days (v0.1) ;-).

How the Rails params hash works

Uncover the inner workings of Ruby on Rails with our dive into the Params hash—an essential component for handling HTTP requests. From query params to avoiding injection, this article will elevate your understanding of Rails, providing you with the tools to create more secure and efficient web applications.

[Judoscale] Autoscaling Heroku: The Ultimate Guide

So you’ve got your app up and running on Heroku, your web dynos are happily serving requests, and everything is smooth. Traffic is growing steadily, your SEO juice is increasing, sales seem to be on the up and up! But eventually the alerts begin… [more inside]

Early bird tickets for Rocky Mountain Ruby conference end tomorrow (8/15)

I’m thrilled to be giving a talk at Rocky Mountain Ruby about how I built the licensing and distribution for my “Ruby on Mac” product with Ruby, Rails, and SwiftUI. [more inside]

Introducing Line Range Filtering in Rails 7.1 Testing

Rails 7.1 introduces line range filtering for running specific tests within a test file based on line numbers.

Why I’m sticking with Rails, at least for now.

This is my journey with two leading web development frameworks: Rails and Elixir. Having invested years in Rails, I ventured into Elixir, captivated by its claims of high performance, resilience, and distributed systems. I admired Elixir and its Phoenix framework but encountered complexities when revisiting past code. On returning to Rails, I experienced greater intuitiveness and efficiency, especially with the innovative Hotwire design. Despite the unique advantages of Elixir, such as its Ecto library for complex queries, I felt more aligned and efficient with Rails. Ultimately, I decided to rewrite my Elixir-based project, Rauversion, in Rails, completing 90% in just two weeks, and I’ve had the opportunity to contrast the strengths and weaknesses of both ecosystems. [more inside]

pixelart gem in action - Bixel and Biixel Image class for paint by number or letter

is it ordinal summer? i’ve written-up a step-by-step guide to define your own paint by number or letter image class - using the bixel (7x7px - 10 colors) and biixel (10x10px - 21 colors) specs / protocols as real-world examples. happy pixel (or bixel or biixel) pushing with ruby.

Rails 7.1 Store secret_key_base In Credentials For Local Environment

Eloquent code needs no comment

Comments are often a tell that the code could be more explicit. Every time I write a comment, I refactor my code to be understandable without it :

Sharding in Rails 7: A New Horizon in Database Management

Looking to scale your Rails applications? Dive into the world of sharding with Rails 7 in this comprehensive guide. From automatic role switching to horizontal sharding, this article explores the tools and techniques to efficiently manage large-scale applications. Check it out at and stay ahead of the curve!

Preview emails in Rails with letter_opener, MailCatcher and MailHog 🐷

I recently published an article diving deep into previewing your ActionMailer emails — Preview emails in Rails with letter_opener, MailCatcher and MailHog

Trailblazer Tales #07 explains nesting

In the newest episode we’re back with a video of how to nest operations in Trailblazer.