The Ruby and Rails community linklog
Made a library? Written a blog post? Found a useful tutorial? Share it with the Ruby community here or just enjoy what everyone else has found!
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Introducing ImageDrop gem
I just released the ImageDrop gem and demo. Good for avatars and such. Transform the lowly file input field into sophisticated looking drag-and-drop targets, complete with a preview image and placeholder text, with only 988 chars of minified js.
Diving in Rails : Exceptions handling
I wrote an article about how rails handles exceptions in your app , have a look !
Tutorial on debugging Ruby C extensions using XCode
I just put together a beginner-level blog post which walks through steps to setup a development environment in XCode to help debug Ruby C extensions.
Introducing Lotus::Validations
Data validation is an important piece in software architecture. Delegating this responsibility to models increase the cost of maintenance. Lotus offers a different and powerful approach to the problem. [more inside]
Aloo - GIST for data / RailsRumble 2014
Previous weekend I’ve participated in annual Rails Rumble 2014. I’ve build app/product called Aloo. This is the story behind it, some details and some problems that I’ve discovered on my journey.
Serving static assets with Rack
I think this is a pretty common scenario, and yet I struggled to find an example on how to do it. I was trying to build a single page application using AngularJS on the front-end and Cuba, a minimalistic web framework for Ruby running on top of Rack. Read it here
Process Payments with Paypal - Charging Cards and Recurring Payments
We published the part 2 and part 3 of the “Process Payment with Paypal in Rails” series! [more inside]
Lita 4 released
Version 4 of Lita, the ChatOps framework for Ruby, has been released. Lita gives you a robot for your company’s chat room which can serve as an interface for automated operations. Read the release announcement and upgrade guide for more details on what’s new in the latest version and how to upgrade.
In Defense of Alias
I’ve been reading a lot of Ruby style recommendations lately, and I wanted to share a relatively unpopular opinion (with some justifications) in preference of “alias” over “alias_method”.
Ruby Object Mapper Reboot
The ROM project is being rebuilt using Sequel for RDBMS. Read more about it here.
How safe is your website? (Get an A in SSL class)
How to score A+ in your ssllabs test: dev ops tips from a Ruby on Rails team.
Useful FactoryGirl methods, part two
I’ve just published follow up to our first Useful FactoryGirl methods post on the CookiesHQ blog. This one is about the building strategies in FactoryGirl.
Pronto can now lint SCSS!
Pronto performs quick automated code reviews with the help of various analysis tools (RuboCop, Brakeman, Flay, etc.) by checking only the introduced changes. And now it also lints your SCSS with the help of SCSS-Lint. Check it out: Pronto and pronto-scss.
Rails Crash Course
Check out my new book, Rails Crash Course! It’s based on the curriculum I’ve used to teach Ruby on Rails to both new programmers and experienced web developers. Head to http://www.nostarch.com/railscrashcourse for more info, and use the discount code GEMS for 30% off. I’d love to hear what you think of the book, and I hope you find it a useful resource.
Invisible Captcha - Simple and flexible spam protection for Rails [New release]
I just launched a new release of Invisible Captcha with a bunch of changes: new options, better API, better tests (also Travis CI integration) and little code and docs refactor. [more inside]
Free eBooks for Learning Ruby on Rails Framework
I just published a post ‘5 Free eBooks for Learning Ruby on Rails Framework’, do you have any other books that you could add to the list?
Codeship now integrating with Cloud 66
For anybody using Cloud 66 and/or Codeship: The two services now integrate and it only takes one line of code to set everything up. [more inside]
Practicing Rails: Learn Rails without getting overwhelmed
Maybe you’ve learned the “what” of Rails, but don’t understand the “why” and the “how.” Maybe you’re about to give up on Rails because you just can’t put the pieces together. If you feel like running away when you stare at your newly-generated Rails app, I wrote a book for you.
Finding suboptimal Ruby class API usage
I just released a utility for finding suboptimal Ruby class API usage. It uses runtime code analysis to find problems.
Dependency Management with Rubygems & Cocoapods
Just because your dependency doesn’t contain Ruby or Objective-C doesn’t mean you can’t use Rubygems or Cocoapods to manage shared code.
Multithreading in the MRI Ruby Interpreter
There’s a lot confusion surrounding Ruby’s multithreading capabilities. Especially, with regards to all the changes between 1.8 and 1.9. So, let’s be absolutely clear: MRI Ruby does in fact support OS-level threads.
Payola - a drop-in Rails engine for taking payments with Stripe
I released an open source Rails engine named Payola that you can drop into any application to have robust, reliable self-hosted Stripe payments up and running with just a little bit of fuss.
Tagging Your Content and Creating Tag Clouds Using the Acts as Taggable On Gem
Taking a tag-based approach to content categorization gives your users much more flexibility in terms of quickly finding desired information, products, and blog entries. In this article I’ll show you how to incorporate tagging and tag clouds into your Rails application using the powerful Acts As Taggable On gem. Read the article
Writing better tests with the three-phase pattern
So, you’re working on a new app, and Rails just generated a test for you. You uncomment it, come up with a name, and you’re ready to write your test, right? But then what? What do you write first? What should your test code look like? If you follow a simple pattern, you’ll turn those stubbed out lines of code into clear, well-structured test cases.
Rails Rumble 2014 - Discussion and Sharing
Rails Rumble is a 48-hour app-building competition. Requirements are easy: Rack framework, host on Heroku, nothing production-ready created prior to the start and no pushes after close. It occurred past weekend. Join discussion and sharing on reddit/r/rails.