http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2008/12/23/merb-gets-merged-into-rails-3/

Posted via email from Structurally Sound Treehouse

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/12/hubris-vs-humil.html

Confidence is often a self-fulfilling prophecy, particularly in marketing or investing. Arrogance, on the other hand, is hard to reward. My favorite combination is the quiet confidence of knowledge, combined with the humility that comes from realizing that you're pretty luc

Posted via web from Structurally Sound Treehouse

I feel a trend. It seems that a lot of developers are moving away from TextMate to (or back to) vim or emacs. Or, at the very least, if users are not moving, they are talking about it.
 
Don't believe me. See these links:
 
http://giantrobots.thoughtbot.com/2008/12/19/thoughtbot-is-filled-with-vim-and-vigor
 
and
 
http://smartic.us/2008/12/21/i-m-not-moving-from-textmate-to-emacs-or-vim
 
and
 
http://nubyonrails.com/articles/emacs-emacs
 
I have always had a fascination with really powerful vim/emacs users. The simplicity or the interface, and the awesomeness of mouse-less control is just too great. I am a decent vim user. I am ~6 on a scale to 10. But, on a day to day basis, I'm a TextMate user. But, I fear that TextMate will start loosing users.
 
So, here are some features that TextMate v.2.0 needs:
 
* Split screens. Just make it like vim. done and done.
* No more floating dialogue boxes for 'search'. Make it like Safari. A more unified UI, more like Leopard.
* Better ctags-esque support. I say "esque" because I realize with Ruby, it will be difficult. But, at the very least, give me a really easy "go back to where I was" key binding.
* Better editing key bindings
* Better undo. Basically, it needs to be smarter, like vim.

Posted via email from Structurally Sound Treehouse

I am gonna start using zsh as my default shell. Here is how you make it your default shell for Terminal.
 
http://blog.gwikzone.org/2006/09/06/mac-os-x-properly-change-shell-when-using-zsh-from-darwinports-macports

Posted via email from Structurally Sound Treehouse

http://blog.hasmanythrough.com/2008/12/18/agile-git-and-the-story-branch-pattern
 
Nice post describing how to use git and branches for stories. A good commentary near the end about why a centralized SCM solution is too constraining for this approach.

Posted via email from Structurally Sound Treehouse

http://dejavu.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
 
Download link is in the middle of the page.
 
I am using it in TextMate, Vim and Terminal. So far, it is great.

Posted via email from Structurally Sound Treehouse

Design Patterns in Ruby (Addison-Wesley Professional Ruby Series)
 
Go read this book. It will make you a better Rubyist.
 
Some high level lessons learned:
 
* Since Ruby is a dynamic language, the "traditional" patterns need to
be applied differently, or, in some cases, not at all.
* Understanding when to (or not to) apply patterns is what makes you an expert.
* Recognizing a pattern in the wild is just as important as knowing a pattern.

Posted via email from structurallysoundtreehouse's posterous

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/12/16macworld.html
 
Am I the only person who thought that Apple put on the Macworld event?
 And, what will happen to all the near-real-time-AJAXy updates of the
keynote? Isn't that why AJAX (Apple Jobs and XML) was created?

Posted via email from structurallysoundtreehouse's posterous

Done and done! Posterous is where I will start blogging and Twittering.
Everyone sign up for an account!
I think Posterous is Rails . . . even better. I support all the Rails
start ups.

Posted via email from structurallysoundtreehouse's posterous

If this works, this will be totally sweet!

Posted via email from structurallysoundtreehouse's posterous

This is why mocking and stubbing sucks:
http://cardarella.blogspot.com/2008/12/case-against-mocking-and-stubbing.html

This is why mocking and stubbing is awesome:
http://blog.davidchelimsky.net/2008/12/11/a-case-against-a-case-against-mocking-and-stubbing

And, this is what the godfather says about this:
http://martinfowler.com/articles/mocksArentStubs.html

Who else is confused? I think the TDD/BDD community needs to start explaining themselves more regarding the principles of testing. We need a "pattern" for TDD/BDD testing for Ruby and Rails (Merb) projects.

I have had many conversations/debates regarding this very issue. And, every time I read one of these articles, I go from one side to the other.

So far, here are my conclusions regarding testing:

* TDD/BDD is hard.
* TDD/BDD is necessary.
* 100% coverage is unrealistic.
* Doing "red, green, refactor" all the time almost never happens in the real world.
* Someone needs to write an up-to-date and definitive book regarding this subject matter, and end the debate.

Great Enumerable#inject tutorial and introduction: http://blog.jayfields.com/2008/03/ruby-inject.html

Thinking out of the box with Enumerable#inject: http://advent2008.hackruby.com/past/2008/12/11/thinking_out_of_the_box_with_enumerableinject/

This is how you get a list of tables in Postgres.

SELECT tablename FROM pg_tables
WHERE tablename NOT LIKE ‘pg\\_%’
AND tablename NOT LIKE ’sql\\_%’,
order by tablename;