Accidental Technologist - Latest Comments

Re: Dead Simple Model Diagrams for Your Rails Project

andrekibbe — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:52:54 -0000

Most Rails developers, as you'll see by going to any Rails conference, use Macs, but there's an MSI installer for GraphViz if you want to use Windows.

Re: 7 Great Bootstrapping Podcasts to Jumpstart Your Business Today

dylanized — Fri, 17 May 2013 01:20:28 -0000

LifestyleBusinessPodcast.com

Re: 7 Great Bootstrapping Podcasts to Jumpstart Your Business Today

Product People — Fri, 17 May 2013 00:13:53 -0000

Wow! Rob: thank you so much for your kind words.

It's because of listeners like you that we do Product People. Cheers!

Re: Damn You Rails Multiparameter Attributes

Derrick Zhang — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:40:19 -0000

I solved this problem by using `composed_of' method.

modify and add these lines in your model.
composed_of :expiration_date,
:class_name => 'Date',
:mapping => %w(Date to_s),
:constructor => Proc.new { |date| (date && date.to_date) || Date.today },
:converter => Proc.new { |value| value.to_s.to_date }

refered to: http://apidock.com/rails/Activ...

Re: Dead Simple Model Diagrams for Your Rails Project

MarkJones — Sun, 12 May 2013 12:12:06 -0000

Agreed - my development and deploy platforms are identical (Ubuntu). Having to learn and maintain a separate development environment is a big overhead.

Re: Dead Simple Model Diagrams for Your Rails Project

picksio — Sat, 11 May 2013 03:02:05 -0000

A quick look at documentation and sample project use both gems, I do prefer gem 'railroady':

- ERD + UML

- more output format options.

Re: Dead Simple Model Diagrams for Your Rails Project

Robby Rob — Fri, 10 May 2013 11:52:59 -0000

Hmm, seeing as rails is most frequently used on unix based systems, OSX and Linux fits the bill. Until recently, it was pretty tedious to even get a working version of Ruby, Rails, and gems on a Windows machine. So, your figure about user base, means nothing when talking about a specific Framework and specific development environments.

Re: Dead Simple Model Diagrams for Your Rails Project

Rob Bazinet — Fri, 10 May 2013 09:52:22 -0000

Thanks Jim!

I did briefly check out Railsroady but the requirements were a bit more. I may take a look at it to see if there are advantages to using it.

Re: Dead Simple Model Diagrams for Your Rails Project

Martin Van Aken — Fri, 10 May 2013 09:47:21 -0000

Nice, works as advertised, install in one line, add a gem to Gemfile & call. Another usage of one of my preferred tools, GraphViz

Re: Dead Simple Model Diagrams for Your Rails Project

saturnflyer — Fri, 10 May 2013 09:31:43 -0000

Great post, Rob!

There's also https://github.com/preston/rai... but I haven't tried that

Re: Dead Simple Model Diagrams for Your Rails Project

Rob Bazinet — Fri, 10 May 2013 08:43:29 -0000

Yes, it does. I tried them out but didn't really like the output. I wanted something easy to configure, easy to recreate the diagram and easily fit on a page in landscape to print. RubyMine didn't seem very flexible and once I started trying to get it to do what I want and I was spending too much time for a simple task, I decided it wasn't for me. If you use RubyMine on a regular basis then it might make sense to use the tool you know.

I like rails-erd because it's fast to run and since most of my development is using Sublime Text 2, it made the choice easy.

Re: Dead Simple Model Diagrams for Your Rails Project

Michel Pigassou — Fri, 10 May 2013 08:37:03 -0000

The RubyMine IDE also has a built-in diagrams generator.

Re: Dead Simple Model Diagrams for Your Rails Project

Rob Bazinet — Fri, 10 May 2013 08:27:34 -0000

I think it's safe to say most Rails developers are on Macs and some on Linux. Are you not a Rails developer? If you are one, are you on Windows?

Re: Dead Simple Model Diagrams for Your Rails Project

Kevin McCaughey — Fri, 10 May 2013 08:21:13 -0000

I get really annoyed at the amount of Rails developers that assume we work on Macs. Macs make up less than 10% of the user base and I wouldn't touch one with a barge pole! ;)

Re: Hate that Apple Podcasts App in iOS 6?

paulfromitaly — Thu, 02 May 2013 16:06:07 -0000

Thanks for the useful tip.
Unfortunately, this works as long as one downloads on the Mac/PC and syncs podcasts onto the iDevice.
But as soon as you try to download a podcast directly onto the iDevice Apple reminds you that "Podcasts Have Moved" "New episodes can be downloaded using the Podcasts app"
Given the simplicity of downloading new podcasts (or listening to them in streaming) directly on out iDevice without going through Mac/PC I think I'm gonna sadly reinstall Podcasts again ...

Re: JavaScript Has Its Place, But Not Every Place

johndurbinn — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 03:13:46 -0000

Fucking dumbass. Get with the fucking program broham.

Re: Free Ultimately Always Has a Price

Rob Bazinet — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:41:55 -0000

Yes, you are definitely right. Google gives away their services in exchange for finding out about those habits.

A company who is creating a service in exchange for money has a much better chance of keeping that service going if they are making a profit from it. The company who takes my money in exchange for using their accounting services is most likely going to be around tomorrow.

Google on the other hand, doesn't take money but instead takes my habits. Once my habits don't result in any useful patterns, then the service is tossed aside. Google is a user company, much like a leach.

Re: Free Ultimately Always Has a Price

Matt Lamoureux — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 12:55:28 -0000

I have one counterpoint... By using any Google services - even the free ones - we are technically customers because of the data they are able to acquire from us. They can see what news types I subscribe to, what specific stories of those feeds that I read, and even how often I read them or share them. I would think that is useful information for them for ad generation - as much if not more so than correlated search data.

Re: JavaScript Has Its Place, But Not Every Place

Jeff Pritchard — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 11:19:54 -0000

I knew Ember was the wrong tool for the job...I just thought it was cool. ;)
(sorry, that was mean. This is a VERY interesting topic. Thanks for starting it!)

Re: JavaScript Has Its Place, But Not Every Place

Rob Bazinet — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:45:12 -0000

Hi Joseph,

Good to hear from you and stopping by. :-)

Ember.js may be the new generation, time will tell. I just think most of these frameworks are trying so hard that the developers make the implementation details of their use so hard that maintenance is difficult. I think most about the next developer who comes along and has to try to figure out an archaic old framework.

I have a project right now that is total mess and it is from the days when people thought it was a fantastic idea to use RJS templates all over the place with AJAX calls sprinkled in. The app works, but trying to debug and enhance...the apps seems magical.

Don't get me started on node.js...it will be a cold day in hell when I use JavaScript on the server. Not going to happen. It sucks in the browser, it will really suck on the server.

I guess if you use Ember.js, Backbone.js, Knockout.js or one of the others like it you can have a nice application as long as the developer has a clue what he is doing and doesn't take their learning and put it into production.

My 2 cents.

Re: JavaScript Has Its Place, But Not Every Place

Joseph Hurtado — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:34:54 -0000

Rob,

I have to agree with your main points. Until we get a new generation of JS frameworks, it is best to simplify as much as possible and do more on the server.

Ember.js may be this new generation, but still the mantra of less complexity is better for your code will always held true. Perhaps the answer is going with one single stack in the server and front-end. Would a combination of JS in both places work? We will know eventually.

As of know using the best most solid back-end and some good solid JS seems to be the best.

Cheers,

Joseph Hurtado
Founder Agile Lion Institute
Web: http://www.AgileLion.com
Twitter: @AgileLionInst, @JosephHurtado

Re: JavaScript Has Its Place, But Not Every Place

Rob Bazinet — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 11:44:52 -0000

I know. I just thought it was cool.

Re: JavaScript Has Its Place, But Not Every Place

Mr Spoon — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 10:16:33 -0000

The logo that you've used in your "Say no to Javascript" picture is the Java logo - not Javascript

Re: JavaScript Has Its Place, But Not Every Place

Rob Bazinet — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 08:19:08 -0000

Thank you for the reply Dennis. I think you are seeing *exactly* what I am talking about and deal with most days when inheriting a project.

I run my own company and take on client projects, some green field and some not. The ones that have been around for a while almost always suffer from some form of this. I can usually point to the problems as being JavaScript related, so many different frameworks and so many developer wanting to give them a try. A try isn't good enough and leaves a mess.

Frameworks are pretty decent but history repeats itself; frameworks get developed, used and then recede into the night. I see Backbone.js having the same future.

Your experience is a perfect example of what I am talking about.

Re: JavaScript Has Its Place, But Not Every Place

Rob Bazinet — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 08:11:25 -0000

I think not using a technology like this as an answer to everything is exactly one of my points. This is how developers use JavaScript today, like it's magic.

I'm not sure how to stop developers from doing this but this is what causes much of the issues I see today.