mySQL, Rails and OS X Fun
In the last little while I started working on a Rails project that had been targeting an older version of mySQL. I ran into a few confusing problems while getting started so I thought I’d bring together all the various mySQL and Rails related info I came across to fix my problems into one place. Problem: ActiveRecord failing with a default field value of blank This is a problem that a few people have posted on ruby-forum without getting much of a response, but what is there pointed me in the right direction. The main problem is that older versions... Read more
October 28, 2009 | View Comments | programming, mysql, ruby, rails, osxStartup Boot Camp Reflection
As I mentioned in an earlier post I attended this local Ottawa event called Startup Boot Camp on the weekend. Well, I’ve got to say, this was one of the most interesting events I’ve ever been to. Let me break down how the weekend went a little bit. Day 1 (Friday 6pm – 9pm) The first day started out with an introduction to the event, sponsors, organizers and all that jazz. The didn’t waste any time and moved onto the pitches. There were 8 ideas presented by some really energetic people ranging from major hardware, software or a combination of... Read more
October 27, 2009 | View Comments | programming, startupRuby Tidbits: Cutting out the Block with an &proc
I find one of the most useful ‘tricks’ in Ruby is to use the ‘&’ character to convert Ruby Proc objects into a block. What exactly does this mean? Well, the best way to explain it is with a couple of examples. words = %w(one two three) words.collect!{|word| word.upcase } puts words.inspect => ["ONE", "TWO", "THREE"] This is a pretty simple block of code, all we’re doing is converting an array of words to uppercase. Now say we’re good ruby programmers and want to keep our code readable and concise, how does this stand up? Well, it is a simple... Read more
October 19, 2009 | View Comments | ruby tidbits, ruby, programmingReleasing a Gem with Gemcutter
The other day Jon Maddox sent me a message on Github to see if I was thinking of putting my gem tmdb_party up on Gemcutter, the new RubyGem host on the block. At the time I hadn’t really thought much about doing this thought what the heck? It didn’t seem like it was too difficult so I thought I’d put it to the test around midnight on a Saturday night. Well, I have got to say, this was probably the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I was going into this thinking it wouldn’t be too difficult but I was still... Read more
October 17, 2009 | View Comments | programming, ruby, gem, tmdb_partyProject Idea: Fake Server
While working on the Presence assignments for the Stanford iPhoneU course I noticed that they did something really interesting to make interacting with the Twitter API a little bit easier. They setup a server that responded to actions similar to Twitter with some sample data. This really helped out so that when messing around during development so that Twitter wasn’t annoyed with all the requests. While working with this dummy server they set up I got thinking that something like this might be useful when developing other API mashups. I don’t think Stanford wants to set something like this up... Read more
October 16, 2009 | View Comments | programming, ruby, idea