The Blog: November 2010

Yesterday I posted about how I avoided creating the annoying rails server projects when accidently running rails server under a rails 2 application. I wanted to follow up with a much more concise script that accomplishes the same ends through different means. Using this script requires no changes to how you start the development server and, even cooler perhaps, allows you to start the rails 2 server as if you were in a rails 3 project. Shout out goes to Intern Mike for the assist.

rails () {
  if [ -e script/server ]; then
    script/"$@"
  else
    command rails "$@"
  fi
}

I don’t like moving targets. I’m a software developer, not a sharpshooter. So why don’t more people version all of their gems in a Gemfile?

(more…)

Update: I have posted a better solution!

Working with rails 2 and 3 projects back and forth, day to day has been pretty painless thanks to rvm and .rvmrc files. That is with the exception of accidentally running rails server on a rails 2 project. I do this all the time and it results in generating a new rails project called server rather then starting the rails server, my actual intention. It’s almost as frustrating when running script/server on a rails 3 project but at least it doesn’t spit out a bunch of useless files. Incidentally, all of the built in rails command (i.e. generate, console, …) set the same trap. To avoid falling prey, I have created a bunch of shell functions which I would like to share with everyone in case they would like to be privy as well.

(more…)

TL;DR git stash save –patch

From the git docs, “With –patch, you can interactively select hunks from in the diff between HEAD and the working tree to be stashed.”

(more…)

When you send a unicast message it gets routed within a network to a single destination.  Unlike unicast messages, multicast messages get delivered to every node within a network.  If not properly controlled however you can experience routing loops which, like feedback between a microphone and a speaker, cause what networking techs call “multicast storms”.  Because of this many corporate networks block multicast messages from ever leaving a single broadcast domain.  For the same reason, multicast messages are blocked by all Internet Service Providers at the network’s edge.

Apparently it was just a matter of time until someone with a big enough backbone started letting them through.

On November 12, 2010 during Major League Gaming’s National Finals in Dallas we working with AT&T and Octoshape to deliver the first open-web multicast video stream.  Who doesn’t love the bleeding edge?

Check out the details here:

http://www.attinnovationspace.com/2010/11/23/first-ever-open-web-multicast-event/#more-523

More musings can be found on my Twitter account, genexp

If you’ve ever wanted to access your Halo:Reach statistics from Ruby, you can now using the Halo:Reach Ruby gem.

(more…)

I responded to a few tweets from Barrett Clark about factory_girl noting that you can get a lot more functionality out of factory_girl than just replacing fixtures. However, let’s keep things simple to start and just replace fixtures with factory_girl in a simple Rails 3 application.

(more…)

Recently I had the pleasure of representing Agora Games at two Western New York career fairs held at RIT and my alma mater, University at Buffalo. It was a interesting experience to be on the flip side of the job search process for a change, sitting at our table answering questions, taking resumes, and evaluating applicants’ skills to see if they might be the right fit for our team.

(more…)

Tired of MySQL wrapping long rows when running selects from the command line?  Here’s a crazy useful tip:  add \G to the end of your ‘select’ statement and your output will go from gobbledygook to great.

Here’s an example:

mysql> select name, identity_url from members \G;
*************************** 1. row ***************************
        name: 
identity_url: 
*************************** 2. row ***************************
        name: support
identity_url: NULL
*************************** 3. row ***************************
        name: testuser
identity_url: 
14 rows in set (0.00 sec)

ERROR: 
No query specified

mysql> 

When we, as front-end developers, set out to build a horizontal site navigation, what markup come to mind? Thoughts of a standard semantic design pattern, an unordered list (UL) with list items (LI) floated to one side, possibly with delimited items to help visually separate each link.

(more…)