Matthew Lang // My Programming Journal

Snippets #133

Rails work has taken a back step to other work this week, but should be back into it by the weekend.

Ruby Weekly - Peter Cooper has just launched a new Ruby e-mail newsletter. If you're choosing to avoid RSS then this is a great way of getting a round up of the best bits from the community.
34 Ruby on Rails resources to get you started - You might have already seen some of these but it's still a great resource.
Ruby Koans - Want to learn Ruby in a more practical approach? Ruby Koans is a set of files that each contain tests on an aspect of the Ruby language. Your jobs is to get those tests passing in true TDD fashion.
Pragmatic Guide to Git - I've never advanced beyond the basic commands of Git, but I'm putting this on my book list for this year to learn more.

It must be TDD Thursday or something.

Ken Beck's Test Driven Development Screencasts - Mark Needham's summary on the TDD screencasts. Based on his notes, I might need to check out this series myself.
Write the first one ugly - I feel better now after writing some really ugly code last night.
Listen to the tests .. they tell smells in your code! - Tests are great for indicating your ugly lines of code. Think of it as a follow up to 'Write the first one ugly'.

Read Metaprogramming Ruby last week, but I think I'll read it again this week just to get my around a few things.

Creating Duplicate Objects - Took me a couple of reads to get this.
minitest 1.7.0 released - The nimble replacement for test/unit hits a new milestone. I wonder how fast this is over test/unit?
Rails best practices - Amey Dhoke has compiled an interesting list of best practices for Rails. I wonder how it compares to other best practices developers might have?

Test Time Bombs - An example how to avoid time bombs in your test.
New ActiveRecord scoping syntax - A detailed look at solving a compatibility issue in ActiveRecord between Rails 2.3 and Rails 3.
World Cup Simulation - A little exercise in Ruby to simulate the World Cup. Nice idea for testing your Ruby Fu!

Back to using Sinatra for a couple of little applications I want to build.

This should_change your mind - I never used this macro in Shoulda but I'm linking to it all the same in case any of you do!
Radiant 0.9.0 - Refraction Release - I thought Radiant has already been released!
The New Ruby Ecosystem - The Ruby community isn't fading, everyone is just busy writing code!
The N Queens Problem in Ruby - Classic programming problem with a Ruby solution. Nice little code reading exercise here.