Articles

Blocking an IP with iptables

istock_000000152791xsmallEarlier today, I noticed a bunch of weird requests to one of my Rails apps. I’m not sure what their intention was but I didn’t want to take the chance since the IP traced back to somewhere in China which meant if something went bad, I’d have little recourse.

Of labels and limits

In an attempt to satisfy our need for identity and belonging, we desperately try to wear as many labels as possible, and to a certain extent labels are a necessity. When people ask you what you do for a living, it’s far easier to reply “I’m a computer programmer” than to try and explain the plurality and complexity of the exact criteria of your job.

Rails Envy Podcast - Episode #080: 05/27/2009

Episode 80. Gregg sneezes on my dog in this episode. How messed up is that?

Rails Envy Podcast – Episode #080: 05/27/2009

Episode 80. Gregg sneezes on my dog in this episode. How messed up is that?

Questions Five Ways - Static Code Analysis and Testing

This week in Questions Five Ways I've assembled a group of testers and tool builders to talk about code analysis and code testing. Kevin Rutherford (@kevinrutherford) is the co-author of the upcoming Ruby Refactoring Workbook and the creator of reek. Andy Lester (@petdance) is a longtime proponent of testing in the Perl community. Kay Johansen (@utahkay) is an agile testing guru. Russ Olsen (

Future Ruby

My friends from unspace are putting together FutureRuby, the spiritual successor to Rubyfringe which turned out to be one of the best conferences of last year.

The theme of the conference is obviously the future of ruby but one thing that is clear from the lineup is that the event doesn’t forget that ruby is part of a greater ecosystem and that ruby is as much a language as a mindset.

The Weekly Standup: May 26, 2009

Keep up with all the latest Agile Development with Rob goodies on Twitter and Facebook.

Design: Ease of Control, or Challenge of Relationship?

You'll have to forgive me, cuz I'm trying hard to find a way to wrap my head around a concept in my head so I can express it.

The test everything trend in design bothers me. Or to make every decision based on the numbers. Or to focus on problem-solving. Or patterns.

I'm trying to formulate a good way to express *my* approach to design, but when I try, people don't understand. I'm aware this is a problem on my end, not yours. But I'm gonna keep trying.

This is a quote from a comment on an article on BoingBoing:

Double Shot #461

A little flotsam from my browser.

#323 | »Top 50 Ruby on Rails Tutorials« in Category Other collections

»Improving the Usability of Your Ruby on Rails Applications (video)«

Review of The Merb Way by Foy Savas | Rails Fire

Review of The Merb Way by Foy Savas

the merb wayI've been reading the Merb Way by Foy Savas (Addison Wesley).  I was a little sceptical about this book at first, because of the recent marriage of the Merb and Rails core teams and the announcement that the Merb codebase would be merged with Rails as part of the march towards Rails 3. As Yehuda Katz put it, "Merb 2 is Rails 3".

So, is this book now redundant?  I don't think so. As Obie Fernandez explains in the foreword, knowing about Merb is still valuable as it is a fairly widely used framework, and it will probably continue to be seen in the wild for a good while after Rails 3 is released.  Additionally, learning how Merb works and exploring the underpinning philosophies will aid your understanding of some of the changes happening in Rails.

The book itself is engaging and well written, and serves as a great reference guide for developing Merb applications.  It's quite code-heavy, but this is by no means a criticism - Foy guides the reader through the Merb source, revealing how things are done in Merb, in order that the Ruby community can learn from it for developing our applications and future frameworks.

With under 300 pages of actual content, this is by no means a weighty tome, but it covers most things a Merb developer needs to know.  Foy starts with the fundamentals, explaining how Merb apps are structured and configured, as well as providing an introduction to some of the internals of Merb. The first part of the book is concerned with routing and MVC, which will be familiar to Rails developers.  It then moves onto more Merb-specific topics such as slices (self-contained mini-apps that can be packaged as gems) and parts (for reusable logic used in partials throughout your app). Sessions, authentication, and mailers are also covered, before the book concludes with a chapter on testing.

The Merb Way is available now from Amazon for $29.19 (or £23.19 from Amazon UK).

Images: