Articles

RubyDrop: A Dropbox Clone in Ruby

Ever used Dropbox? It's awesome. A cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux, and even mobile) file syncing and backup service with 2GB for free (or 2.25GB if you sign up with this link).

Is the Ruby Standard Library a Ghetto?

In The Ruby Stdlib is a Ghetto, Mike Perham argues that Ruby's "standard library" (all the libraries that come by default with Ruby installs) is old and crufty and suggests some parts that should be removed.

Rails for Zombies: An Online Rails Learning Environment

Rails for Zombies is an intriguing attempt to teach people how to use Ruby on Rails directly in the Web browser. It comes from Envy Labs (and specifically Gregg Pollack, once of RailsEnvy fame).

Realigning the Engine Yard AppCloud UI

My colleague, Andrew announced the new Engine Yard AppCloud User Experience team about a month ago. We are very excited about the ideas we have for AppCloud's UI, and are working surely and steadily toward a better user experience. Along the way, one of our priorities was to refactor the UI's HTML/CSS for better maintainability and consistency. This allows us to work more efficiently on our design and front end architecture.

Today, you will notice a major layout update: We've moved to a fixed-width layout.

Resources for Getting Started with Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails is leaving the early adopter phase and becoming more mainstream. More people want to learn Rails but don't know where to begin. Well, I have come to the rescue. The resource list below is a good starting point. It includes tutorials, books, blogs, podcasts and many other educational resources that have done wonders for me throughout my Rails learning process. I hope others will find them helpful too.

I personally enjoy interactive and visual experiences. The interactive tutorials (sometimes with a live person) were very useful to me.

AppSumo: A Discount Bundle of Webapp Credits Suited to Ruby Developers

AppSumo is an intriguing "bad ass developer bundle" that brings together $1543 of credit for ten different Web app development related resources (most are Ruby focused or have Ruby APIs) for a mere $47 purchase.
The services include:

Practicing Ruby: A Newsletter by Gregory Brown

If you've been following the Ruby scene for a while you'll have heard of Gregory Brown. He's the author of O'Reilly's Ruby Best Practices, creator of the Prawn PDF library, and the head honcho of the Ruby Mendicant University.

Heroku Launches Facebook App Hosting Package

Heroku, a popular Ruby webapp hosting platform that's picked up $13m in funding, has today unveiled their new Facebook App package. The package is aimed squarely at people wanting to develop Facebook apps and brings together several of Heroku's main offerings in a single, discounted monthly package.

A Look Into Ruby’s Object Model

A few days ago, Burke Libbey, a Winnipeg based Ruby and Rails developer, gave a presentation called Ruby's Object Model: Metaprogramming and Other Magic to the Winnipeg.rb Ruby user group. I though it was interesting enough to embed here.