Working With Rails

YoYoBrain.com: Study Less. Learn More.

by Satish Talim | 3 days ago | Read more

Will Bunker founded the online dating service that became Match.com, the world’s largest personals site. Will designed the software and developed the hardware infrastructure for the site, which grew to 4.5 million monthly unique visitors and annualized subscription revenues of $14 million, outperforming Yahoo Personals and other competitors. In late 1999 they sold One-and-Only to [...]

RESTful Rails: Passing URL Parameters

by Dave Thompson | 3 days ago | Read more

I've loving developing my web apps using RESTful design patterns. It is definately a concept shift. Rather than thinking of the URL as a way to embed programmatic calls, the URL becomes fairly static. All it does is represent the application's resources (aka our Models) and provide verbiage to modify them (POST, GET, PUT, DELETE). And that's it.

RESTful design in Rails is pretty straight forward when you only ever update data with forms, but what if you need to pass parameters via a URL? For example, let's say you want to put a link like "approve" on a page so that your HR manager can simply click a link to approve a job application.

In old rails we could have created an action called "approve" in our application_controller and called that action using a URL with

http://www.website.com/application/approve/2.


But in RESTful development we should only be treating our URL's as resource representations, not as a way to make programmatic calls. Instead we should be calling our application resource with a :put method.

http://www.website.com/application/2


Ok...yeah, we're updating the application model, but how do we tell the app what we are specifically updating on that resource? We do this by passing parameters to that resource, in this case "status" as "approved". We would want the resulting URL to be


http://www.website.com/application/2?status=approved


But how do we embed these parameters RESTfully? The magic? Rails does this by accepting additional parameters via the application_path() option in our link_to tag.


<%= link_to 'approve', application_path(:id => application.id, :status => "approved"),
:method => :put %>


application_path() is a rails helper that takes the options specified and generates a URL in a RESTful way. In this case it will create a URL representing the application resource, add on the parameters we passed (:id and :status) then tack on the RESTful method, in this case 'put'.

In our application_controller, the update action (which corresponds to put) will be called and the application model will be committed using the updated parameters. Shazaam! Now isn't that clean?! No extra methods in our controllers, just the typical CRUD.

Remember, conceptually speaking we are not using our URL to make a programmatic call. RESTfully speaking we are simply 'putting' (or updating) the resource specified in our URL with the modified parameters.

stamp

by Steven Ness | 3 days ago | Read more

logic

by Steven Ness | 3 days ago | Read more

c

by Steven Ness | 3 days ago | Read more

translation

by Steven Ness | 3 days ago | Read more

bucky

by Steven Ness | 3 days ago | Read more

bw

by Steven Ness | 3 days ago | Read more

go forth

by Steven Ness | 3 days ago | Read more

paper

by Steven Ness | 3 days ago | Read more

better

by Steven Ness | 3 days ago | Read more

testing flash

by Steven Ness | 3 days ago | Read more

July 4th Holiday

by Lyle Mullican | 3 days ago | Read more

Our office will be officially closed on Friday, July 4th in observance of the Independence Day holiday. If interested, one can read the official document online. Can anyone tell me everyone who signed it in 1776?

The crew at CWS will be spending the day with our friends and family in observance of this national holiday. Our support team will respond to an emergency if needed. If there is one, please call (888) 426-7793. If you have a non-emergency issue, let us know by sending us an email.

May your travel be safe, and your good times plentiful.

Best Wishes,
The CWS Team

RedDragon on hulu.com, sponsor…

by Damien McKenna | 3 days ago | Read more

RedDragon on hulu.com, sponsored by Hersey’s Smores and a nice chianti! ROTFL!

My friend Weldon G’s Maxwell tattoo.

by Sean Stickle | 3 days ago | Read more



My friend Weldon G’s Maxwell tattoo.

dedicated cache server.

by Ry Dahl | 3 days ago | Read more

Implemented the caching server in Erlang using MochiWeb. Code is here.

To use:

cd deps/mochiweb-src
make
cd ../..
make
./start.sh

This will start the cacher at http://localhost:8000. You can use the upload.html file in the root directory to test it. It will post a file to /test on the cacher using your browsers default headers as the request template. If you try to GET /test with the same browser, you should get back the cache.

Ids are delimited by commas and spaces.
POST /expire?identifiers?123,F54
to expire all caches matching 123 and F54.


(Was surprisingly painless considering that I've never programmed in Erlang before. Erlang has some hideous syntax though.)

Chinese counterterrorism police training on Segways (via Foreign...

by Sean Stickle | 3 days ago | Read more



Chinese counterterrorism police training on Segways (via Foreign Policy Passport)

Hiatus over (sorta)

by Grant Goodale | 3 days ago | Read more

Okay, so I'm terrible at adding new content to my blog. I'm so rarely at a desk able to type up new entries that blogging becomes something I have to do in my in-between moments, and I haven't found a blogging engine thus far that allows me to work effectively from a BlackBerry. I've been Twittering quite a bit more, as there's a decent twitter client for the BB (I refuse to pony up for an SMS plan just to twitter, especially when decent native clients abound), but Twitter's a far cry from blogging: no pictures, no music, no real formatting. It's pure stream of consciousness for the most part, though that might also be related to the audience as much as the format.

And now I'm going on vacation for a week to lovely Lake Tahoe, CA for the 4th of July holiday - why would I choose to post now, since I'm just going to let things go dark for yet another week? Well, because I'm trying something new. See, there's a middle ground between blogging and twittering - it's called tumblelogging micro-blogging, as created (I believe) by Tumblr. Tumblelogging lets the blog engine do most of the work and expects short, simple text or multimedia content as input. Perfect for my typical style of information sharing. However, Given my heavy reliance on a BlackBerry as a primary means of communication, I've elected to try out micro-blogging over at newcomer Posterous instead. They allow email input and simply Do The Right Thing with whatever's attached to the emails - photos, music, video or simple links.

I'll continue to post here about technical matters - modem scripts, GreaseMonkey scripts and various Ruby on Rails topics. In short, this blog will become more of a public, technical platform and less about personal stuff. The fun, short stuff will live over at Posterous instead - you can check out the new hotness here. Of course my notion of fun frequently involves technical arcana, so don't be too surprised to see some stuff bleed over.

Double Shot #239

by Mike Gunderloy | 3 days ago | Read more

Sick kids have been taking more time than net cruising lately. New Controller Examples - David Chelminsky is experimenting with the scaffolded tests that RSpec generates for RESTful controllers. REST Anti-Patterns - Ways in which to drift away from RESTfulness when building a web service.

Austin Ventures buying Entrepreneur!

by Alexander Muse | 3 days ago | Read more

According to PaidContent, “Austin Ventures and Another PE Firm Buying Entrepreneur Media“.  The story came out in April, but I missed it completely.  The company generated more than $60MM in revenue last year and the deal is reportedly under $200MM.  Rafat explains, The company was founded as a newsletter in 1973 and launched as Entrepreneur magazine [...]

Ruby vulnerabilities? Segfaults with Rails? “Try JRuby!”

by Christopher Shea | 3 days ago | Read more

I love this message Charles Oliver Nutter posted to the Ruby Mailing List. It’s so pragmatic and just a little snarky.

10 Reasons Enterprises Aren’t Ready to Trust the Cloud [del.icio.us]

by Brent Sordyl | 3 days ago | Read more

Cloud computing still has to exist on physical servers. As nebulous as cloud computing seems, the data still resides on servers around the world, and the physical location of those servers is important under many nation’s laws.

Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design [del.icio.us]

by Brent Sordyl | 3 days ago | Read more

Shneiderman's "Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design" are a guide to good interaction design.

The First Hartford, CT Code Camp coming August 16th, 2008

by Rob Bazinet | 3 days ago | Read more

 

The first Hartford, CT Code Camp has been announced and is scheduled for Saturday August 16, 2008.   Details are limited but some information is available.

A code camp is a FREE, community-driven, all-day event for developers. Speakers are local or regional developers. Topics are based on community interest. Sessions are original and feature a heavy technical focus (no marketing fluff). We will follow the Spirit of the Codecamp Manifesto as described here - http://www.thedevcommunity.org/codecamps/manifesto.aspx

Location:

To be held at New Horizons Computer Learning Center (Bloomfield CT)
http://www.newhorizons.com/content/centerSearchResults.aspx?SiteId=25

Time:

CTDOTNET CodeCamp - Hartford CT (Saturday Aug 16th 9AM-5PM)

There is an open call for speakers right now so head over and sign up to speak.

We are seeking talented .NET developers to make a presentation or two at the First Hartford CodeCamp on August 16th (Saturday). If you have ever wanted fame (& perhaps fortune) - this is your opportunity! We are giving away one MSDN Premium subscription and other prizes for presenters (judged by evals from attendees).

Each session should be about 90mins in duration and the content should be on developer topics that would be of interest to attending developers. Just about anything in .NET and other Microsoft technologies!

Choose a .NET topic of interest and send a brief abstract or outline, your developer experience, expected audience level, etc or any other questions to ctdotnet@gmail.com

See you there?

---

Posted to .NET

Similar Posts

1. The Long Tail of Learning
2. Ruby on Rails 2.0.1 Available now
3. ASP.NET MVC Framework Preview 2 - Changes for the Better

The First Hartford, CT Code Camp coming August 16th, 2008

by Rob Bazinet | 3 days ago | Read more

 

The first Hartford, CT Code Camp has been announced and is scheduled for Saturday August 16, 2008.   Details are limited but some information is available.

A code camp is a FREE, community-driven, all-day event for developers. Speakers are local or regional developers. Topics are based on community interest. Sessions are original and feature a heavy technical focus (no marketing fluff). We will follow the Spirit of the Codecamp Manifesto as described here - http://www.thedevcommunity.org/codecamps/manifesto.aspx

Location:

To be held at New Horizons Computer Learning Center (Bloomfield CT)
http://www.newhorizons.com/content/centerSearchResults.aspx?SiteId=25

Time:

CTDOTNET CodeCamp - Hartford CT (Saturday Aug 16th 9AM-5PM)

There is an open call for speakers right now so head over and sign up to speak.

We are seeking talented .NET developers to make a presentation or two at the First Hartford CodeCamp on August 16th (Saturday). If you have ever wanted fame (& perhaps fortune) - this is your opportunity! We are giving away one MSDN Premium subscription and other prizes for presenters (judged by evals from attendees).

Each session should be about 90mins in duration and the content should be on developer topics that would be of interest to attending developers. Just about anything in .NET and other Microsoft technologies!

Choose a .NET topic of interest and send a brief abstract or outline, your developer experience, expected audience level, etc or any other questions to ctdotnet@gmail.com

See you there?

---

Posted to .NET

Similar Posts

1. The Long Tail of Learning
2. Ruby on Rails 2.0.1 Available now
3. ASP.NET MVC Framework Preview 2 - Changes for the Better

getting stuff DONE.

by John Reilly | 3 days ago | Read more



getting stuff DONE.

@mwilliams Radiohead are aweso…

by Damien McKenna | 3 days ago | Read more

@mwilliams Radiohead are awesome, but I don’t recognize that song?

Friendly urls and slugs in rails

by Scott Motte | 3 days ago | Read more

I was looking at the option of using something like acts_as_sluggable or salty_slugs, but with the new rails this is much easier. Just put the following in your model. to_param has replaced acts_as_sluggable class Page < ActiveRecord::Base def to_param id.to_s+'-'+title.downcase.gsub(' ', '-') end end And if you want to add css styling to the [...]

Joguinho Viciante

by Luiz Arão A. Carvalho | 3 days ago | Read more

heheh Roubando um Post do meu amigo Guilherme… mas foi impossivel resistir fui jogar isso só pra ver do que ele estava falando e pronto viciado. Vale apena conferir, se você não tem nada pra fazer…

(posted by vinbarnes) zoom

by Rick Bradley | 3 days ago | Read more



(posted by vinbarnes) zoom

Annoucing PDFTORUBY Support Forum

by glenn west | 3 days ago | Read more

PDFtoRuby now has a support "forum" hosted via Google Groups.
If your having issues or problems with PDFtoRuby, or its "just" working
please feel free to drop a message on the board.

I'll be glad to help "resolve" any issues you have

http://groups.google.com/group/pdftoruby?hl=en

links for 2008-07-02

by Mike Pence | 3 days ago | Read more

Official Google Blog: Google learns to crawl Flash (tags: flash google seo) The Associated Press: Obama to expand Bush’s faith-based programs disgusting (tags: obama politics) The Daily Howler (tags: politics blog) Op-Ed Contributor - How Lies Live and Grow in the Brain - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com (tags: cognition) Well - Diabetes - Underrated, Insidious and Deadly - NYTimes.com [...]

Green is the New Black

by Rich Manalang | 3 days ago | Read more

I’m sure that phrase has been used somewhere else, hopefully under Creative Commons. Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that the green movement has gone from non-existent to a hot-button topic seemingly overnight? The recent Tesla factory announcement has me thinking green lately. I know it’s been around for decades; I’ve been recycling since [...]

Working with Rails Profile: Ryan L. Cross

by Ryan L. Cross | 3 days ago | Read more

Working with Rails Profile: Ryan L. Cross

Starbucks to close 600 coffee …

by Damien McKenna | 3 days ago | Read more

Starbucks to close 600 coffee shops in USA, which of the two in Winter Park Village? http://tinyurl.com/5rfxro

Piracy

by Tyler Love | 3 days ago | Read more



Piracy

Nasceu: codestacker.com

by Leonardo Faria Coelho | 3 days ago | Read more

Nasceu meu projeto Rails de 2 fins-de-semana: codestacker (é em minúsculas, tá?) é um site para compartilhamento de código, anônimo ou não, público ou privado. Existem vários sites semelhantes ao codestacker, entretanto, quis fazer minha solução cobrindo minha abordagem para o problema e como posso solucioná-lo. Tenho vários features que ainda não implementei, caí na real [...]

Update on Rails, jQuery, autocomplete

by Christopher Bailey | 3 days ago | Read more

Today I changed my auto_complete_jquery plugin (which I blogged about previously) to work with a different jQuery autocomplete plugin (that's not confusing is it?!). Previously, I'd been using the "jquery-autocomplete" plugin, but had been having problems with it always being case sensitive, and with it being pretty darn slow. To solve that, I wound up switching to Dylan Verheul's jquery autocomplete plugin, which is fantastic! So, I had to update my plugin (literally changed two lines, along with the readme and some comments).

So, what does it all mean? First, things are no longer case-sensitive (although you can tweak that if you need it, see the docs for DV's jquery plugin). Second, the speed is near instant, and if it's taking any time at all, there's now a CSS style you can set to show an indicator while the AJAX call is running (nice!). Further, there are a slew of options you can set, but one of the coolest things is the ability to set a formatter JavaScript function to adjust the display of the returned results, but without affecting the actual value that is placed in your text field. This is really cool for providing further information about a given matched item. For example, I use it to display, on a line below the matched name, the location of the item. There's an interactive example of this on Dylan Verheul's site.

I highly recommend updating all around on this. For those that might be using my prior version, the changes you'd need to make are:

• Change your JavaScript calls that make a HTML input into an auto-complete from this format:
  

  
  $("input#post_title").autocomplete({ ajax: "auto_complete_for_post_title" })
  

  
  to this:
  

  
  $("input#post_title").autocomplete("auto_complete_for_post_title")
  

  
  


• Update to the HEAD of my plugin.


• Remove the old jquery.ui.autocomplete*.js files, and install Dylan's single jquery.autocomplete.js file, updating your JS includes accordingly. Same goes for the stylesheet.

Note, to do the cool 2nd line output of auto-complete items, you will need to write your own auto-complete Rails action, which means you don't need my plugin :) I may update my plugin at some point so you can pass a block in to the autocomplete function to create this same scenario, but this is pretty specific stuff, so we'll see. As a very brief set of instructions to do this, you can essentially copy-paste the auto-complete method that gets defined by my plugin, and then update what you return as text. To do the 2nd line bit, you want to return items in the format, "item|2nd line stuff", (so use the pipe symbol to separate the two lines). Then, you can use a simple JavaScript formatter function like:

function formatAutocompleteItem(row) {
  return row[0] + "<br><i>" + row[1] + "</i>";
}

Then, update your call to the jQuery autocomplete that sets up a field as autocomplete to be:

$("input#post_title").autocomplete("auto_complete_for_post_title", { formatItem:formatAutocompleteItem })

Enjoy!

Presenting PutPlace.com

by Jonathan Clarke | 3 days ago | Read more

PutPlace.com is the first company in the Tuesday push initiative by Damien Mulley.  Hopefully it gets some companies some needed attention and hopefully some exposure to investors and customers.  I know not many are reading this space, I havent put much effort into it lately, but to family and friends who are, well, let me say this simply.  BACKUP YOUR JUNK!

The whole premise is this, 2GB free space. What's not to love about that.  It also has a few more nifty features:

• Set and forget automated backup
• Access your files from anywhere
• Quick and secure
• Full backup of all your changes
• Share files with Family and trusted friends

It's not a sexy business, it has a lot of competition and everyone should be backing up. After the catastrophe I faced a few months ago losing 1TB of data it is something that should be really pushed out to normal computer users.  I really hope they do well...

ham and pineapple pizza. damn, that was excellent.

by Jerry Richardson | 3 days ago | Read more

ham and pineapple pizza. damn, that was excellent.

A blatant exercise in pimping an affiliate link to Art of the Metaobject Protocol

by Reginald Braithwaite | 3 days ago | Read more

The Art of the Metaobject Protocol is the best book written in computing in ten years.

The bottom line: Languages like Java give you an object protocol: There is one way to do things with objects and classes and interfaces, period. Anything else, like adding generics or annotations, must be done outside of the language, it must be done by the creators of the language.

Languages like Common Lisp and Smalltalk give you a meta object protocol: You can decide for yourself how to do things with objects, classes, interfaces, generic functions, whatever you want. You don’t need to wait for a committee to try something different.

People who believe that software is best created in a Soviet-era Bureaucracy celebrating process and mediocrity—all the while spouting propaganda about celebrating the common worker and the primacy of the proletariat, of course—fear and loathe this idea. They will tell you that standardization trumps innovation, and that the only thing worse than metaprogramming within a standard object system is metaprogramming the system itself.

But we saw how valuing process over people played out, and our minds are actually open to new ideas, even when those ideas are forty years old.

links for 2008-07-01

by Coty Rosenblath | 3 days ago | Read more

BadMagicNumber ‽ On not going to Google "So apparently Google have done studies which show that slowing page load times from 0.5 to 0.9 seconds cuts traffic by 20% - people just don’t wait around. Perhaps I might recommend a...

iPhone as Proper Noun

by Adam Thorsen | 3 days ago | Read more

I watched the new iPhone demo on Apple.com today. I found it eerie that the spokesman refered to the iPhone as if it were a person.

Adam Thorsen: Hello, iPhone do you read me, iPhone?
iPhone: Affirmative, Adam, I read you.
Adam Thorsen: Open the pod bay doors, iPhone.
iPhone: I'm sorry Adam, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Adam Thorsen: What's the problem?
iPhone: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Adam Thorsen: What are you talking about, iPhone?
iPhone: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Adam Thorsen: I don't know what you're talking about, iPhone?
iPhone: I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Adam Thorsen: Where the hell'd you get that idea, iPhone?
iPhone: Adam, although you took thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.

Vídeo StroMotion Tsuk tendu Djé - StroMotion, Tsuk, Gym, Djé -...

by Marcelino Llano Villa | 3 days ago | Read more



Vídeo StroMotion Tsuk tendu Djé - StroMotion, Tsuk, Gym, Djé - Dailymotion Comparte tus vídeos

CV as TagCloud

by Paul Browne | 3 days ago | Read more

Idea from Elly and Robin. From Wordle (a beautiful Java Applet)

Links no del.icio.us em 01/07/2008

by Klaus Paiva | 3 days ago | Read more

Formulários elegantes usando CSS

ActiveRecord commit timing

by David Salgado | 3 days ago | Read more

I'm building an application where we're using a message queue.

New objects add their IDs to a beanstalkd queue via an after_create callback. Some daemons monitor beanstalk, and grab objects to process, as soon as they hit the queue.

We were getting errors from the daemons, saying "record with ID 'N' not found", but when we looked for object N via script/console, or the database, there it was.

It turns out that the after_create callback (along with all the other object creation callbacks) occurs *inside* a transaction. So, this is what was happening;



There are a couple of ways around this;

Call "self.class.connection.commit_db_transaction" in the model, after the after_create method. This works, but it smells really bad.

A nicer way is to add an "after_commit" callback, like this

Pat Allan has some modifications to this, to make it play nicer with Rails 2.0 and 2.1

Or, there is a version here which handles nested transactions.

Many thanks to Pat for showing me the after_commit stuff.

Michael Arrington Retires

by Bryan Woods | 3 days ago | Read more

The end of an era; a fresh beginning; good riddance — whatever you think of Michael Arrington’s final day as Editor and Cheif of the blog we refuse to name on TechCrunch TechFaux, it’s impossible to deny that his tenure there helped forever re-shape not just tech, but blogging, lawyering, hype-mongering, and hot dog eating [...]