Articles written in November 2006
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Premature Extraction
The Rails Way is off with their first code review. It is really great to see into the coding process of top notch hackers. Their first review deals with “acts_as” code modules and “premature extraction”. Koz keeps it simple.
These both illustrate a common anti-pattern I see with rails programmers: premature extraction. Just because rails has a bunch of meta programming magic with names like acts_as_list, doesn’t mean you need it.
The process is all about keeping it simple and extracting only when you need to. I’ve been learning more and more about that in a Ruby application I’ve been working on lately. It is a challenge, especially coming from .NET, to not overly abstract early.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Crunch or Krackel?
Being inundated with Halloween candy, I wondered which chocolate I like the best, Hershey or Nestle. Of course there are many other exotic options, but the question is really one of branding—a Coke or Pepsi kind of venture.
I happened to be eating a small Nestle Crunch bar when thoughts of my childhood crept up. Each summer morning, my Mom dropped me off at the pool for swim practice. I would inevitably stay through lunch charging it to my parents account. That is until my dad got the bill. Then, no more lunches. So my friends and I would do what every American sweet tooth would. We figured out the cheapest, tasty lunch possible. A cherry coke and a nestle crunch bar. mmmmmm.
When dad completely cut off the fund, we’d sneak into the clubhouse and find those little Andes mints for the dining room, and grab a handful. Not quite as good, but they got the job done. Nestle Crunch was just the best.
So I’m thinking? Does Nestle have better chocolate or is it just my fond (and dentally terrifying) memories of my youth that make it taste better than Hershey’s. I don’t know. What do you think? Do you prefer one over the other? Why? I’m really curious now.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Coda
Hopefully this won’t completely kill my new commitment to blogging. We’ll see. We add a new member to the family this weekend. Introducing “Coda”...
He’s a little black lab we adopted into the family this weekend. He’s about 7 (or so) weeks old. And I thought we were moving out of the baby stage.
Here are some other pics of the litte guy.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Fusebox 5.1 in the works
Sean Corfield, lead developer of Fusebox 5.0, announced that 5.1 is underway. It’s great to see continual thought and effort being poured into Fusebox in light of all the new frameworks out there.
Here’s a list of cases that comprise the 5.1 release.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
The Rails Way
Most who know me, know that I am a big fan of Ruby and Rails. I simply enjoy using the language far more than others I’ve used. The biggest reason is the community. I my previous post about the importance of choosing a community, I note the differences that I’ve experienced. Here’s another…
Jamis Buck and Michael Koziarski have introduced The Rails Way, a site where you can upload code and they will analyze it according to best practices (a.k.a. the rails way). This is not for-profit, it is for the community—a way to help others grow in their coding skills. I really do enjoy being a part of this community.
You can read the intro on Jamis’ blog.
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