February 2012
10 posts
1 tag
Using Bundler binstubs with RVM
There’s a feature of Bundler called binstubs which will installed bundler-wrapper executables for your gem executables in a directory of your choosing (./bin by default). This makes it so you don’t have to type bundle exec before every bundler-installed gem executable.
The trick, though is getting ./bin added to your PATH only when it’s appropriate, i.e. when you cd into a...
1 tag
The Worst Part of Tech Meetups
Of the many tech meetups I’ve been to over the last 10 years in San Diego, San Francisco and Austin, there is one persistent commonality that always tries to ruin my experience. I’m talking about the shameless conversation derailer.
These people are usually few in number, but they make up for that by monopolizing Q&A time or simply interrupting others at the meetup with their...
1 tag
Technological Progress in Society
There’s an aspect of tech enthusiasm that leads to popular lament of wasted or misdirected skills. But I think the only real way to have an impact on overall industry trends, and thus the focus of collective productive energy, is to start businesses or movements and create cultures within the industry that provide new rallying points, examples and inspiration for other thinkers to riff off. It’s...
1 tag
On Modern Relationships
During an email conversation with a friend, he remarks and I respond:
I’ve found it notable that friends who might entertain the idea of cheating find the notion of an explicitly open relationship difficult to weather.
I definitely find the same to be true. I think it can be explained with a basic theory of maturity or development in relationships: the naïve or undeveloped are...
1 tag
An API Ontology →
1 tag
“That’s what it means to become a leader. It’s not supreme confidence, it’s not...”
– Bryce Roberts, On Becoming a Leader
2 tags
Faster Specs without Loading Rails
If you’re writing unit specs in a Rails project and you don’t need Rails and all of its machinery to load in your spec while you’re iterating (for instance, because Rails takes 15+ seconds to load), you can just require the class you’re concerned with.
#require 'spec_helper'
require 'rubygems'
require 'active_support/all'
require File.join(*[File.dirname(__FILE__)] +...
1 tag
Tip-toeing in Code
def maybe_activate_frob
frob.activate! if x && y && z || a && b || c
end
vs.
def activate_frob_if_possible
frob.activate! if frob.can_activate?
end
vs.
frob.activate! if frob.can_activate?
I think I prefer the last version.
“Conventional wisdom is, ultimately, found wanting on wise.”
– Jim Maiella, Impossible Happens
I really love that turn of phrase.