RCK2.net » rails

Rob on Rails

rkalajian — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:09:03 +0000

I’m just wrapping up my second full Rails project at work, and I have to say that I’m slowly getting the hang of things.

It’s wonderful (and frustrating) that I can look back at my first project and realize all the things I did wrong. The good part about that is a lot of the first-time mistakes I made are easily fixed. I’m pretty sure I’ll be saying the same thing about my current project once I’ve moved on to the next.

While I’ve come a long way, I still feel I need some proper training so I can really get into the deeper stuff with Rails. While I’m sure I can do pretty much anything I need to, and anything my job requires, I’d really like to grow my skills so I can start REALLY using it. I’d love nothing more than to let a client know we can go above and beyond for them, and really make their interactive shine.

MongoDB & MongoMapper in Rails

rkalajian — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:40:21 +0000

Mike Duncan sent me this link this morning. It’s all about how to get started with MongoDB in Rails written by Clinton Nixon over at Viget Labs.

(Damn, that’s a lot of linking in two sentences)

I’ve been interested in Mongo ever since Developer Day, but haven’t really known where to start with it. After reading this I feel I have a little bit better understanding of where to start, and may have to try and put something into testing with it soon.

Real Rails Work

rkalajian — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:17:38 +0000

I’ve started my first real Rails app for work. Nothing too huge, which is nice because I’m still learning the ropes.

I’m working on a quiz that will be setup on a kiosk in malls. People answer 7 questions and it spits out their score. The quiz also records what people answered for each question, if they aborted the quiz, and what question they aborted on if they did so. All of this is stored with a timestamp.

Nothing complex, but a few things have already hung me up. Thankfully I was able to get past that, and will have the app finished shortly.

This is also the first project I’m working on since we’ve switch from SVN to git. So far I’m really liking git, even though I’ve barely scratched the surface of what it can do.

Like we say at work: “Zero to badass, one baby step at a time”

DRY database.yml

rkalajian — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:59:50 +0000

A more DRY way of setting up your database.yml in Rails:

login: &login
adapter: sqlite3
username: username
password: password

development:
<<: *login
database: app_dev

test:
<<: *login
database: app_test

production:
<<: *login
database: app_prod

If you’re connecting via mysql, it’s a similar setup.

login: &login
adapter: mysql
username: username
password: password
host: mysql host

development:
<<: *login
database: app_dev

test:
<<: *login
database: app_test

production:
<<: *login
database: app_prod

Gettin’ My Rails On

rkalajian — Tue, 12 May 2009 00:17:31 +0000

The company I work at has decided to move away from being a PHP shop and switch over to Rails for most of the development work. Both the lead developer and I have been jonsing for this for some time now, and we’re finally getting everything in place to make it happen. There’s going to be some massive crunch time so our team (now 3 developers strong!) can get up to snuff in Rails and actually start moving forward with new projects.

This is just the push I’ve needed to move away from playing with Rails as kind of a hobby, and really start getting serious with it.

What Next?

rkalajian — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 00:19:37 +0000

I’m thinking about doing something else with this domain name, but don’t know what yet. Some of the things I considered where setting up a custom portfolio for helping find freelance work, or maybe some kind of rails app or something. Now that my hosting allows unlimited domains, subdomains, and storage, I can do just about anything I want.

Maybe I’ll try setting up portfolio.rck2.net in rails as a way to practice. Who knows.