OnRails.org

Browse::Source is a simple source code browsing application. It’s 100% based on Collaboa, it’s mostly the source code browser functionality but uses the file system rather than connecting to subversion.

I recently got a request from Justin to have access to some ‘old’ rails code (flexonrails) we wrote a while ago, and also Todd asked for the source code of autumnriders. So I tried Collaboa but it requires to compile subversion from the source in order to have swig-rb. So I extracted the source code browser from Collaboa and removed the dependency on swig-rb. Now if all you need is to add simple source code browsing…then Browse::Source is what you need.

Well, we haven’t posted yet the two code bases mentionned above, but have a look at the source code browser source code Browse::Source

This statement is pretty true right now, Rails is just a pleasant development environment. Mike Clark left this sticker at my desk at one of the places I am currently doing a Rails project at.

For another client I am doing a Flex project and work with many great java developers. I thought I would put the sticker in a visible spot and see their reactions. Well, it didn’t fail, some of the comments where pretty funny. Here they go:

• That’s a big statement.
• We’ll run you out on a rail.
• So you would rather be on rails, hein?
• HuHan!
• You really are a geek.
• Where did you get it? You didn’t get one for me?
• He’s a convert.
• You are pushing the Ruby stuff today!
• It looks like it should have a Lenin on it.
• I’d rather be fishing.

The “Lenin” one I didn’t totally get, even after a long discussion, but I sounded pretty funny to me. As you see, give me a sticker and will say good things about you. No, that’s not the case, I just think Mike Clark and Dave Thomas are putting a very compelling training together, and with these two guys you will learn more in three days than you would ever in any other places. Check out http://pragmaticstudio.com and their new Rails Studio, coming to Denver in January.

In this non-technical article I wanted to share my impressions of writing an online store with Ruby on Rails. http://www.autumnriderstees.com/

Background

On September 9th Lee’s dad mentioned that he would receive a stock of new quality designer T-shirts with funny bikers logos on September the 22nd and asked Lee if he could setup an on-line store. Lee asked me if I could help out writing it in Ruby on Rails and if I thought it was feasible. Hey, I just finished “Agile Web Development with Rails”, how hard could it be, the book contains everything we need. So “heck, yea, we can do it”. So Lee told his dad: “Sure, we’ll do”. Well, it took us just a little longer, not much thought, considering we just met once a week for a month, and two weekends. But considering that Lee just started a new Rails gig, me just being father for the second time and a little sleep depraved, we manage to go-life on October the 16th at RubyConf 2005. First Ruby and Rails is really cool, Dave Thomas books are invaluable in many aspects, not the least being that the most of the order processing part of the application is taken straight from book.

require 'payment'

def process_payment(order, credit_card_number, credit_card_expiration_mmyy )
    @transaction = Payment::AuthorizeNet.new(
                      :prefs       => "#{RAILS_ROOT}/config/payment.yml",
                      :amount      => @cart.total_price,
                      :expiration  => credit_card_expiration_mmyy,
                      :first_name  => order.bill_to_last_name,
                      :last_name   => order.bill_to_first_name,
                      :card_number => credit_card_number,
                      :invoice     => order.order_number,
                      :test_transaction => RAILS_ENV != 'production'   
                     )

    @transaction.submit
    @transaction.authorization
end

001_initial_schema.rb
002_add_order_ship_date_and_status.rb
003_add_order_date.rb
004_add_users.rb
005_add_product_options.rb

class AddOrderShipDateAndStatus < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    add_column :orders, :shipped_at, :datetime, :null => true
    add_column :orders, :status, :string, :limit => 40, :default => 'New', :null => false

    execute "UPDATE orders SET status = 'Open'"
  end

  def self.down
    remove_column :orders, :status
    remove_column :orders, :shipped_at
  end
end

RubyConf 2005 and RubyWeek

What a Ruby Week. I am on the plane back to Denver from the Ruby Conference 2005 that just finished in San Diego. On the beginning of the week I started a new part-time job working on a Ruby on Rails application. On Thursday I flew to San Diego for the conference. Later that evening, with Lee we fleshed out the latest bug of our first on-line Rails application, and put it in production. If you are a Biker and like funny shirts, check out AutumnRidersTees.com. It’s a very small on-line shirt Store. Thank you Dave Thomas for your book on Rails, it was also a nice kick-start for our application, especially the non-public/administrative side of the site. On Friday the conference started, and what a conference, about two hundreds geeks and Ruby fans, inclusive many of the key players that create Ruby, Rails, and many of the awesome frameworks we are using everyday. It’s funny to put a face on who is behind these frameworks. For more info on the speakers checkout the agenda. Matz,the creator of Ruby, and ko1, the writer of the upcoming RubyVM, presented their views on the future of Ruby. I am not sure if this comes from the Japanese culture, but the elegance, simplicity and power, that radiates from the existing and forthcoming releases, made me want to to study this country. About 15 of the attendees came from Japan. It’s interesting how the community still feels small and is so open (and fun) when attending the conference especially when you realize the potential of Ruby and the power meta programming provides by creating domain specific languages. Rails is an example of that puts that power to good use. Speaking of Rails, David Heinemeier Hannsson, provided a nice state of the union for Rails and a hands-on workshop (he worked, we watched) of the forthcoming Rails 1.0 functionality. Rails was the trigger for me to dive into Ruby, and what is coming out will impress many java shops. SwitchTower to deploy applications from a single server to large clusters. Gauge to monitor your application and see what’s going on, live, on your servers. So many other improvements that are just practical. Tom took quite some notes of that presentation. Before the Rails talks I also enjoyed an interesting talk of domain specific languages in general by Jim Weirich followed by a Karlin Fox’s talk on how to create a user oriented specification and testing languages using “english” thus allowing a non-programmer user or business analyst to express the expected behavior of the application. The amazing part is that this domain specific language is implemented using Ruby and results in runnable unit test that excerse the user interface.

A great conference and a great Ruby week.

• Enabling flash and javascript integration
• Embedding the FlashTag in the .rhtml file.
• passing initial values to a Flash component from an ActiveView.
• embedding multiple Flash components in a .rhtml file.
• Invoking remotly an ActionController from a Flash component.
• Calling a javascript function from a Flash component.

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