I wish I would have found programming sooner. Specifically, I wish I would have found Ruby earlier in life. Learning Ruby changed my life. Discovering Ruby Server-side programming was something I thought I wouldn’t be able to do. It considered it only for the “smart people.” Eventually, I mustered up the courage to give it […]
Hanami Models and Making it All Work – Learn Hanami #4
If you’ve made it this far, you should know about routes, controllers, and views in Hanami. In the last Learn Hanami lesson, we’ll be looking at Hanami models. If you have a Rails (or MVC) background, you’re likely familiar with models. Models represent data your application will use. However, Hanami may utilize models differently than you’re […]
Actions (Controllers & Views) – Learn Hanami #3
At this point, you should have a route setup leading to posts#index. If you’ll remember, posts is the URI and index is an action. You might be wondering what actions are. If you come from a typical MVC background, you might think an action is just a controller. I want you to clean any pre-conceived idea […]
Hanami Routes – Learn Hanami #2
By this point, you should have Hanami installed on your computer with an empty Hanami application named blog ready to go. Today, you’ll learn how Hanami routes work. Routes are the entry point to your web application. A router is used to tell your application where to send an incoming request. Under the hood, Hanami routes […]
Setup Hanami – Learn Hanami #1
So you want to get started with Hanami? Awesome! I’m hoping I can help you with that. I’ve written about why I think Hanami is important; now I want to show you how to build web applications using it. This article is meant to help you setup Hanami. Before I show you all the neat things Hanami provides, I […]
A Full Stack Ruby Web Framework – Learn Hanami #0
If you’re familiar with web development, when you hear Ruby you likely associate another word with it: Rails. I’d like to introduce a new word to associate, as well: Hanami Ruby has been widely successful as a language and Rails has played a part in that. Learning the Rails framework helped transform my career in ways unimaginable. […]
RailsConf 2017 Slides: Your Views Know Too Much
I had the honor of speaking at RailsConf 2017 on refactoring views. I’m trying to put into words what the experience was like! Until then, here are my slides from the presentation. Your Views Know Too Much (Download Slides)
Views Are Not a Garbage Can, Clean Up Your Views
We spend so much time obsessing over where code belongs, except when talking about views. In Ruby on Rails, it seems to mostly be a conversation about business logic and the complexity that ensues. Skinny Controllers, Fat Models! Skinny Controllers, Skinny Models, Use Service Objects! Etc… Something happens once that conversation ends: we move on, and […]
The Importance of Scopes in Ruby on Rails
Using scopes in Ruby on Rails can help you write better, testable, more modular code. Let’s walk through a couple of use cases for scopes. First of all, if you’ve ever used Ruby on Rails, you’ve probably used ActiveRecord. (Hopefully not in your views!) ActiveRecord is a robust toolset. Specifically, let’s look at querying data. […]
ActiveRecord Calls in Your Views? Get Them Out
Ruby on Rails gives developers tools to build web applications rapidly. “Convention over configuration” means that a lot of decisions are made for you. Take, for example, ActiveRecord. You don’t have to concern yourself with how you’ll interact with data. Ruby on Rails implements the Active Record pattern through ActiveRecord, included in every Rails application by […]
Hatch for Ruby on Rails Servers by GoRails
Chris Oliver (GoRails) and I were talking about the Rails ecosystem recently when he dropped a bombshell on me about something called Hatch: I’m making a way for people to provision their own own Rails’ servers As someone who admires the Laravel ecosystem, I had become increasingly jealous of Laravel Forge. When Chris broke the news […]
The Thing Holding Me Back from Reaching Goals
The majority of my goals and dreams are obtainable. Be healthy, not obese Get out of debt Be spiritually deeper (Christianity) Become a better friend Gave more time with my family Build a software product Those are pretty standard goals, right? So what’s standing in the way? Me. As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m currently participating […]
Mindfulness Over Competition
I recently composed an article about my inner competitiveness. If you didn’t read it, it’s okay. The thought I was trying to convey is this: the drive to be competitive dampers my quality of work. I’ve come to realize the deeper issue, though. It’s not just competitiveness. It’s a lack of mindfulness. I’m not mindful. […]
If You Ain’t First, You’re Last – A Fake Competition
As it would turn out, one of my favorite movies to quote revealed something I’ve dealt with my entire life. I’m scared of being last in a competition that doesn’t exist. Competition and Last Place I’ve never considered myself competitive. I realize now, though, that I am in fact very competitive. I’ve been telling myself I’m not […]
Getting Your First Programming Job
In 2007 I was making part-time money at a local music store. I was fresh out of high school and felt like I had no direction. My life changed when I got interested in the web. Introduction to Programming I asked the owner of the music store if I could make their website. Kindly, he […]
Ruby Survey Results from January 2017
Thinking About a Ruby Survey I think a lot about Ruby; it’s community, and how people are using it. It changed my life. I decided that I would run a Ruby Survey to see if I could get some real data to accompany my thoughts. This Ruby Survey was my first, and I’ve learned some better […]
Information Overload and Having Filters
As developers, the majority of our resources are online. In fact, I would say we have an over-abundance of information available. Information is: beneficial the way we learn how we change careers a tool to stay sharp is power What about too much? We only have so much time during the day. We can only […]
FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and Polyglotism
I want to talk about a different “fear of missing out,” or FOMO than my last post. What happens when you do find a new programming language or framework you like? PHP FOMO Let me give an example. Lately, I’ve been envious of PHP for having Laravel. I think it’s a well put-together framework with great, […]
FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and the Bleeding Edge
Having a severe case of “fear of missing out,” or FOMO doesn’t bode well for someone with Anxiety. At times I legitimately worry that I’m shooting myself in the foot if I don’t keep up with the latest, greatest technology. Ruby In my particular case, I love writing Ruby. The most popular career path for […]
Programming Blog and a Fresh Start
I’m passionate about programming. Programming changed the trajectory of my career in a way I never expected; it allowed me to make money doing something I love. It’s become an addiction. When I’m not at work, I’m at home programming. When I’m not programming, I’m reading and looking for the next big thing in programming. But I’ve noticed […]