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Rails routes in Javascript with js-routes

By Matt Fletcher | Published: October 3, 2011
One thing that has annoyed me historically is hitting our Rails routes from Javascript. I’ve either sent the route down with other JSON data or simply typed the right string into the Javascript code. Both solutions work but I was never wild about them. Now we’ve been using the js-routes library for a couple of...

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BarCamp GR 2011

By Matt Fletcher | Published: August 22, 2011
Last Friday I participated in BarCamp GR 2011 at nearby Calvin College. I’ve attended previous BarCamps, but I hadn’t presented. This year I presented twice. The first presentation I was semi-prepared for: one of our interns last summer, Daniel Hast, did a couple of lunchtime talks on the basics of dynamic programming. Since he did...

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JRuby, Rails, and Torquebox presentation at August DetroitRuby

By Matt Fletcher | Published: August 12, 2011
Last evening I gave a 45 minute presentation to the DetroitRuby group about our experiences building a web application with JRuby, Rails, and Torquebox. Here is a link to the presentation. The presentation went well and the group enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to further engagements wirth DetroitRuby, whether it be visiting them again or...

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Birdbath updated to handle both Rails.root and RAILS_ROOT

By Matt Fletcher | Published: August 9, 2011
I just update the birdbath Ruby gem to properly handle either the RAILS_ROOT constant or Rails.root object. Rails 3.1 has removed the constant. Birdbath is a gem to aid in testing ActiveRecord migrations. Take a peek at the project on GitHub for more information. Edit: corrected typo
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Be aware of jruby.launch.inproc

By Matt Fletcher | Published: July 5, 2011
Heads up for those not aware: it’s not hard to get burned when you’re executing other Ruby processes from within a JRuby process. Suppose you satisfy these conditions: You’re running a Ruby program via JRuby. Your program needs to execute another program via something like system or backticks. The command for the new program looks...

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Black swans and startup companies

By Matt Fletcher | Published: June 13, 2011
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is an author I’ve been hearing a lot about on the economics blogs and podcasts lately. Taleb writes about what he calls “Black Swan Events.” Wikipedia’s entry on Black swan theory is quite good and I don’t want to duplicate it here, but in summary, a “[Black Swan Event] is a metaphor...

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Posted in Reviews, Startups | 1 Comment

May 2011 GR-JUG presentation available online

By Matt Fletcher | Published: June 1, 2011
Last week I spoke to the Grand Rapids Java Users Group about building desktop applications with JRuby. The slides from that presentation are available as a showoff presentation at this GitHub page. I also learned that it’s finally time for me to start carrying around all of the appropriate video adapters in both of my...

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We’re all in this together.

By Matt Fletcher | Published: May 11, 2011

I just read a great post on The Changelog titled “You (yes, you!) should contribute to open source.” It is an inspirational article that reminds us of how much more we could be doing. Here’s a snippet from my favorite part of the article: …most of the people I’ve talked to object for two basic…

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env -i: how I wish I’d met you ten years ago

By Matt Fletcher | Published: May 1, 2011

Short version: look into using env -i when you’re battling your environment while launching subprocesses. Long version: I spent a lot of time screwing around in Linux as a student. Installing the latest shiny Linux or BSD distribution, recompiling kernels, swapping out the memory management data structures to see what would happen, etc. It continues…

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‘Embedded test-driven development in C with Ruby’ slides online

By Matt Fletcher | Published: April 23, 2011

Last week at the Great Lakes Software Excellence Conference I presented the topic ‘Embedded test-driven development in C with Ruby.’ The slides are available online at this GitHub page. As a showoff presentation, you can view the presentation in your web browser and use the forward/back keys on your keyboard to navigate. The presentation probably…

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