Projectionist: A tumblelog

Sun Jul 31

#

Using Rails helpers in irb with include_all_modules_from

$ irb -r rubygems -r action_controller
>> include_all_modules_from ActionView::Helpers
>> puts link_to('Google', 'http://google.com')
<a href="http://google.com">Google</a>

#

Include all modules contained within some nesting

module Kernel
  def include_all_modules_from(parent_module)
    parent_module.constants.each do |const|
      mod = parent_module.const_get(const)
      send(:include, mod) if mod.class == Module
    end
  end
end

#

Bouncy Balls in SF

#

#rubyist.org

20:17 <@sam-> i wish there were syntax for rescue nil

20:17 <@sam-> like ^_^;;

20:18 <@sam-> IO.read('/etc/shadow') ^_^;;

#

#rubyist.org

19:48 <@killfile> jesus christ is alive and well

19:48 <@killfile> ... and working at papa johns

19:48 <@killfile> http://elitists.textdriven.com/christ.jpg

#

#ruby-lang

12:08 * slyphon smashes noradio's driver side window and steals his fuzzy dice

#

#rubyonrails

00:53 < danp> project.ioni.st is too hardcore for me

Sat Jul 30

#

Find the Plural of a Word

According to the ActiveSupport Inflector, that is.

#

Sparklines graph library for Ruby

The API seems pretty friendly.

#

Hakuunno-Hotori

a mixture of condensed milk and sweet white bean paste wrapped in Japanese crepe

#

private message

17:41 <hoverbird> there are STILL no gay rappers

17:41 <hoverbird> it's only a matter of time

#

Big Nerd Ranch

Intensive programming courses taught by industry leaders in a resort like environment.

#

#rails-core

14:01 < noradio> what is up with the wiki btw :)

14:01 < nextangle> madeleine is being stretched 200 miles north of its sweetspot

Fri Jul 29

#

“ Nailing a killer karaoke performace can encapsulate exactly how you feel while removing stress and mental anguish. The only thing I can think to compare it to would be Dianetics. That shit works. ”

Patrick Henry Ewing

#

#rubyist.org

11:40 <@tehdely> Rails scales in four dimensions.

11:40 <@noradio> Rails is Timecube compliant

11:41 <@tehdely> Nature's Harmonic Full-Stack Web Framework allows you to build applications in less time than it would take for you to be ruined by the Academic Establishment

11:41 <@tehdely> YOUR HEAD IS FULL OF LIES

#

“ All aesthetic concerns (style, form, structure) answer this purpose: Let in the world. That is why Pynchon is our biggest writer, the gold standard of that overused word inclusiveness: No dogma or tidy aesthetic rule or literary fashion is allowed to prefilter the beautiful data streaming in. Everything is included. No inclination of the mind is too small or large or frightening. The result is a gorgeous madness, which does what great literature has always done—reminds us that there is a world out there that is bigger than us and worthy of our utmost humility and attention. ”

George Saunders on Thomas Pynchon

#

“ Pynchon’s fiction made it clear that, if you wanted to write, you had to know everything: everything about history, science, politics, even calculus; you had to know everything while being funny at the same time, and lyrical, bringing into the novel a freewheeling, present-tense, colloquial-poetic American voice, in books that were like adventure stories and comedy routines, and where the characters were forever breaking into song. ”

Jeffrey Eugenides on Thomas Pynchon

#

“ The author has asserted his moral rights. ”

From the Copyright page of the The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism

Wed Jul 27

#

Grandmother, what big serifs you have

Check out Strange Attractions’ Little Yellow Writing Hood from the second annual Typophile Film Festival at TypeCon2005. Spotted on Mark Simonson’s blog.

#

Graph the activity of your Darcs repositories

Core developer Scott Barron (htonl) shows how to walk through the revisions in your Darcs repositories with Ruby, run rake stats on each version, and plot the LOC to a graph to get an (admittedly useless, but pretty) overview of your work history.

Tue Jul 26

#

MC Plus+

Watch out Kleenex Girl Wonder.

#

Santiago Calatrava and the Fordham Spire

— a $500 million undertaking which will plop the country’s tallest building (almost 2000 feet tall) on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive. Condominium residences in the tower are expected to cost between $6.5 and $7.5 million. Yes, please.

#

From rake’s Rakefile

def egrep(pattern)
  Dir['**/*.rb'].each do |fn|
    count = 0
    open(fn) do |f|
      while line = f.gets
        count += 1
        if line =~ pattern
          puts "#{fn}:#{count}:#{line}"
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

desc "Look for TODO and FIXME tags in the code"
task :todo do
  egrep /#.*(FIXME|TODO|TBD)/
end

#

Knife rack

#

AJAX Debugging Console

“Each individual XMLHttpRequest invocation will get listed there, with all the details on the request and the response, as well as options to edit and replay the request or replay the response callback.”

Mon Jul 25

#

`Proc#to_method`

class Proc
  # Converts the proc into an UnboundMethod which
  # can then be bound to an instance of the given
  # +klass+.
  def to_method(klass)
    identifier = :"__Proc_#{object_id}__"
    klass.send(:define_method, identifier, self)
    method = klass.instance_method(identifier)
    klass.send(:undef_method, identifier)
    method
  end
end

#

#rails-core

15:51 < xal_> #rails-core. open sourcing basecamp bit by bit since '04

#

“ Illinois has some of the pitfalls you expect from literary singer-songwriter albums. Flute solos, for one thing. For another, there’s the inevitable song about the serial killer who dresses up as a clown, which symbolizes nothing about American life except the existence of creative-writing workshops. ”

Rolling Stone review of Illinois

#

“ I wish you way more than luck. ”

David Foster Wallace, Kenyon Commencement Address 2005

#

“ And I wanna be like water if I can,
‘cause water doesn’t give a damn. ”

D.C. Berman, Horseleg Swastikas

#

“ Big boobs? Yes! Small boobs? Absolutely! I don’t really care. When you’re younger boobs are a bigger deal, but as you get older, you bat them around, they’re nice to have, but after a while you get bored of them. And fake boobs? Well, they’re ain’t nothing like the real thing. ”

Vince Vaughn

Fri Jul 22

#

“ Being uptight doesn’t lead to cool software. ”

Mike Matas

Thu Jul 21

#

#rails-core

13:16 < nextangle> yay, booked room for rubyconf

13:16 < nextangle> I'll be down there on the 12th

13:16 < noradio> we will all have to get you a birthday present...

13:17 < htonl> stripper

13:17 < nextangle> So if any of you guys are up for some hackathoning in those two days before the event, that'd be great ;)

13:17 < nextangle> Ha! :)

13:17 < noradio> this is the part where david says, "just having all you guys there is the best present i could ask for"

13:17 < nextangle> I'll take the stripper, actually

13:17 < noradio> it would be cool to see you delegating in person rather than over irc

#

A hippo and a tortoise

Because it’s about the love.

Wed Jul 20

#

Lola cruising around Housy

#

“ But one of the most vivid memories of my life, nearly twenty-five years old, is of emerging from a tent somewhere in the Black Hills of South Dakota, into a still, clear, cold morning, with the early sunlight slanting obliquely through the trees. It was one of the few times I understood reverence — not just reverence for nature, but as part of the more complicated mythologies humans layer on top of it. It wouldn’t have been the same had I driven to that spot from a nearby motel after a trucker’s breakfast. ”

P. Ragde on wallace-l, re: camping

#

#ruby-lang

10:36 < dblack_> i thought iterators came from clos

10:36 < chris2> nope

10:36 < chris2> iterators are from clu

10:36 < dblack_> ah

10:36 < dblack_> clu!

10:36 < dblack_> that's what i was thinking of

10:36 < dblack_> thanks

10:36 * dblack_ was cluless

Tue Jul 19

#

Mikael’s cat

#

Information overload courtesy of Digg

Digg is a technology news website that combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS, and non-hierarchical editorial control.

Democratized content feeds. Here comes the schizophrenia.

#

“ How often the prospect of future happiness is thus sacrificed to one’s impatient insistence upon an immediate gratification. ”

Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

Mon Jul 18

#

Algorithmic pluralization of English words

Damian Conway breaks down various approaches to programmatically pluralizing English words. Check out Lingua::EN::Inflect for the gruesome details of his implementation.

Sun Jul 17

#

Mo and Johnny

#

“ I’ll come up with something witty to say, just gimme a second. ”

Patrick Henry Ewing

Sat Jul 16

#

Lola in Rory’s garden

#

“ And past all this, reddened by a round slow September sun, are mountains, jagged, their tops’ sharp angles darkening into definition against a deep red tired light. Against the red their sharp connected tops form a spiked line, an EKG of the dying day. ”

David Foster Wallace, Forever Overhead

#

“ 22. At my memorial service, I would like my clergyman to begin his eulogy with the words “I suppose, in a way, we all killed him.” ”

Request #22 from the living will of Paul Rudnick

Fri Jul 15

#

script.aculo.us Wishlist

A look at what’s coming in future releases of Thomas Fuchs’ script.aculo.us library.

#

Searchable documentation with Rails Dock

Duane Johnson has developed a Google Suggest style system powered by RubyOdeum. “This means that if you type redirect_to and wait for suggestions, you will not only see the ActionController::Base#redirect_to but also ActionController::Flash (for example) since its documentation references redirect_to.”

#

“ Pair programming is a learnable skill, but one often at odds with the tendencies of the sort of people who typically get into programming. Perhaps I should state this less equivocally—nerds aren’t generally good at talking. ”

Kent “Making New Friends Every Day” Beck

#

KISSing lessons

Courtesy of _why

#

Mo at the Gates

#

A simple YAML configuration model

class YamlConfiguration < Builder::BlankSlate
  def initialize(yaml_file)
    @yaml_file = yaml_file
  end
  
  def method_missing(name, *args)
    yaml = YAML.load_file(@yaml_file)
    yaml[name.to_s] || nil
  end

  def authenticate(u, p)
    u == self.username and p == self.password
  end
end

Configuration = YamlConfiguration.new 
  APPLICATION_CONFIG_FILE

#

Thu Jul 14

#

“ I’m all for moderation but sometimes it seems moderation itself can be a kind of extreme. ”

Andrew Bird

#

“ I’m glad I held my breath for a few hours. Otherwise, I would probably have had to post another picture of a flower tomorrow. ”

David

#

Application Deployment with Rails

Jamis Buck describes 37signals’ atomic, distributed Rails deployment mechanism.

#

Optimus keyboard

“Every key of the Optimus keyboard is a stand-alone display showing exactly what it is controlling at this very moment.”

#

#rails-core

13:47 < xal> hehe, did you see the slashdot topic "Apple freezes cocoa-java" ? Man that sounded so tasty

#

“ Food, also, is a hallmark of XP projects. There is something powerful about breaking bread with someone. You have an entirely different discussion with them if you are chewing at the same time. So XP projects always have food lying around. ”

Kent “Please Watch Your Weight” Beck

#

iPod Harper’s Special Edition

It’s about time.

Wed Jul 13

#

LiveTree: Ajax tree widget for Rails

Created by Emanuel Borsboom. This widget is built on top of Ionist’s own Prototype library, and integrates beautifully with Rails. Check out the demo, too.

#

Flickr’s architecture

“About 60,000 lines of PHP code”. And that is only as of almost a year ago. Yikes.

#

“ Using some templates in Eclipse or IDEA, I’m pretty sure your simple database backed CRUD applications could be built in the same amount of time as with RoR. ”

Delusional Java developer

#

#rails-core

14:33 < xal> can i get tax deductions being in a cult?

14:34 < bitsweat> Yeah, after you sign away all your assets you have no taxes to pay

14:34 < xal> that sounds like quite the deal

14:35 < htonl> yeah, you need to start tithing to rails

14:35 < htonl> at least 10% of your gross income

14:36 < htonl> i'll pass along the official account number

14:36 < bitsweat> tithe to http://dev.rubyonrails.org/newticket

#

#rails-core

14:31 < noradio> you all need to WATCH THE HELL OUT...i'm going to start irc quoting this stuff

14:31 < bitsweat> This channel has -q set ;)

14:31 < htonl> it's a violation of ethics to quote this stuff

14:31 * Ulysses 's vocab fails

14:31 < htonl> you'll be ostracized

#

Agile Web Development with Rails out of beta and off to the printer

Some bound copies should be available at OSCON

#

“ Anyone who drops his name 4 times, his phone number, and reps his grill, all in 4 lines, is hype. ”

Jean-Paul on Wallace-l, re: lyrics by Mike Jones

#

Bullets

Tue Jul 12

#

#rails-core

06:28 <madrobby> uff. i guess the script.aculo.us stuff is "too cool for google". they threw me out of adsense. :P

06:34 <madrobby> i've written them back, because they accused me of "using software tools to generate clicks". i dunno if the ppl using the site want themselves referred to as "software tools". :/

#

Sydney DP1

Spotted on Anarchaia, this experimental version of the Ruby 1.8.2 interpreter features native threads, a native Binding.of_caller and a GC.on_gc callback. Excellent stuff.

#

Call a block repeatedly until an exception is raised

def as_many_times_as_possible
  loop {yield rescue break}
end

#

Ruby on Rails Podcast

Scott kicks off his latest project with a DHH interview and the latest Rails news. There’s even a mention of Ionist! Do give this a listen.

#

“ “Words,” he said, “is oh such a twitch-tickling problem to me all my life. So you must simply try to be patient and stop squibbling. As I am telling you before, I know exactly what words I am wanting to say, but somehow or other they is always getting squiffs-quiddled around.”

“That happens to everyone,” Sophie said.

“Not like it happens to me,” the B.F.G. said. “I is speaking the most terrible wigglish.”

“I think you speak beautifully,” Sophie said.

“You do?” cried the B.F.G., suddenly brightening. “You really do?”

“Simply beautifully,” Sophie repeated.

“Well that is the nicest present anyone is every giving me in my whole life!” cried the B.F.G. “Are you sure you is not twiddling my leg?”

“Of course not,” Sophie said. “I just love the way you talk.”

“How wondercrump!” cried the B.F.G., still beaming. “How whoopsy-splunkers. How absolutely squiffling! I is all of a stutter.” ”

Roald Dahl, The B.F.G.

#

“ Everyting in software changes. The requirements change. The design changes. The business changes. The technology changes. The team changes. The team members change. The problem isn’t change, per se, because change is going to happen; the problem, rather, is the inability to cope with change when it comes. ”

Kent Beck

Mon Jul 11

#

Thu Jul 7

#

Thinking in Ruby

Jim Weirich explores the ways in which Ruby helps programmers tackle complex problems.

Wed Jul 6

#

“ Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings. ”

David Foster Wallace

Mon Jul 4

#

#rubyist.org

21:05 <noradio> I AM ELIGA

21:05 <noradio> HEAR ME ROR

#

A full XML situp

<situps>
  <situp position="down" />
  <situp position="up" />
</situps>

#

“ My week beats your year. ”

Lou Reed

#

Hector stretches

Sun Jul 3

#

Find the name of the newest file of a given type in a directory

class << Dir
  def newest(glob)
    self[glob].max {|a,b|
      File.ctime(a) <=> File.ctime(b)
    }
  end
end

Dir.newest('*.pdf')

#

16:36 <sam-> do you want to start on our tumblelog app?

16:36 <noradio> we were going to use this as a component of our website once we have one?

16:37 <sam-> i think it'll essentially be our website

16:37 <noradio> please explain the concept of tumblelog

16:37 <sam-> ok

16:37 <sam-> http://chneukirchen.org/blog/archive/2005/04/thoughts-on-vooly.html

16:37 <sam-> you've seen anarchaia right?

16:38 <noradio> yeah, i AGGREGATE IT

16:39 <sam-> so basically it's a blog where all the posts are short and are of a certain "type"

16:39 <sam-> e.g., link with description, or a picture, or an irc quote

Sat Jul 2

#

Thoughts on Vooly

Chris Neukirchen discusses his Vooly markup language and shows how it’s used in Anarchaia.

By

Sun Jul 31

Using Rails helpers in irb with include_all_modules_from

Include all modules contained within some nesting

Bouncy Balls in SF

#rubyist.org

#rubyist.org

#ruby-lang

#rubyonrails

Sat Jul 30

private message

#rails-core

Fri Jul 29

Patrick Henry Ewing

#rubyist.org

George Saunders on Thomas Pynchon

Jeffrey Eugenides on Thomas Pynchon

From the Copyright page of the The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism

Wed Jul 27

Tue Jul 26

From rake’s Rakefile

Knife rack

Mon Jul 25

Proc#to_method

#rails-core

Rolling Stone review of Illinois

David Foster Wallace, Kenyon Commencement Address 2005

D.C. Berman, Horseleg Swastikas

Vince Vaughn

Fri Jul 22

Thu Jul 21

#rails-core

Wed Jul 20

Lola cruising around Housy

P. Ragde on wallace-l, re: camping

#ruby-lang

Tue Jul 19

Mikael’s cat

Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

Mon Jul 18

Sun Jul 17

Mo and Johnny

Patrick Henry Ewing

Sat Jul 16

Lola in Rory’s garden

David Foster Wallace, Forever Overhead

Request #22 from the living will of Paul Rudnick

Fri Jul 15

Kent “Making New Friends Every Day” Beck

Mo at the Gates

A simple YAML configuration model

Thu Jul 14

#rails-core

Kent “Please Watch Your Weight” Beck

Wed Jul 13

#rails-core

#rails-core

Jean-Paul on Wallace-l, re: lyrics by Mike Jones

Bullets

Tue Jul 12

#rails-core

Call a block repeatedly until an exception is raised

Roald Dahl, The B.F.G.

Kent Beck

Mon Jul 11

Thu Jul 7

Wed Jul 6

David Foster Wallace

Mon Jul 4

#rubyist.org

A full XML situp

Lou Reed

Hector stretches

Sun Jul 3

Find the name of the newest file of a given type in a directory

Sat Jul 2

`Proc#to_method`