RubyDC

OVERVIEW

February 26, 2006, 15:00 - 16:00, Crumbs & Coffee

SUMMARY

Vince, Ken started the meeting and ran through some printouts. Included in the handouts was code that pop ups a browser window that helps format information from the rails debug output, making it easier to decipher. Also, Ken mentioned two Rails Recipes from Chad Fowler's PDF book that help create test data in a quick fashion. Ken suggested that the learning the facile use of breakpoints in debugging rails apps would pay off in saved development time. Guest speaker Jeff Casimir showed up, spoke about use of Rails at his high school where he works. Jeff and Vince stayed after the meeing, working on Vince's Rails shopping cart.

Guest Speaker Jeff Casimir

• Jeff Casimir, www.eff.org supporter, teaches AP computer science using Java at a DC charter school. Jeff is building rails apps at his workplace, pitching in, volunteering and producing working solutions in record time.
• It is not unusual for 9th graders in DC to be reading at a 4th grade level. Jeff discussed his first rails project which took WIRED articles and made them into lesson plans to improve reading skills. Wanting the lesson plans to to be web-based caused him to consider using Ruby on Rails. In six weeks, he and a volunteer made 25 articles into lesson plans. At which point Jeff got jammed up on server problems with his Rails app. The app took 8 days to put together. This project is on hold, but available to everyone as more pressing projects require Jeff's attention. It is interesting to note that Jeff created a TinyURL- or RubyURL-like system, which took 2-3 hours to develop, which helps students avoid frustrating obstacles to learning such as using zero for the letter 'o' or the number '1' for the letter 'l' in typing out URLs.
• When school started this year the report card system broke down, and all the students report cards had to be written by hand. This was an onerous task. As the second quarter approached, Jeff decided to automate the task and volunteered to write a rails application. He started the app by keeping the model simple -- he wrote schema for just one grade for one class. It was paramount that the data be secure at all times. Having used Rails already he was confident that the data would not be corrupted. It took a weekend to create the app. When the model was working he was able to create courses, sections, teachers, students by reading in a textfile. An initial failed attempt at using Salted Hash set him back, but he later found a more viable authentication scheme on a Rails blog. Naturally, teachers input grades only after authentication.
• This second rails app allowed him to start using Rails plugins. Jeff noted that Rails plugin documentation is momentarily thin, and has security concerns. A favorite plugin of his is one called 'Calculate' which is more convenient than writing SQL statements.
• Jeff used a CSS 3.0 page break attribute to printout the report cards. During testing the webbrick server worked fine, but when moving to lighttpd the database queries timed out. Vince provided a tip on how to tweak max and min timeout values in the lighttpd config file. Currently, Jeff recommends hanging out at the #rubyonrails IRC channel and prefers using warn statements to show what is going on in his code.

RESOURCES

• Plugins for Rails, there is a question about the security of plugins, and documentation is thin. Plugins are hosted on the authors site.
• The calculate plugin for rails which makes sql queries a breeze is much favored.
• RubyURL came up in the discussion about removing potential typos from the grasp of new typists (like 9th graders).
• Use version control even if working alone.
• Check out www.zedshaw.com, scgi developer, look into his new webserver just for rails, and be sure to checkout FastCST, a fast and easy versioning system.
• Mention was made of TextDrive, an official ruby on rails host, and open source promoter where 50% of fees goes back into open source support.
• lightbox.js was a recommended javascript thumbnail tool which floats the full image above the html page, thus avoiding the departure/return sequence when clicking on a thumbnail image. It will reside in your html header, or in your Cascading Style Sheet.
• Hang out at Ruby on Rails IRC, to help/learn.
• Vince suggest Steam or Pasha as a Dupont Circle meeting place, as soon as the non-smoking ban in DC takes effect.
• Vince is a lighttpd expert now. Ask him if you have questions. He says most problems can be solved by fixing the config file.