Double Shot #1711
- The Ruby Bibliography - A list of academic papers using ruby. Aw, our little language is all growed up!
- LFE - Lisp Flavored Erlang, just in case Elixir isn't obscure and cutting-edge enough for you.
- MiniStatsD: A simple StatsD client in Ruby - An easy way to see the StatsD metrics that your application is sending while you're still in development. I've used Dummy StatsD in the past for the same thing.
Double Shot #1710
- Docker Storage: An Introduction - Both how Docker images are stored and how persistent storage inside of Docker containers works.
- Data Traceability and Lineage - Thoughts on keeping track of where data comes from so you can better investigate anomalies.
- Using the fuse Erlang library to implement the Circuit Breaker Pattern in Elixir - Handling unreliable web services. Which is basically all web services, of course.
Double Shot #1709
- How to Become a Better Pair Programmer - Part One - Advice for better communications when pairing remotely.
- Announcing Hanami v0.8.0 - New version of one of the other Ruby web frameworks (which is under rapid development).
- Notepad++ 6.9.2 released - Free Windows editor that has been around basically forever and is still adding new features.
Double Shot #1708
- A practical security guide for web developers - Mostly an outline at this point, but looks promising if it gets filled in.
- Ruby Web Deb The Other Way - A lot of pointers and ideas about using Rails well and moving beyond it. A bit disorganized but some good stuff here.
- Biscuit - Key-value store for secure secret sharing on AWS.
Double Shot #1707
- hack.css - the CSS framework for hackers - Install via npm, use markdown, etc.
- HubPress - A Web application to manage a blog on github.
- New Features in Ruby 2.4 - An exhaustive list with syntax samples. For just the highlights of the last few versions, see Ruby Version Changes.
Double Shot #1706
- Merging vs. Rebasing - Best explanation I've seen yet of these git concepts, from the folks at Atlassian.
- Blaze_CSS - Modular CSS framework that tries to be less overwhelming than things like Bootstrap.
- Barebones - Rails application generator that supports the Rails 5 way of doing things.
Double Shot #1705
- Rails 4.2.7 and 4.1.16 have been released! - Likely the last release in the 4.1 series, now that Rails 5 is out.
- Marp - "Markdown presentation writer" lets you use Markdown to produce slide shows.
Double Shot #1704
I'm back!
- MySQL Error caused by sql_mode=only_full_group_by - Some defaults change in MySQL when you go from 5.6 to 5.7. If you have a homebrew install and need to revert those changes, here's how.
- Improving Rails Performance with Better Background Jobs - Working through a bottleneck in production.
- Dependency CI - Automatically take a look at your project's dependencies every time you push to GitHub. We're moving towards just continuously testing the whole internet. (Spoiler alert: it's broken.)
Double Shot #1703
- Behavior Changes in Ruby 2.4 - A look at how some of the coming tweaks might affect existing code.
- Rails 5.0.0.rc2 - New Rails is getting close.
- Otto: The Next Generation of Vagrant - A potential replacement for Vagrant that brings more focus on deployment and microservices, as well as continuing to handle reproducible environments.
Job Search
I'm looking for a new job. On the loose as of July 17. I'd love to hit the ground running on something new that day. The question is, what? I've been thinking about that some, and here's where I net out for the moment.
Even though I'm mostly a software developer, the tech stack may be the last important part of the equation for me. Yeah, I've been mostly working in Rails the past few years, but I've been writing code for 30 years now. That means I've worked with dozens of languages, including many that you should be glad you've never touched. Before Rails, I was working with .NET. Before that, I was working with Visual Basic and friends. Before that...well, go far enough back and you hit Z80 assembler. Or moving little plastic bits around on a Digi-Comp. It's all ones and zeros.
So if you want me to write Rails code, that's fine, I can do that tomorrow. If you want Node, I've done some, it's just a matter of learning more. If you want $NEW_LANGUAGE...haven't done that yet, but I could. Give me a week in a room somewhere and I'll be able to contribute.
Obviously I can also write words. I've done database work and devops and building servers and various other odds and ends. I'm flexible. Though I'm done writing iOS code. That was miserable from start to finish, and I feel the way about Apple that I felt about Microsoft a decade ago. I don't think their corporate interests have much to do with making my life better.
Then what is important from my point of view? Well, relocation is out; I've got four kids aged 10 to 16, and I'm not going to uproot them. So unless you're in Evansville, you'd need to hire me remote. I've been working remote for years and years now, it's no big deal to me.
I also want to go to bed at night knowing I helped improve things. So I'm not interested in the latest scheme to inject advertising into people's lives, or build iOT things that get hijacked for the surveillance state, or even helping make the marketplace for legalized dope more efficient. I'd love to do something with education, or helping kids, or feeding people, or distributing clean water...even if it didn't pay as well as being a professional invader of privacy.
All other things being equal, I'd love to work for someone full-time, but I'd be open to the right consulting gigs while I wait for something to come along. I don't have much interest in running my own consulting firm again; I'll happily give up a few bucks an hour to have someone else deal with taxes and lawyers and all that nonsense.
So, who wants to hire me?
Double Shot #1702
- Ruby 2.4.0-preview1 Released - Looks like some fairly substantial changes, including better Unicode support.
- Comma Separated JSON - Yet another data interchange format, this one attempting to take the good parts of JSON and CSV and munge them together.
Double Shot #1701
- How to Create Custom Authentication Strategies with Devise and Warden - Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater just because you have unusual authentication requirements.
- The Children's Illustrated Guide to Kubernetes - You probably still won't understand Kubernetes completely after reading this, but at least you'll not understand it with cute pictures.
- Software Performance & Scalability: A Cheatsheet - Things to think about as you optimize large systems.
Double Shot #1700
As I look for a new job, I think I'm most interested in getting back to pure web work. Remote is a must. Rails is where my best skills are, but I'd like to move into something new as well.
- PG Casts - Screencasts focused on PostgreSQL.
- The Segment AWS Stack - Production-ready AWS infrastructure implemented using HashiCorp's Terraform.
- Contextual Identities on the Web - Firefox is doing some work starting in V50 to allow you to be logged on with multiple accounts in side-by-side tabs in the same window. That'll be useful.
Double Shot #1699
Looks like I'm back on the job market again. If you've been reading Double Shot for a while, you know the sort of things I've been poking at lately. But like most experienced developers, I can learn anything given time. MikeG1@larkfarm.com if you want to chat.
- My First 10 Minutes On a Server - Primer for Securing Ubuntu - A guide to manual configuration for reasonable security. For more depth, you should also look at 2016 Guide to User Data Security.
- Git 2.9 has been released - Prettier diffs is probably the part that will have the most impact on me.
Double Shot #1698
I thought about linking to one of the "screw you, Apple" articles that have come out since the WWDC thing, but they won't convince anyone who's not already had it with Apple. I will say that I've reached my own limit on developers being shat upon by that company, and will be moving to Linux for my next round of upgrades. Bonus: no more wrestling with the horrible tools, walled garden, and general brain damage of working on iOS apps.
- WebTorrent - Torrent client that uses WebRTC to work in the browser. See also this article on Serverless Data Sync for an interesting use case.
- The Art of Monitoring - New ebook, looks like a good resource for the dev who's suddenly been through into ops.
- Performance Prereqs for Rails Teams - Things you can do now to prevent your Rails app from falling over later.
Double Shot #1697
- Saving Sprockets - A talk on code maintenance and open source (as well as respect and mustard).
- Ruby concurrency: in praise of the mutex - I've got great respect for people who can make concurrent code work. I'm not one of them.
Double Shot #1696
- Unorthodocs: Abandon your DVCS and Return to Sanity - A historical look at the current state of version control.
- Announcing HyperDev - The Developer Playground for Building Full-stack Web Apps, Fast - A new project from Fog Creek.
Double Shot #1695
- ActiveRecord::MigrationNotes - Drop a note into the console when a migration is run up or down.
- Rails 5 adds OR support in Active Record - Doesn't feel very SQL-ish to me, but maybe it will grow on me.
- Beyond YML Files - dynamic translations - How to let your Rails app users edit translations at runtime rather than making your developers do all the work.
Double Shot #1694
- 2.0beta1 is ready! Testers needed! - That's of GalliumOS, a Linux for Chromebooks. I'm following this with interest; so far a cheap-ass Chromebook running 1.0 is plenty good enough to run a browser, MySQL, and Sublime Text so I can work on Rails applications. I may have bought my last expensive laptop.
- Introducing Blue Ocean - A new UI for Jenkins that emphasizes workflows (and prettiness).
- Abstractions and the role of a framework - A little more exploration of issues surrounding Ruby, Rails, and alternative frameworks.
Double Shot #1693
- Sidekiq for Crystal - The popular job runner for Ruby is expanding to a new language.
- Comparing Workflows - Atlassian explains common patterns for using git in a team.
- Nix as OS X Package Manager - An alternative to Homebrew of MacPorts.
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