About.com Ruby

About.com is Looking for Freelance Writers!

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:09:24 +0000

The About.com Contributing Writers program was created to help us cover topics that may not be broad enough for a full GuideSite. Contributing Writers work alongside our Guides, covering specific subtopics that fall within the larger topic areas of our GuideSites. They are responsible for producing a certain amount of content (articles or blog posts) per month on that subtopic. They are not responsible for managing or maintaining a full GuideSite.

We are currently evaluating candidates to write on the following topics:

Playing and Coaching (About Football http://football.about.com)
Antique Furniture (About Antiques http://antiques.about.com)
Legal Issues (About Single Parents http://singleparents.about.com/)
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Scene (About Manhattan http://manhattan.about.com)
At-Risk Teens (About Teens http://parentingteens.about.com/)
XML (About HTML / Web Design http://webdesign.about.com/)
South Africa Travel (About Africa Travel http://goafrica.about.com)
Feminism in the 1960s and 1970s (About Women's History http://womenshistory.about.com/)
Algebra (About Math http://math.about.com)
Medical/Surgical Information for Patients (About Back and Neck Pain http://backandneck.about.com)

If you are interested in applying for one of these positions or learning more, please email your RESUME and a WRITING SAMPLE -- both IN THE BODY OF AN EMAIL -- to contributingwriters@about.com. Please put the topic you're applying for in the subject line. Keep introductions concise.

About.com is Looking for Freelance Writers! originally appeared on About.com Ruby on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 09:09:24.

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The Meaning of Life is 43?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:20:16 +0000

Douglas Adams may have decided the meaning of life is 42, but in my quest to find interesting sites built with Ruby on Rails, I've discovered that it's more likely that some people are living their lives in increments of 43. That's because two of the more unusual sites I've found are 43 People and 43 Things.

The premise of both sites is simple. They are based on the notion that everybody has 43 things they would like to get accomplished or 43 people they would like to meet. After setting up an account you can create a list of the people you'd like to meet and/or the things you'd like to do and find like-minded individuals who can help you accomplish these goals or provide information about your 43 people. It's an odd, but captivating concept. You can further the experience by posting questions about the people you'd like to meet or letting others know if you've met anybody on their list.

While 43 Things and 43 People may not yet have the wild popularity of other sites built on RoR (think YellowPages.com and Twitter), they certainly have a niche following. I, for one, am not sure if I could compose a list of 43 people I'm dying to meet, but I'm definitely going to try.

The Meaning of Life is 43? originally appeared on About.com Ruby on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 09:20:16.

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Review: Distributed Programming with Ruby

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:01:53 +0000

Distributed Programming with Ruby by Mark Bates is a broad look at all options available for distributed programming with Ruby. Though the book covers many libraries (those included with Ruby as well as via RubyGems), it still covers the underlaying technologies and gives valuable background information. In short, Distributed Programming with Ruby packs a powerful punch in its 250 or so pages. Anyone working with distributed programming in Ruby will want this book.

Read the complete review

Review: Distributed Programming with Ruby originally appeared on About.com Ruby on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 13:01:53.

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RubyMine 2.0 Released

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:18:59 +0000

It was but a mere 6 months ago that RubyMine, an IDE for Ruby and Rails, was released for "public preview" by JetBrains. Now, the company has released RubyMine 2.0 with additional features and support, including support for Ruby 1.9 and the latest Rails.

Also of interest in this Beta release is the additional support added for testing with Cucumber and Shoulda. In fact, in an interview with InfoQ's Robert Bazinet, JetBrains' Eugene Toporov expressed his enthusiasm for Cucumber, noting that the RubyMine team now uses it to test their own code.

However, the best part of this release, as we see it, is that it is of no cost to users of RubyMine 1.0. Now that's a deal!

RubyMine 2.0 Released originally appeared on About.com Ruby on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 09:18:59.

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A Look Back: Making Games with Ruby

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:20:28 +0000

It used to be to program games, you needed the fastest programming language you could get. This meant C or Assembly, other languages were just too slow to make games. But computers have gotten faster. A lot faster. A low-cost PC has a CPU thousands of times faster than a PC just 15 years ago. You no longer need a fast programming language to make simple games, and this opens up a whole new world to Ruby programmers.

This series of articles shows you how to do just that: program games in Ruby. Throughout the eight articles, you'll learn how to make a simple clone of Space Invaders. Using what you learned from this, you'll be able to make just about any simple game you wish. And it's all in Ruby, no need for C or C++!

A Look Back: Making Games with Ruby originally appeared on About.com Ruby on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 05:20:28.

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Spotlight on Gems: Prawn

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:56:04 +0000

Prawn is a pure-Ruby library for generating PDF files. From your Ruby code, you'll be able to compose PDF files with any content and of any size. This is not only ideal for generating reports, but also for formatting documentation and providing a portable format for your program's output. Prawn is pure-Ruby, it has no compiled parts and doesn't rely on any third party libraries with restrictive licenses.

Read the complete article

Spotlight on Gems: Prawn originally appeared on About.com Ruby on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 17:56:04.

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What a WASE! The "Worst Application Server Ever" Contest

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:00:57 +0000

Though I preferred the original acronym (WASTE) given to EngineYard's ingenious new contest to the one it now goes by (WASE), the challenge remains the same: work together with other contestants to build the worst application server ever. As with any good contest, there's a twist, namely that the WASE must use Twitter as its message bus.

Sound complicated? A little maybe, but the end result may be well worth your while. EngineYard will be awarding a Motorola Droid and $1000 Engine Yard Cloud Credit to the first person to correctly complete the challenge. Second prize (a Droid and $500 Cloud Credit) will go to whomever builds the most popular WASE endpoint and third prize (a Droid) will be awarded to the person whom EngineYard determines to have written the best WASE endpoint in Ruby.

Still confused? Well, EngineYard explains its contest much better than we can. So check out their blog post for complete details. Oh, and good luck!

What a WASE! The "Worst Application Server Ever" Contest originally appeared on About.com Ruby on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 03:00:57.

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Modules

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:58:50 +0000

In any programming language, you need some way to prevent naming clashes. This is especially true when you're using at least one third party library, where you have no control over the naming scheme. In the past, naming conventions would be used. It's not uncommon to see C programs with names like mylibrary_some_function. However, Ruby has a more powerful solution: modules.

Read the complete article

Modules originally appeared on About.com Ruby on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 07:58:50.

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Call For Participation: Ask Not What RailsConf Can Do For You, Ask What You Can Do For RailsConf

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:00:24 +0000

It's where the e-l33t meet. RailsConf is, by far, the largest conference devoted completely to Ruby on Rails and a conference that large takes some careful planning and some great presentations. Earlier this week, O'Reilly Media, Inc. (which co-produces RailsConf with Ruby Central, Inc) announced that the The Call for Participation for RailsConf 2010 has opened.

The 2010 conference will be held in Baltimore, MD on June 7 -10 and will focus on a variety of topics of interest to the Rails community. As noted in O'Reilly's release about the CFP, of particular interest are proposals dealing with the following topics:

Time-saving developer productivity tips, tricks, and tools
Patterns and best practices for developing maintainable Rails applications
Rails Internals
Complex domain modeling
Rails development case studies, including application rewrites and organizational bootstrapping
Making Rails
Heterogeneous systems integration
Real-world deployment and scaling
Making the most out of new Rails features
Gem and Plugin highlights
Extending Rails

If you or someone you know has an idea that would fit the bill, submit your proposal today!

Call For Participation: Ask Not What RailsConf Can Do For You, Ask What You Can Do For RailsConf originally appeared on About.com Ruby on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 04:00:24.

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Mixin Modules

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:25:07 +0000

Mixins are one of Ruby's defining features, but often one of the most difficult to understand for those new to Ruby. They're not difficult to understand, but they're not something most programmers have encountered before as most languages don't have mixins. A mixin is a way for code to be shared across multiple classes and is closely related to duck typing.

Read the complete article

Mixin Modules originally appeared on About.com Ruby on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 18:25:07.

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