Proxygear

If you don't live here, then this kind of event are kind of everywhere, as long as you are in a big city ...

For French readers, this article would interest you

http://humantalks.com/talks/36-retour-sur-l-organisation-d-evenements-tech

How to find them ?

http://www.meetup.com

http://humantalks.com

...

Why to go there ?

Discover new technologies

Get feedbacks

Progress

Networking

Recruitment

The hardest is to wake up then you fly

I was not able to accept that company tried out to make me a tech-slave.

Tech-slave means : You know programming, so do and do only this, we pay you (disagree) enough for that.

It's what most of companies does. Problem : I cannot stand for long on somebody else way. The result of this was a recurrent company jump. Making dirty work on dirty project, changing job every 1-2 years to get better paid, until be promoted creepy project manager…

I was really unhappy with this career perspective. Until I figured out how two difficulties was able to canceled each other :

Start freelancing prevented by high life cost. 

Live in Hungary prevented by lack of hiring IT companies.

A month after I was packing to start a new life. Great move, two big dreams done at once.

Living here low down my life cost letting me start freelance without pressure. Another freelance friend was already here, great to have feedback and motivation. More time was available to learn and experiment.

Bref, a year and a half later I have no regrets, I get more than I expected.

Freedom to stand for what make sense to you

Right now I'm working 80% of my job time for a partner company. We built up great business relation over the time. It provides me an income larger than required to live comfortably here. 

20% remaining is used to build up my own business. My first product should be in user hands end september. I share experiences and knowledge with inspiring people.

I'm even getting in contact to start teaching in University.

Whatever it will succeed or not, It cannot fail. Failure is when you regret. Building it makes me meet people, improve my skills, etc …

Rock star do not play for scene but music.

My name is Cypher is it for me ?

Why not everybody do that ? Because it requires to quite and it's not easy.  And is not getting easier after either.

If you are afraid then try to remember last time you heard "life is so easy !" Starting just make you realise that you can do something by your own. It make you realise that fear sucks.

Some people say that I work a lot and hard. I prefer to tell with passion and to be honest I work less than when I was employee in Paris. The main difference is that I work for me so I agree to stay a bit more.

If you are looking for additional thing to read two book.

Rework : that can also fit people who don't want to quite but improve what they are already doing.

4 hour work week : more about life style, a bit too much for me, but still really interesting.

Render basics

This part show some usage of render method. If it's your first time with Rails you should better start reading the official guide for layout and rendering :

Ready ? Let's play a with render, it will provide examples for the rest of the article.

Render : In Controllers

Rails offer multiple ways display views. Here couple way to load app/views/users/posts/index.EXT

I use EXT means extension like index.en.js.rabl that means in this specific case an index view in ENglish responding to JS output format processable by RABL handler... for less confusion, I will write just EXT when it's not helpful in described scenarios. 

class Users::PostsController < UserResourcesController   layout 'application_layout'     def index       # by convention it render the action name, here 'index'     end     def show       render 'index'     end     def new       render action: :index     end

    def edit       render 'users/posts/index'     end end

Render : In Views

It's also useful in views. You can split views in small partials and render them dynamically. By the way, I use HAML.

So here a simple layout/application.html.haml

!!! 5 %html   %head     = render partial: 'head' # will load head.EXT     = yield :head   %body     %header       / will display _navigation.EXT wrapped in _header.EXT       = render partial: 'navigation', layout: 'header'        = yield     %footer       - unless current_user # this is ugly, we will change this later         = render partial: 'footer' # will load _footer.EXT       - else         = render partial: 'logged_footer' # will load _footer.EXT

Missing view error !

Let say _footer partial is missing, Rails will through an error similar to:

Missing partial users/posts/_footer, application/_footer with {:handlers=>[:erb, :builder, :haml]}. Searched in:    * "/Code/rails_app/app/views"    * "/Code/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p125/gems/devise-2.0.4/app/views"

Let's explain this.

Explained error : First view paths

Rails tried out to load view in the following paths top-down order. 

users/posts/_footer

application/_footer

As you can see, it look by default at the controller view folder according to namespace and to the application folder.

It means you can have a general footer for you application and a specific one for your controller 

Explained error : Then Option filter

The error describe options provided to search the correct view.

Those options can be provided directly to render or configured by the controller.

{:handlers=>[:erb, :builder, :haml]}

By default view handlers are erb and builder

But because I have the gem 'rails-haml' it allow me to have view.html.haml

There is more options that you should know

locale => view.en.html.haml

formats => view.(en.).js.erb

This topic is largely covered here :

Explained error : Finally, Application, libs and engines path

You may noticed, i'm using the excellent devise gem. It add another view folder path to lookup with view paths :

/Code/rails_app/app/views

/Code/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p125/gems/devise-2.0.4/app/views

What to remember about this ? Actually you can share views (and also assets) from any lib/engine/gem

Loading path management !

You remember the comment in the application layout ? Good view contains as few logic as possible. Some people even use logic less tempting language, but I don't really enjoy the syntax and prefer HAML.

Playing with partial, collection you can already remove a lot of things. But we can go deeper and add our own loading path ...

Loading : In a subcontext

We gonna remove the visitor|logged user messy "if else" by creating a "users context". Did you noticed that PostsController parent is UserResourcesController instead of ApplicationController ?  

This controller will not be routed but only shared common features to user subresources such as view loading path :

class UserResourcesController < ApplicationController   before_filter :authenticate_user! # security   before_filter :prepend_users_view_path # add our view path

     # …

protected   def prepend_users_view_path     prepend_view_path 'users' # we tell to add our specific path   end

end

Now your view paths for subcontrollers are :

users/posts/_footer

users/application/_footer

application/_footer

It means we can now replace the ugly logic in our application layout with :

%footer= render partial: 'footer'

And moving views/application/_user_footer.html.haml as views/users/application/_footer.html.haml

Generally specking, it provides a way to define sub applications that can override general application views.

It could be useful for header, footer, side bar and so one …

Loading : Same views context From multiple controller namespace

I recently met this problematic for an API.

You have multiple controllers for a unique model. Both handle different access types and filtering but they display specific collections and resources with the same views.

module TeamResources   class PostsController < AccountResourcesController; end   class CommentsController < AccountResourcesController; end end

module UserResources   class PostsController < AccountResourcesController; end   class CommentsController < AccountResourcesController; end end

you want to have the following view folders :

app/views/account_resources

app/views/account_resources/posts

app/views/account_resources/comments

If you try prepend view path like this :

class AccountResourcesController < ApplicationController   def preprend_account_resources_view_path     prepend_view_path 'accounts'   end end

It will not work the way you expect making impossible to use a render action in PostsControllers and CommentsControllers.

Missing template users/posts/index, accounts/index, application/index with {:handlers=>[:erb, :builder, :haml]}. Searched in:   * "/Code/rails_app/app/views"   * "/Code/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p125/gems/devise-2.0.4/app/views"

The solution I found is to override controller_path of ActionController::Base

class AccountResourcesController < ApplicationController   RESOURCES_PATH_REG = "(?<resource_path>([a-z0-1_]+\/)+[a-z0-1_]+)_controller/"   SUB_RESOURCES_PATH_REG = /account_resources_path\/#{RESOURCES_PATH_REG}/

  def controller_path     @_controller_path ||= "accounts/#{account_resources_controller_path}"   end

protected   def account_resources_controller_path!     _str = self.class.to_s.underscore     _system= AccountResourcesController     matching = system::SUB_RESOURCES_PATH_REG.match? _str     raise "cannot match sub resources path in #{_str}" unless matching     matching[:account_resources_path]   end end

This way it will load app/views/accounts/posts/index for both index posts action methods of team and user namespace.

Hope you find this useful.

Of course, you probably could find a better list somewhere else. Anyway you found this one. Feel free to pick gems that could help you. If you have additional stuff that should absolutly be here, comment ;)

Let's go !

Always test

RSpec + Capybara to write powerful tests that will help to focus, prevent waste of time and keep everything working forever.

RSpec is testing tool for the Ruby programming language. Born under the banner of Behaviour-Driven Development, it is designed to make Test-Driven Development a productive and enjoyable experience

RSpec

Capybara helps you test Rails and Rack applications by simulating how a real user would interact with your app.

Capybara

Do not build data, factories will for you

Fixtures are not reusable, Factories are. FactoryGirl is amazing.

Factory Girl is a fixtures replacement with a straightforward definition syntax, support for multiple build strategies (saved instances, unsaved instances, attribute hashes, and stubbed objects), and support for multiple factories for the same class (user, admin_user, and so on), including factory inheritance.

Factory Girl for Rails

Getting started documentation

Automagic tasks

Launching test manualy, reloading browser pages when working on UI ... Such waste of time. Get things automatic with Guard.

Guard is a command line tool to easily handle events on file system modifications.

Guard

RSpec guard allows to automatically & intelligently launch specs when files are modified

Guard Rspec

LiveReload guard allows to automatically reload your browser when 'view' files are modified

Guard live reload

Do not touch database

You really want to write migration and queries ? Mongoid keep storage dry : model only.

However, I have to warn you. MongoDB is something different than other SQL (Indeed it's a NO sql). It's certainly not better. Some problems disappear, others come. Plus it can take time to get into new data design way of mind.  

MongoDB (from humongous) is a scalable, high-performance, open source NoSQL database.

MongoDB website

Mongoid (pronounced mann-goyd) is an Object-Document-Mapper (ODM) for MongoDB written in Ruby. It was conceived in August, 2009 during a whiskey-induced evening at the infamous Oasis in Florida, USA by Durran Jordan.

Mongoid website

Near empty controllers

Do not write CRUD, inherit it. Keep controllers dry with a decent exposure.

Inherited Resources speeds up development by making your controllers inherit all restful actions so you just have to focus on what is important. It makes your controllers more powerful and cleaner at the same time.

Inherited Resources

Rails controllers are the sweaty armpit of every rails app. This is due, in large part, to the fact that they expose their instance variables directly to their views. This means that your instance variables are your interface... and that you've broken encapsulation. Instance variables are meant to be private, for Science's sake!

Decent Exposure

Readable views

Write less HTML. Say hello to HAML while nice presenters based on draper will keep model and view dry and creepy helpers out.

Haml takes your gross, ugly templates and replaces them with veritable Haiku.

HAML

Draper : View Models for Rails

Draper

Instant style

Want to write as few CSS as possible. Better : don't. Twitter bootstrap provide all you need at launch. Compass make the rest peace of cake.

Sleek, intuitive, and powerful front-end framework for faster and easier web development.

Twitter boostrap

Compass is an open-source CSS Authoring Framework.

Compass

Compass Twitter Bootstrap is Twitter's toolkit converted for Compass

Compass twitter bootstrap

Soft JavaScript

Rails ships with JQuery and you can write it with Ruby syntaxe style.

jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development. jQuery is designed to change the way that you write JavaScript.

Jquery

CoffeeScript is a little language that compiles into JavaScript. Underneath all those awkward braces and semicolons, JavaScript has always had a gorgeous object model at its heart. CoffeeScript is an attempt to expose the good parts of JavaScript in a simple way

Coffee Script

Ready authentication

You will not write yet another auth support, do you ? Get sign up/in/out + mailing + password recovering done (+ a lot of awesome things such as social oauth). 

Devise is a flexible authentication solution for Rails based on Warden

Devise

Online now

Do not configure a server and deployment tools. Go online instead. Heroku isn't free. But it's damn easy. Relevant for staging env and low user mass.

Agile deployment for Ruby, Node.js, Clojure, Java, Python, and Scala.

Heroku

Conclusion

May you (re)discovered some tool for your Rails projects. Keep following incoming tech is required to stay challenging. Resources such as RailsCasts can help you stay up to date.