Archive for the ‘hints’ Category:
How do I keep Track of what I’ve learnt
I have something to confess: I’m an information addicted. I’m always reading books, checking out news, following a few hundred blogs, following another few hundred people on twitter and the list just goes on and on. I bet you do the same.
First of all, this is not about how to just pass over your next university exams but how to keep yourself updated or learn something with all the information we are throw everyday. It’s not possible (for me at least) to keep track from everything I read. People like me reads hundreds of information sources, mostly online. Besides that we also read books, attend conferences, meet new people, etc. We are literally bloated by information from everywhere.
how can we manage to digest this huge amount of information we face everyday ?
Why my f***ing awesome web app doesn’ t move forward ?
What prevents an application, like Twitter, of acquiring more and more users besides the geek users? Even within my circle of friends and acquaintances that work/study with IT, when I talk about I’ m a Twitter user, I need to repeat uncountable times what Twitter is about and I usually explain to them according to what twitter advertise as their goal (Not a micro blogging tool, What are you doing?). In 90% of the cases, they say they heard about it but don’t know what´s its purpose, in other words, they don´t know how they could use twitter for their benefit. ”Why would I tell ´followers´ what I am doing ?¨ is the most asked question after my explanation. It means Twitter´s initial goal failed to instigate the user to create a new need, but why ?
A recipe for Lazy Programmers
Fact: programmers are one of the laziest creatures on earth and when it comes to ruby programmers, like me, the problem is even worse. We don´t like to spend more than 5 minutes cooking something while we could be doing something more important like chatting with your friends on freenode.
View sql queries in your console
Don’t you think it’s really irritating when, in the console, you are testing your model’s methods and everytime you need to check how each SQL query was formed you need to go to another tab to visualize the log ???
Your frustation is over. Just add the following lines in your .irbrc file:
def log_to ActiveRecord::Base.logger = Logger.new($stdout) ActiveRecord::Base.connection_pool.clear_reloadable_connections! end
You can change the method’s name to whatever suits your needs. After that, every time you are in your application’s console you just type log_to and you’re ready to go:
>> log_to => [] >> MyModel.count SQL (1.8ms) SELECT count(*) as count_all FROM "mymodels" => 10
This hint I got it from Pratik Naik while doing pair programming with him at the company I work.
How to Run Just one Test Method from your Terminal
Many times I found myself running all tests just after modifying just one test method. Depending on the size of your project and its test ratio, it can be a very boring waiting for it to finish.
It can be even worse: Imagine you have other tests failing. How can you improve your productivity ? Just use the “-n method_name” parameter for the method you want to test.
ruby path_to_your_test_case -n method_you_want_to_testA real example, I want to test the “test_should_do_stuff” method inside my “stuff_controller_test.rb”:
ruby test/functional/stuff_controller_test.rb -n test_should_do_stuff
Worth remember that stills load your fixtures and preforms setup, it only won’t execute the other test methods.
RELEASED – “Rails 2.1 – What`s new ?” Book
The Book Rails 2.1 – What`s new ? Made by Carlos Brando and Tapajós was released last week. It was the very first book presenting Rails 2.1 and its new features, in Portuguese, and best of all, it was released free of charge ( like free beer).
But Carlos Brando and the Brazilian rails community were very upset because most Railers of the world couldn`t read portuguese so they couldn`t rejoice the book like us. So I and other fellows, lead by Carlos Brando got together to translate the book to english, so all people could read and use it.
I`m very proud of being part of this community that made the translation and reviewed it in less than 2 days. You can download the book here or from Carlos Brando blog.
I and these guys are who made this task possible, so please thanks us and if you like our work, please recommend us in in Working With Rails:
Rafael Barbosa – Recommend
Made Introduction and chapter 1
Caike Souza – Twitter: @caike
Made Chapter 2
Pedro Pimentel (Myself) – Recommend
Made Chapters 3-8 and 10-13
Abraão Coelho – Recommend
Made Chapter 9
Ricardo S Yasuda – Recommend
Made Chapter 14
And last, but least, don`t forget to thanks and recommends the authors if you haven`t did yet.
More information about the original book can be found in Carlos Brando blog.
Download the book here
Open Source Rails
Para quem gosta de aprender olhando código existente ou prefere não reinventar a roda toda vez que for criar um sistema em rails, temos agora a oportunidade de pesquisar e baixar sistemas rails completos.
A iniciativa é do railer Jacques Crocker, que criou o site Open Source Rails, onde ele compila grande parte dos sistemas rails open source do mercado, como por exemplo, Mephisto, Typo e Lovd By less. Ele convida a comunidade a se cadastrar no site e a mandarem novos sistemas para lá. Vale a pena conferir o projeto e contribuir, pois é importante para a comunidade rails!
Open Source Rails – http://www.opensourcerails.com/
Jacques Crocker – http://www.railsjedi.com/
Information Design Patterns
Frequentemente temos que apresentar dados em sistemas, que em geral apresentamos na forma tabular. No entanto, nem todos dados ficam fáceis de interpretar com essa visualização em formato de relatório ou mesmo agradáveis de visualizar.
A dica de hoje é do site Information Design Patterns que apresenta diversos padrões para apresentar dados ao usuário.
Ele possui uma busca que facilita muito a procura do padrão adequado para exibir seus dados, onde você pode pesquisar por número de dimensões dos seus dados, formato gráfico ( texto, gráfico, mapa e tabela) além de definir os critérios de ordenação e mais importante ainda, pesquisar por qual o objetivo do gráfico: se é focado na navegação, na exploração, na busca entre outros critérios.
Ao escolhermos um design pattern, ele apresenta a descrição, ocasiões de uso, dados necessários para usar o padrão, layout (alguns animados) e o mais importante: ele te apresenta um exemplo do mundo real de uso do design pattern.
Com certeza uma referência quase que diária para muitos desenvolvedores.
Information Design Patterns – http://niceone.org/infodesign/
Veja também o Yahoo Design Patterns – http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/
Novidade e agradecimento
Olá Pessoal!
(sorry english readers, but no english for this post)
Gostaria de agradecer Augusto Campos do efetividade.net que recomendou em seu blog a leitura do meu post “Por que não gostamos de reuniões“.
O texto no qual ele cita e recomenda a leitura do meu artigo é a respeito de “como marcar compromissos e reuniões com efetividade“, que recomendo fortemente a leitura, não somente deste post, mas de todo o blog, pois as matérias são super bem redigidas e diretas. Relembrando, para quem não leu, o que ele apresenta no post tem um pouco a ver também com o meu texto “Definindo prazos realistas” que escrevi no início do mês de Abril. Confiram!
[ efetividade.net] http://www.efetividade.net/
Game Jam Brasil 2008
Informo que estão abertas a inscrições para o Game Jam Brasil 2008, evento que estou ajudando na organização. A competição, que ocorre paralela ao FISL 9.0 (fórum internacional do software livre) irá premiar a equipe que desenvolver o melhor jogo durante a competição com um laptop XO.
Para maiores informações sobre regulamento e como se inscrever no Game Jam Brasil 2008 acesse o wiki da competição.