Bundle update “killed:” Watch those log files in your gems!

Today was supposed to be a normal day. A simple pull-request merge, an automated Jenkins build, and then a database migration. What followed instead was a search for the cause of a build failure– or, rather, the cause of a ruby gem that was causing the build failure. The Problem The only hint I had to go on was this message in my Jenkins console: Installing acts_permissive (0.3.2)...

Trolling, Sexism, and Dealing with Disappointment

This past week has been one is extreme disappointment for me as I survey the landscape of my beloved profession. From Portland’s own Postgres genius Selena Deckelman getting hazed on IRC to the incredibly immature sexism of Sqoot listing women as “a feature” of a hackathon I’ve just been feeling really depressed that there is this scale of stupidity toward our fellow programmers– our fellow...

A Redis-backed acts_as_follower gem

This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Redis GemsI usually start blog-based introductions to gems and libraries that I write with a narrative. Lately, however, I’ve been getting busier keeping up with the work I need to do for clients and that I need to do for my startup. So I’ll leave the narrative to a minimum, a very short question. You love the acts_as_follower gem, right? Sure, everyone does....

Rails: SQL Injection over Configuration

It was an interesting weekend for the Github team, the Rails core team, and lots of Rails users who worked at all through the weekend. There are a lot of details about the weekend to discuss, but my main discussion point is one of philosophy and intention of the Rails project. We’ll get to that towards the end. First, a bit of background. Hacking Github This weekend, a Github user named Egor Homakov hacked...

A Web App Went Live Today

A new web app went live today, and I shed a tear. The Power of Good Questions Some history. Years ago, I was starting to question my decision to become a hydrologist. Not because I hated hydrology, I did– and still do– deeply love it, but because I couldn’t find a job. Since I’d been a programmer for 20+ years (indeed, I programmed all the way through 10 years in the sciences), I decided to see what...