The Ruby Blend

The Ruby Blend is a Ruby focused podcast bringing you panel discussions, guest interviews, and much more to keep you up to date on what’s happening in the Ruby development community mixed with sprinkles from other developer communities.

en-us22 Episodes

Episodes (22)

Goodbye, for now

A short episode where Andrew Mason reveals that the show has come to an end. Thank you for all your support!

Show Links

Remote Ruby

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The Ruby Blend

en-usSeptember 19, 2020

Episode 21: Do you really need two cans of Play-Doh?

The Ruby Blend - Episode 21

Welcome to The Ruby Blend! Dave had a great idea for our topic today, which we'll be talking about our development setups, our environments, and some of the equipment we are using. Dave tells us about Elgato Steam Deck that he's getting soon and pingVerse. We will learn the guys favorite fonts, browsers they are using, specific equipment that is in their office, and what applications they can't live without. Dave makes a point about keeping your desk clean and why does Andrew disagree? Download this episode to find out more!

Sponsored by:

Honeybadger

Panelists:

Guests:

None

Show Notes

[00:01:06] Dave tells us about the Elgato Stream Deck he's getting
soon and how that will help him streamline, working and switching
between different projects. He also mentions pingVerse, an online uptime
monitoring solution.

[00:05:02] The guys chat about Vim and whether or not it worked for
them.

[00:08:21] Ron tells us why he switched to Emacs and Andrew mentions
there are plenty of cheat sheets out there to make you a better
developer.

[00:15:21] Andrew asks Ron if he's ever written VimScript.

[00:16:23] We learn what fonts the guys are all using. Andrew talks
about "breadcrumbs and symbols."

[00:20:55] The guys discuss what browsers they are using.

[00:30:39] The guys tell us how their offices are set up, from
computer, mouse, keyboard, monitor, microphone, etc.

[00:43:55] As a final note, the guys share with us applications they
can't live without.

[00:51:05] Dave makes a point to say take the time to clean your desk.
If affects your state of mind and it will affect the quality of your
code that you are able to do. Andrew says having a clean desk is not a
universal definition and yes, he does have two cans of playdough on his
desk!

Links:

Credits:

Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Ad Sales by Eric Berry

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The Ruby Blend

en-usSeptember 03, 2020

Episode 20: The Service Object Show

The Ruby Blend - Episode 20

Welcome to The Ruby Blend! It's been awhile and it sure feels good to back in the swing of things! Today, we have a new panelist with us, Dave Kimura, who's been doing Ruby for quite some time, as well as doing the Drifting Ruby screencast for over five years now. On this episode, we dive into the topic of Service Object, where do they belong in your app and how do you name it in Ruby on Rails. We discuss namespacing and how to name interactors the correct way. Dave elaborates on Active Storage since he did an episode on Drifting Ruby about it. Have you heard of Backblaze and Digital Ocean? Download this episode now to find out more!

Sponsored by:

Honeybadger

Panelists:

Guests:

None

Show Notes:

[00:00:54] Dave gives us an introduction of himself and what he does.

[00:02:49] Andrew gives an update on what's been happening in his job
life.

[00:03:58] On the code front, Ron wants to talk about Service Object
and where do they belong in your app as far as file structure goes.
Also, how do you name a Service Object in Ruby, and Rails specifically.
The guys all give their opinions.

[00:17:45] The topic of namespacing service objects in Rails is
discussed.

[00:24:56] Andrew talks about adding comments to the top of the class
and doing something is better than doing nothing.

[00:29:24] Andrew makes a great point about keeping your services as
focused as possible and then call out to other services as needed.

[00:32:57] Andrew is working in a Legacy Rails for code base and he
wonders how he can take some of the ideas about single responsibility
pattern and apply these principles in a Legacy App.

[00:36:02] Andrew and Dave talk about naming interactors and the
importance of the actual method that you're calling it. Also, having a
conversation with your team and reaching a consensus before you start
doing stuff.

[00:38:46] Dave just released a Drifting Ruby episode called, "Bulk
Uploads with Active Storage," and he tells us about it.

[00:42:28] Andrew asks Dave to elaborate on Active Storage feeling
very flushed down, because Andrew doesn't feel like it is.

[00:46:33] Dave tells Andrew about Backblaze B2 Cloud storage and
Andrew mentions Digital Ocean. Here is Dave's actual configuration and
his storage YAMIL file for Backblaze that he's using on Rubidium:

service: S3 access_key_id: <%= ENV['S3_ACCESS_KEY'] %> secret_access_key: <%= ENV['S3_SECRET_KEY'] %> region: us-east-1 bucket: myapp-production endpoint: <%= ENV['S3_ENDPOINT'] %> force_path_style: true

[00:49:34] Dave tells us where we can find him online.

Links:

Credits:

Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Ad Sales by Eric Berry

Follow Us:

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en-usAugust 28, 2020

Episode 19: Metaprogramming

The Ruby Blend - Episode 19

Welcome to The Ruby Blend! Today we have a new panelist with us, Eric Berry, who was the founder of CodeFund, and has worked with Andrew and Nate for a while. On this episode the guys will discuss Metaprogramming. What is it and how does it work? We will also learn about JSON Schema, ModelProbe, Slim, Haml, Tailwind, and ERB. So much interesting information! Download this episode now to find out what makes Andrew blush! ☺

Sponsored by:

Honeybadger

Panelists:

Guests:

None

Show Notes:

[00:01:43 ] Eric gives us a little background of himself and working with Nate. Nate gives us his background in metaprogramming and what the problems were with the company that you solved through metaprogramming and the way you solved them. He also tells us what aspect he would have changed.

[00:06:57] Nate talks about how metaprogramming works, and he gives us examples of times in his career where he found that metaprogramming has across as being a really great tool that he was able to use.

[00:09:18] Eric and Nate explain what metaprogramming is. Eric brings up using JSON Schema.

[00:16:14] Nate tells us about the rails standard package and what came of that and what people are doing right and wrong in today’s world with rails. He mentions a gem called ModelProbe.

[00:18:49] Nate talks a little bit about how he’s used concerns and when a concern would be the way to go versus keeping in line or doing something else.

[00:22:27] Eric switches gears to Andrew and gives him high praises which makes him blush. ☺ Andrew then talks about other templating engines he’s used and the pros and cons of them.

[00:30:05] The guys chat about Tailwind and ERB.

[00:36:07] Nate revisits how they name concerns and then explains the pattern he uses and why he uses it. He also tells us what the outcome has been, the upfront cost that he sees, and the reward long-term.

[00:42:07] Andrew ends with one more plug which is to check out Bridgetown RB!

Credits:

Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Ad Sales by Eric Berry

Follow Us:

★ Transistor.fm is now hosting an archive of the podcast for us. Learn how to start your own podcast!

en-usAugust 20, 2020

Episode 18: Interviewing

The Ruby Blend - Episode 18

Welcome to The Ruby Blend! The guys catch up on what's been going on this week. Ron has been taking an insurance class with his work to learn the ins and outs of the insurance industry, Nate's been busy working with Code Fund becoming an independent company, and Andrew has been on the interviewing circuit trying to find a new job. This leads us to the topic of today's episode, which is "Interviewing." The guys chat all about all the different things they've experienced over the years with the interviewing process and all the different things they've encountered with finding new jobs over the years. They do have some bits of advice to share as well. Andrew lets us know what he's been having to do currently with his interviewing process. And why is Andrew not allowed to go bowling anymore? Download this episode to find out all this and much more.

Sponsored by:

Linode

Panelists:

Guests:

None

Show Notes:

[00:00:38] The guys share with us what's been going on in their lives
and with their jobs.

[00:08:42] Andrew fills us in what the interview process has been like
for him, which has included a take home project. Ron shares something
about a take home test he had to do for a job interview.

[00:17:20] Andrew mentions an upcoming interview he has with a larger
Rails shop and it will be him doing a pair with one of their engineers.
Ron mentions a whiteboard interview he had to do once and didn't like.
Andrew also has some advice about reversing a string with Ruby.

[00:28:22] The hiring process being broken is discussed and how it
hasn't changed over the years.

[00:31:05] Nate asks Andrew if he has any thoughts about any new
technologies that he hasn't used during this whole interview process,
like libraries he hasn't used, old versions of libraries, or libraries
he doesn't care to use.

[00:38:33] The topic of JBuilder and JSON is brought up and Andrew
says no one is writing JBuilder anymore.

[00:44:53] Nate tells us how Stimulus Reflex is coming along, and he
lets us in on a little piece of trivia about Stimulus Reflex that he's
never touched on, and Ron is involved in it. The guys are waiting for
Nate to get "yacht status" and when he does, Andrew wants to be the
captain of that yacht.

Credits:

Produced by Justin Dorfman
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Ad Sales by Eric Berry

Follow Us:

★ Transistor.fm is now hosting an archive of the podcast for us. Learn how to start your own podcast!

en-usJuly 16, 2020

Episode 17: Open sourcing a Ruby gem with Brittany Martin

The Ruby Blend - Episode 17

Welcome to The Ruby Blend! On today's episode, we have a special guest, Brittany Martin, who is Lead Web Developer for the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, where she is part of a team that develops the non-profits ticketing and festival web application and is also the host of the Ruby on Rails Podcast on the 5 by 5 Network. Brittany is here to tell us all about what she does, gem wrappers, and she is seeking some counsel from the guys today on various things. We talk about how important Readme's are, useful tools for documentation, a project from Evil Martians, a gem called Combustion, and RSpec API documentation is discussed. We end with Brittany telling us all about her passion for being in the Roller derby. Download this episode now!

Sponsored by:

Linode

Panelists:

Guests:

Brittany Martin

Show Notes:

[00:01:51] We start here by Brittany telling us all about gem wrappers
and what she's working on. She asks the guys if it makes sense to create
an almost fake Rails app that she ships along with the certificate or
ship beside it that shows a user how to use it? Andrew answers and
mentions reading a lot of code from Vladimir, who goes by palkan, and
Brittany mentions Piotr Murach, who wrote a great article about writing
gem specs.

[00:07:14] Brittany asks the guys if they ship their VCR cassette
tapes with their code and do they find it useful or do they think that
VCR cassette tapes should be ephemeral?

[00:13:25] Nate tell us how he markets his open source repositories
and when he has a new project that he is excited about, what kind of
steps he takes.

[00:15:13] Brittany asks the guys what does it feel like when you
publish a library and people start opening issues with it? Is it a weird
mix of joy and a little bit of panic or are you just excited overall?

[00:17:27] Ron asks Nate if he has any advice on how to build that
initial community and for getting those initial enthusiasts. Nate brings
up a video from Derek Sivers about "How to start a movement." Great
advice from Nate here and an awesome quote!

[00:20:17] Andrew talks about setting up a Rails App, how important
Readme's are, and he mentions a repo that he points to a lot called
Awesome Readme's." He also mentions documentations have to be good, and
he tells us resources to help with this, which is a project from Evil
Martians, Read the Docs, and GitBook.

[00:24:10] Brittany wants to know when do you outgrow your Readme and
are all the tools that you offered better than using GitHub Wiki?
Brittany mentions how she was stoked to get the Google Pay as the gem
name.

[00:28:15] With the example Rails project that Brittany wants to ship
with the gem, she wonders if it should be part of the gem itself or
should it be a separate repository? Andrew and Nate help out with this.

[00:31:55] Andrew talks about if you're worried about hard to debug
tickets, he created a reproduction template on how to quickly and easily
reproduce your issue. Also, if you want a community, he suggests
creating a place for them. He mentions Jared White, maintainer of
Bridgetown, R.B. Andrew asks Brittany why did she decide to develop it
in private rather than putting it in as a work in progress as the
status, or the gem description, and if you try it then it's on you?

[00:38:26] Brittany tells us her empathy with Rails engines, and if
she's done a local path to a locally sourced engine as well.

[00:40:58] Andrews tells us about a Gem called "Combustion" that helps
with engine testing that palkan uses a lot.

[00:42:33] Andrew asks everyone when you write gems do you use yard?
Brittany mentions RSpec API documentation which she's used in past jobs
and is pretty amazing.

[00:46:10] Andrew talks about the tool "docsify" and an Evil Martians
blog post about it.

[00:46:56] Brittany talks about her passion of being in the Roller
Derby, under the name Norma Skates, after Norman Bates.

Links Mentioned:

Credits:

Produced by Justin Dorfman at CodeFund
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Ad Sales by Eric Berry at CodeFund

Follow Us:

Special Guest: Brittany Martin.

★ ...

en-usJune 26, 2020

Episode 16: Playbook Thirty-nine with Nick Haskins

Welcome to The Ruby Blend! On today’s episode, we have special guest, Nick Haskins, who works as a full-time solo Dev for CG Cookie and a year later he launched Blender Market. Both sites were started on WordPress but eventually outgrew the platform. Without any prior experience with Ruby on Rails, he built both apps from scratch and spent the next few years fixing, learning, and maintaining those platforms. Today, he is going to tell us all about his book he recently published called, Playbook Thirty-nine. There’s an interesting story how he came up with the name. He also tells us about his new platform called Mavenseed. Also, Nick lets us know how it’s been traveling and living the nomadic lifestyle in an RV with his family. Download this episode now.

Sponsored by:

Linode

Panelists:

Guests:

Nick Haskins

Show Notes:

[00:01:32] Nick talks about his Ruby on Rails Playbook he just published called, Playbook Thirty-nine.

[00:02:35] Since Nick has been very entrepreneurial in his career as a solo developer, Nate is curious to know his experience with Blender, what led into building the WordPress plugins, and what made him decide to move off of WordPress into Ruby on Rails.

[00:04:47] Nick talks about what led him into being involved with Blender tutorials and making that available on WordPress, even though he’s not really a Blender himself.

[00:08:09] Where did the title of his book, “Playbook Thirty-nine” come from? He also gives us an elevator pitch of the book.

[00:11:45] Nick tells us how much in his book is technical topics versus how much is business oriented, and how does he see the distinction there. Andrew talks about the coolest parts of the book that he enjoyed.

[00:16:50] Nick is in the process of taking CG Cookie and creating a new platform called Mavenseed, and he tells us more about it.

[00:27:08] Since Nick is sticking close to jQuery and not introducing Webpacker, he tells us other places he recommends that people deviate from, like the “Rails Golden Path.”

[00:30:46] Andrew wants Nick to talk about how he came to the price point of his book, which is not just a book, because it provides sample materials and sample application.

[00:35:22] Nate wants to know what the workflow was like and what kinds of tools Nick used while writing the book. He also talks about his nomadic lifestyle, living in an RV, and if he’s enjoyed this new lifestyle with his family. Also, he tells us if COVID-19 has affected his living situation and where his favorite place to live has been so far.

[00:42:03] Andrew gives a s/o to Brittany Martin, who runs the Ruby on Rails Podcast on 5by5. She ends most of her shows by asking her guests a certain question, so Andrew uses her idea today and asks Nick to tell us what his thoughts are on the future of the Ruby on Rails communities.

Links Mentioned:

Credits:

Produced by Justin Dorfman at CodeFund
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Ad Sales by Eric Berry at CodeFund

Special Guest: Nick Haskins.

★ Transistor.fm is now hosting an archive of the podcast for us. Learn how to start your own podcast!

en-usJune 19, 2020

Episode 15: Rails Testing Tools and Best Practices with Jason Swett

Hello and welcome to The Ruby Blend! Today's episode is all about testing! We have special guest, Jason Swett, who is the host of, "Rails with Jason Podcast" and author of, "Rails Testing For Beginners." If you've had very little or no testing experience, don't be afraid to listen to this episode, because Jason will start with a gentle testing intro so you won't get lost. We will talk about the basic tooling of Rails testing and what each of these tools do. Also, we discuss what kinds of tests you should write, tests you don't have to write, and TDD. Download this episode now!

Sponsored by:

Linode

Panelists:

Guests:

Jason Swett

Show Notes:

[00:03:09] Jason gives an overview of everything about testing he wants to talk about today.

[00:04:27] We start with the basic tooling of Rails tests. We discuss when you spin up a new Rails app and you're getting ready to start writing some tests, what do you start reaching for, what kind of gems, and what are the purposes of those gems?

[00:06:50] Jason talks about why testing is important and then he goesback into talking about tooling.

[00:16:04] A big challenge in learning testing is knowing the terminology. We will discuss System Spec versus System test and Capybara, fixtures, and factories.

[00:27:34] Andrew brings up a gem he's used called the Fabrication Gem. Also, Jason talks about another tool called Faker.

[00:35:10] Jason talks about Martin Fowler and his "Test Pyramid."

[00:39:05] What kinds of tests to write and what kinds we can skip is discussed here. Jason talks about one of his favorite rants he wrote in a blog post about "Examples of pointless types of RSpec tests."

[00:45:59] Andrew wonders about testing validations and asks Jason if this is a necessary test. Andrew gets his "validation."

[00:48:55] Jason discusses RSpec tests you can write. He will let us know what he writes and what he doesn't write.

[00:53:26] Jason talks about TDD (Test Driven Development).

Links Mentioned:

Credits:

Produced by Justin Dorfman at CodeFund
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Ad Sales by Eric Berry at CodeFund

Special Guest: Jason Swett.

★ Transistor.fm is now hosting an archive of the podcast for us. Learn how to start your own podcast!

en-usJune 04, 2020

Episode 14: Projects, Projects, Projects!!

Hello and welcome to The Ruby Blend! In this episode, the guys talk about new and exciting things they've been working on. Nate starts out by talking about how he paired up with Jason Charnes of Podia and Remote Ruby, working on some great things on Stimulus Reflex. Andrew discusses a cool project to check out called BridgetownRB. Also, Andrew talks about some new projects he's been contributing to called "RailsBytes" and "AppLocale." Also, find out why Nate calls Ron the "Sage Wise One" on the show! Download this episode now!

Sponsored by:

Linode

Panelists:

Guests:

None

Show Notes:

[00:00:50] Nate talks about having some really good contributions recently and the one that has got him most excited is pairing up with Jason Charnes of Podia and Remote Ruby fame. They are doing some great things on Stimulus Reflex and Nate mentions a few things he's excited about.

[00:05:37] Nate brings up a concern he has with new developers using stimulus reflex getting confused that there is a distinction between a reflex and a rails controller.

[00:11:03] Andrew gives a S/O to Jared, at Bridgetown RB fame, which is a cool project that you should check out. It's a Web-pack-aware, Ruby-powered static site generator for the modern Jamstack era.

[00:14:29] Ron wants to know if they have come up with a good solution in static site generator land if you are building a site for a client that is not technically savvy, can they make changes without having to know about build processes and all that?

[00:18:32] Andrew mentions a post to check out he did on Dev.to called, "Build and deploy a static site with Ruby, Bridgetown, TailwindCSS, and Netlify."

[00:19:45] Andrew has been involved in some new projects and one of them is called "Rails Bytes." He is going to tell us what it is and why we should pay attention. One of his examples is adding View Components to your app.

[00:26:38] Andrew tells us about Dave Kimura, who runs Drifting Ruby, and has created something similar to Rails Bytes, with templates that he created.

[00:31:31] Ron wonders about uninstalling something from your app. Isn't this part of the reason this exists, to make things more accessible to people who may have less experience programming and writing rails applications? Andrew and Nate give us their opinions.

[00:36:14] Andrew talks about another one of his projects called, "AppLocale," which is an app to manage translations in your Rails app through I18n. Nate and Ron seem to like the idea of it.

[00:50:02] Andrew mentions how Ron sounded very wise on their last episode. He asked some very good questions and all of a sudden everyone's talking about commit messages and changelogs on Twitter. Hmmm..was the timing coincidental or did the guys start this? Nate says Ron is the "Sage Wise One" on the show.

Links Mentioned:

Credits:

Produced by Justin Dorfman at CodeFund
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Ad Sales by Eric Berry at CodeFund

★ Transistor.fm is now hosting an archive of the podcast for us. Learn how to start your own podcast!

en-usMay 28, 2020

Episode 13: Wait, you want to lint commit messages?!?

Panelists

Andrew Mason
Nate Hopkins
Ron Cooke

Guests

None this week.

Sponsor

Linode

Show Notes

[00:02:15] Ron talks about the importance of architecture, the way we architect our apps, since he started working at Kin, a home insurance company. He asks the guys what they think about architecture in that sense?

[00:05:25] Andrew brings up single responsibility pattern. Ron says patterns are dangerous, Nate likes them, and Andrew shares a story of patterns and a video that Chris Oliver did on refactoring that helped him.

[00:14:07] Nate brings up things that Sandi Metz’s teaches about extreme object orientation. She has so many great ideas and the way she forces you to think about your code differently.

[00:18:27] Nate brings up videos with DHH talking about Basecamp code. He had some interesting information about where software development gets interesting. Nate explains.

[00:20:32] Find out why Andrew starts thinking about the garden and the way the rows should be placed. Also, we learn code is magic! ☺

[00:21:35] The guys all discuss trade-offs and understanding that there’s a balance between the business needs and the needs of the developer or the engineering department as a whole. Nate says the trick is to find the right balance and Andrew shares a story about bad coding and extending grace to someone.

[00:26:51] Andrew asks Ron, if he was to tell him that he wanted to lint their commit messages before they could be merged to master, assuming that all commits are squashed into a single commit, how would that make you feel, without telling you why?
Ron answers.

[00:32:30] Andrew mentions a plug-in called “Release Drafter” if you format your commit messages in a certain way. Nate wants to know how does this work with a continuous release environment where you’ve got multiple pushes to prod daily and what are the major parts that they believe need to live in a commit message? Andrew explains.

[00:37:16] Andrew brings up “Conventional Commits” which is a specification for adding human and machine readable meaning to commit messages.

[00:44:07] Nate talks about in his new company, they have a set format that they use for their commit messages. It’s not super structured but everybody does it.

[00:48:24] Ron asks Andrew and Nate if they should be using a Project Management Software and how would they feel about that?

[00:51:48] Ron has a question for Nate and Andrew, circling back around to that application that Nate wrote, that became the linchpin for the company, at some point did the structure form around the project? Did you guys implement a project management system and formal processes an all of that?

[00:54:26] Ron closes out the episode with some advice, “Read POODR and learn your patterns!”

Links

Credits

Produced by Justin Dorfman at CodeFund
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Ad Sales by Eric Berry at CodeFund

★ Transistor.fm is now hosting an archive of the podcast for us. Learn how to start your own podcast!

en-usMay 21, 2020

Episode 12: The State of the Rails Community with Julian Rubisch

Panelists

Andrew Mason
Nate Hopkins

Guests

Julian Rubisch

Sponsor

Linode

Show Notes

[00:00:38] Julian tells us all about himself and his background. He
also tells us how long he's been programming professionally and with
Ruby on Rails.

[00:04:24] Nate is wondering what Julian's observation is about the
relationship between music and programming or any type of artistic
endeavor in programming. Nate mentions a book by Paul Graham called,
"Hackers and Painters."

[00:06:43] Nate found it interesting that as an experienced
programmer, Julian found it intimidating when he first encountered
Rails, but had good mentors and friends to help him. He wonders if it
was an existing Rails application or was it a new application he was
building? Julian explains.

[00:10:34] Andrew is curious to know what Julian uses Ruby for now and
what his day to day use of Ruby is. Julian mentions doing backend mobile
stuff and what he's done.

[00:14:25] Julian gives a shout-out to Chris Oliver for Jumpstart Pro
App which helped him a lot. Also, he explains his experience with it
because Andrew is curious.

[00:16:20] Nate is curious to know if a tool in Jumpstart Rails helps
or is it introducing more magic? Also, if he came into the project or if
it was a new project and he began with Jumpstart, would he have found
Rails more approachable? Julian gives us his opinion.

[00:21:43] Nate brings up how he agrees with Julian that he thinks
three are more things we can do on the Rails community to make it more
approachable to newcomers. Julian has a story to share and Andrew
mentions a Tweet that was made by Noel Rappin in response to this.

[00:25:21] Nate is curious to know if Julian watched any of the old
RailsCasts episodes. He makes a point to say how watching these
teaching, tutorial websites, and videos are so important to the health
of community. Julian lets us know what he did.

[00:27:57] Andrew brings us a point by saying that with all the new
additions to Rails, it's fair to say that the documentation hasn't kept
up with the new features that are getting added in. Nate agrees with
this and gives his input as well.

[00:29:49] Julian talks about his website he created called, "Better
StimulusJS."

[00:32:24] Andrew wants Julian to touch on how he found Stimulus
Reflex and if he's using it on client projects. Julian also mentions
"Znibbl.es" and his YouTube channel.

Links

-Julian Rubisch Twitter
-Julian Rubisch GitHub
-Better StimulusJS
-Hackers and Painters - Paul Graham
-Message Passing
-Rails Responders
-Strong Parameters
-Jumpstart Rails
-RailsConf 2020.2 with DHH
-[Rails new options help](ttps://gist.github.com/kirillshevch/1b52f711e66b064416d746f07e834c00)
-Avdi Grimm Twitter
-Noel Rappin Twitter
-Znibbl.es
-Become a patron of Znibbl.es
-Sponsor Julian Rubisch-GitHub
-Julian Rubisch-"Sounds of Defiance and Conformity"-EP (Apple Music)
-Julian Rubisch-YouTube

Credits

Produced by Justin Dorfman at CodeFund
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Ad Sales by Eric Berry at CodeFund

Special Guest: Julian Rubisch.

★ Transistor.fm is now hosting an archive of the podcast for us. Learn how to start your own podcast!

en-usMay 14, 2020

Episode 11: Open Source Funding and CodeFund with Eric Berry

Panelists

Andrew Mason
Nate Hopkins

Guests

Eric Berry

Sponsor

Linode

Show Notes

[00:01:12] Eric tells us the story of how he found the inspiration for
CodeFund as a company.

[00:09:24] Nate asks Eric what kind of resistance he had at the
beginning from the developers that he was pitching his ideas to, and he
explains.

[00:12:35] If Eric condensed CodeFund's mission down to an elevator
pitch, what would it be and how would he summarize it? He lets us know
right here.

[00:13:05] Andrew is curious and asks Eric what were the signs that
you realized it was time to bring in more people, specifically on the
code side, and what was the motivating factor to bring in someone else?
He gives a little bit of history behind it.

[00:20:28] Since Eric has taken on other responsibilities, Nate asks
him to talk about the dopamine hits that he feels in taking on other
roles as compared to development and also to talk about whether or not
he's missed development and what the experience has been for him.

[00:28:38] Nate asks Eric if he's been able to get more into the code
and if he's starting to experience some of that knowledge work, the
dopamine hit from shipping code. He's got a great answer.

[00:32:38] Eric picks on Andrew here for a bit, but it's a rather nice
kind of picking and you'll see why. Andrew chimes in as well.

[00:38:46] Nate is curious because it sounds like Eric may have hit a
couple of interesting barriers as he was getting back into code. He asks
Eric if he can touch on this. Apparently, he rediscovered that code can
be hard too.

[00:41:38] Eric has something to say about anyone curious about
developing on Windows. Also, Nate asks him if there was anything that
stuck out as difficult on Windows for him and he tells us what was
difficult.

[00:47:52] Eric says if you're not following Andrew on Twitter and
GitHub then you really, really should, and he explains why.

[00:49:30] Eric has some great things to say to the guys to end the
episode.

Links

Special Guest: Eric Berry.

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en-usMay 07, 2020

Episode 10: Parentheses and typosquatting

Panelists

Andrew Mason
Nate Hopkins
Ron Cooke

Guests

None

Sponsor

Linode

Show Notes

[00:00:41] Andrew announces that Ruby 2.4 is no longer supported so
get off of it and upgrade!

[00:02:32] Ron had some fun DevOps to share about with Digital Ocean,
which actually weren't that fun, and you'll find out why.

[00:10:30] Nate takes the conversation into talking about templates in
engines with Ruby and Rails and View Component. Andrew is experimenting
with Slm and he talks about it. Find out why Andrew says, "Nate was
right!"

[00:19:22] Nate asks Ron what templates he's using at work.

[00:23:55] Ron gives his opinion on readable. As he says, "The less
parentheses the better." Andrew shares his opinion on parentheses.

[00:31:45] Nate brings up the exploit on the Ruby Gems, all the fake
gem names, called "Typosquatting." Andrew explains what happened.

[00:35:12] The guys remind everyone to support Ruby Central and Ruby
Together since they maintain, clean up, and do all kinds of stuff. They
even have a store you can purchase things from.

[00:36:19] Andrew asks Nate to talk about the manager vs. maker's
schedule since he's been doing more managerial tasks at CodeFund
recently. He's trying to find a rhythm and balance things. Andrew and
Ron also share their views on management.

[00:46:50] Andrew mentions that Chris Oliver, friend, co-host of
Remote Ruby Podcast, and the leader of the Go Rails community, created a
video on Stimulus Reflex, and it has gotten pretty popular. Also, Nate
talks about how he feels about having one of the more popular Ruby
packages at this point.

[00:50:07] Andrew talks about some "code of conduct" issues that were
going on in their discord and he talks about what he did to resolve it.

[00:55:12] Andrew talks about having a PR and merging migration issue,
so he asks Nate and Ron for advice and they help him out.

Links

RubyGems Typosquatting
Support of Ruby 2.4 has ended
The Hacker News - Ruby Gem Typosquatting
Maker's Schedule/Manager's Schedule
GoRails - "Introduction to Stimulus Reflex."
Arguments and Parentheses

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en-usApril 30, 2020

Episode 9: ViewComponent at GitHub with Joel Hawksley

Panelists

Andrew Mason

Guest Panelists

Chris Oliver

Sponsor

Linode

Show Notes

[00:02:13] Joel starts off by saying it's an exciting time for the
project with all the changes going on and he discusses some of these
changes. He also talks about why View Component is not going to be in
Rails 6.1 and is that a good thing or bad thing?

[00:07:32] Joel talks about having 126 components and goes into
further detail about them. Primer Design System and App Directory are
mentioned. He also goes more in depth about the different forms in the
component library.

[00:12:01] Andrew asks Joel to explain what are some things you should
use components for and what are some things you should not?

[00:24:31] Chris mentions how there is some kind of organizing
stimulus controllers with a component, but he wonders how does Joel look
at the JavaScript part of those components? Joel explains here.

[00:29:48] Joel mentions although it's been nerve wrecking for him to
work on this project, he makes it very clear that he's been phenomenally
well supported by several people who are mentoring him. There are also
so many people that are working with him internally and providing so
much support and guidance, which helps to create this welcoming
environment.

[00:35:10] Joel makes a comment that for an Open Source project, one
of the best gifts anyone from the community can give him is a failing
test. Find out why.

[00:39:44] Andrew asks Joel what's next for View Component and if he
had a dream of something it could become, what is next?

[00:44:20] Joel makes a great point by saying that the reason we need
to Open Source the components we are working on is that we learn so much
more from actual complex examples. Why is this?

[00:47:52] Joel makes a point to say that the most important skill for
a Rails engineer to have is good data modeling and understanding good
database design. He gives a shout out to the "High Scalability" site
that has done more for Joel's success in engineering interviews than any
other resource.

[00:50:27] Joel has some final inspiring words about how much better
off humanity would be if we were all working on these problems together
and this is what Open Source is all about. It's about sharing what we're
learning with other people. Andrew also chimes in with some good advice.

[00:54:22] Joel wraps it up with one final thing to say about the
project and Andrew gives a homework assignment to those listening.

Links

Joel Hawksley: GitHub
Joel Hawksley: Website
ViewComponent
Primer
High Scalability
RailsConf 2019 - Rethinking the View Layer with Components

Special Guest: Joel Hawksley.

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en-usApril 16, 2020

Episode 8: Tests and Webpacker

Panelists

Ron Cooke
Nate Hopkins
Andrew Mason

Sponsor

Linode

Show Notes

[00:03:13] GitHub sponsors starts the talk on this episode, and how a
few people have reached out about Stimulus Reflex asking how they can
support the project and the various contributors. Ron shares what he's
done.

[00:05:30] Ron has been working on ramping up a Legacy Rails App that
fell out of maintenance and it was a lot more painful than he wanted it
to be with Gem conflicts and Gem lock files. He gives a lesson on what
you should do.

[00:10:29] Ron gives great advice that it is so important to keep your
tests up to date. If it wasn't for the tests that he has at his current
job, he would be "sunk."

[00:15:04] Nate is curious and asks Andrew if he can talk about
specifics about why he was getting "chastised" on making a change in the
app and it messed up something else. He talks about what happened and
how it was fixed. Ron brings an interesting point about "bugs" and what
a "bug" actually is.

[00:18:49] Andrew puts a plug in for Jason Swett, who has a podcast he
does on Rails and he puts a lot of testing materials around Rails, so
you should check it out.

[00:19:25] Ron asks the guys when they are writing tests and if they
write tests first or last, and how do they feel about it?

[00:25:24] Talking about tests and "hairy" problems, Nate and Andrew
recently had a deep pair session with Stimulus Reflex Sessions, so Nate
explains what happened.

[00:32:18] Andrew announced that along the "JavaScripty" side of
Stimulus Reflex, Web Packer 5 came out and then 5.0.1. He asked if Ron
ugraded and what version of Rails he is on, which is then followed by
laughs.

[00:33:49] Nate wants to know what is on Webpacker 5 so Andrew
explains what they've added. Ron is curious to know how many people or
how many projects are using it. If anyone knows, tweet the guys at the
Ruby Blend on Twitter to let them know.

[00:41:17] Ron talks about how it's been for him working remotely from
home for a full week. He explains why it's been a little rough for him.
Nate also talks about his kids being home and how it's been challenging.

[00:46:25] Andrew has a quick hack if you need a good router. He
really likes Nighthawk from NetGear. He also talks about upgrading to
Cat 6 cables to boost your speed.

[00:47:15] Andrew brings up with the massive shifts and changes we are
going through, and how is it going to have an impact on college
educations and if it will lower the value of a college education doing
online school. Nate and Ron share their views on this as well.

[00:53:50] Andrew mentions they would love if you could rate them on
iTunes or hit the star in the Overcast player. Also, you could write
reviews to help them continue to make more content and get some guests
on the show.

Links

★ Transistor.fm is now hosting an archive of the podcast for us. Learn how to start your own podcast!

en-usApril 09, 2020

Episode 7: Static Sites and Testing

Summary

Nate, Ron, and Andrew stay quarantined along with the rest of the nation. Ron is
happy he has snacks, so he's good! In this episode, the guys talk about
Gatsby, Frontend JavaScript, Static Site Generation, and testing
frameworks. Also, find out why Ron and Andrew affectionately refer to Nate as "Grandpa".

Panelists

Andrew Mason
Nate Hopkins
Ron Cooke

Guest

None this week

Sponsor

Linode

Show Notes

[00:00:54] The guys start off by telling stories about how being
quarantined has changed the dynamic of their lives with family, jobs,
and social life.

[00:07:40] Andrew talks about he's been dabbling at static site
generators for years. He goes into his experience trying to componentize
it using React and Storybook. He also explains where his data lives for
the static site.

[00:10:25] "GraphQL" is explained and how it essentially wraps your
markdown. It also has a tool called "Graphical" that builds on your
queries.

[00:17:00] Nate asks how easy is it to build with Gatsby without
knowing React? Andrew explains and adds you need to figure out how JSX
works.

[00:19:14] Nate asks Andrew how his experience went with
componentizing things that he wanted to do with CodeFund codebase for a
while and how far did he take it and what lessons did he pull out of it?

[00:21:11] Andrew mentions if anyone has heard of Mark Dalgleish who
works on Playroom and has the best memes. He also mentions how Mark's
belief is that you should make spacing itself a component.

[00:26:08] Andrew mentions the component library he was looking at
called Braid-Design System.

[00:28:21] Andrew defines what "Storybook" is for anyone who may not
have been exposed to it. He says it's a pretty slick tool!

[00:35:20] Nate brings up the old Java days or the .net days and how
he feels the modern JavaScript ecosystem is even worse than the old Java
XML configuration days.. in which he gets called "Grandpa" by Ron.

[00:37:30] Nate talks about what's going on with his controller
library which contains three controllers right now and he has three
lined up.

[00:39:01] The guys all talk about testing and frameworks and how they
feel about them.

[00:47:00] Nate talks about a test suite he wrote called "PRY test."
Listen to hear why he created this and how he uses it.

[00:52:34] Nate touches on layered caching but for more info on this
check out Remote Ruby-Epsiode 70, where Nate talks more in depth about
layered caching stuff they did at CodeFund.

Links

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en-usApril 03, 2020

Episode 6: Working from Home

Panelists

Andrew Mason
Nate Hopkins
Ron Cooke

Guest

None this week

Sponsor

Linode

Show Notes

[00:02:25] Nate asks Ron if his new company is using Rails like his
last job. Ron explains how things like deploys are much easier and fast
to do now, the differences in traffic, and the use of traditional Rails
background jobs.

[00:06:23] Ron, Andrew, and Nate discuss the benefit of Rails monolith
framework and how it ends up being a single deployed distributed system.

[00:10:11] From the, "Nate, please make this a gem file," Nate talks
about his layered cache he added to CodeFund which IMMENSELY sped up
average response time on the server side well below the 100ms, half of
what it was before. Nate goes into details how he did it. Kind of neat!
Andrew is flexing hard!

[00:12:09] Andrew brings up the news of GitHub buying out JavaScript
developer platform, NPM. Microsoft is again strengthening its hold on
Open Source. Is this a positive thing?

[00:16:05] Coronavirus has caused a lot of other businesses to make
their employees work at home. At Dev's, quite a few of us already have
been in that world for years. Haven't we been training for this our
whole lives? Ron's current job has had him working out of the office and
now transitioned to home. He discusses how that is going. Did his
company have a plan in place? Using remote tools like Tuple to stay
connected with the team, and (ugh) email. Nate brings up Hey.com's new
email client.

[00:20:06] Like a lot of us, Andrew has a lot of unread emails. How
many? Find out. Andrew you are NOT alone. The guys go in-depth on email
clients and apps.

[00:26:27] How do you get in the "deep creative work" zone especially
if you have meetings and other things interrupting your day? Do you
block off time like Ron? Do you just work late at night? Are you like
Nate and use 5 minutes of music to get you in the zone?

[00:33:03] Things that interrupt or even help you procrastinate
getting into the deep work. Find out the one thing they shut off to stop
the interruption.

[00:35:35] Social distancing is causing lots of people to be out of
work. The boys talk about things they've been doing to help out
businesses near them, as well as stories in the news they've read.

[00:44:24] Andrew tells Ron and Nate about the GitHub Actions
Hackathon going on right now. Andrew has submitted, have you?

[00:47:39] Andrew's timing is amazing. He really didn't want to do the
Ruby Meetup initially, but now with things like RailsConf getting
cancelled & COVID-19...he "may" be all in now?! Stay tuned to the
podcast for news on this.

Links

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en-usMarch 26, 2020

Episode 5: Joined by Chris Oliver

Panelists

Andrew Mason
Nate Hopkins

Guest

Chris Oliver

Show Notes

[00:01:37] Chris talks about how he discovered Ruby and began
developing with it. It started with him wanting to build websites.

[00:05:05] Active resource is mentioned and what it did.

[00:08:12] Chris talks about IRC Bots that worked, and he also expands
on his goal to teach himself how to use raw socket and the IRC Protocol.

[00:12:15] What helped Chris get his first job?

[00:14:17] Nate wants to know if Ruby is a good program language for
beginners and if you can equate learning programming to learning a
musical instrument, like a guitar. Chris explains and mentions an
experience he had.

[00:20:40] Chris talks about his first Rails job where he had to build
"breadcrumbs" and the issues he had. He has some great advice.

[00:31:22] Andrew shares a funny story about asking Chris for help
refactoring. Listen what he did to help him.

[00:33:06] Chris explains what GoRails is, how it was born, where it
came from, and what he does with it. You will be amazed at how many
videos he's recorded.

[00:40:20] Two questions are answered by Chris that Nate is curious
about. What's been his most popular episode and what is his personal
favorite one?

[00:44:28] A rundown on HatchBox is given. Let's say it's a cheaper
hosting service and you don't have to set it up all by yourself.

[00:51:57] A discussion is brought up about frustrations with
Webpacker.

[00:54:48] Andrew finds the "log file" topic interesting and Chris
expands on this and explains what can be used to help.

Links

RailsConf 2020
KeryxAdmins
Active Resource
DRb Overview
Coin
Refactoring
GoRails
RailsCasts
Student Developer Pack
GoRails Liking Posts
Hatchbox

Special Guest: Chris Oliver.

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en-usMarch 19, 2020

Episode 4: Components, HAML vs ERB, and Design Systems

Panelists

Ron Cooke
Andrew Mason

Guest

None this week

Show Notes

[00:00:42] The guys discuss what they know about view component which
is a component type library that GitHub was working on which was
upstreamed into Rails and released with Rails 6.1.

[00:01:18] Andrew mentions Joel Hawksley gave a talk at RailsConf last
year about taking action of your component. GitHub was all in on this
library seeing a lot of performance gains over traditional partials.

[00:02:33] Andrew explains how you can create tests for your
components and open them up with Rails Conductors and see the page or
the component being rendered.

There was an announcement made this week so listen on.

[00:05:43] Andrew comments on the "Golden Path" and the "Rails Way"
and how Rails is a product of Basecamp.

[00:09:35] Ron gives his opinion on why Action Cable is on by default
in Rails.

[00:11:10] The guys discuss whether they like to use Haml, Slim, or
ERB.

[00:19:54] Ron asks Andrew what his testing framework of choice was
before he started at CodeFund.

[00:24:18] Ron mentions his recent changes in his job and Andrew has
been "binging" working on code and he's created a design system
visualizer engine.

[00:39:32] Pagination is discussed and how nobody is using it anymore.
Instead, we infinite scroll and load more.

[00:45:45] Pagy and Pagy gem are brought up how it has a plug-in that
will integrate with Arel and it's much faster.

[00:47:40] Unscoped and Default scopes are brought up in discussion.

[00:50:50] The guys "lightly" touch on the subject about going to
college and bootcamps.

Links

Ruby on Rails
View Component Changes
Pagy with Arel
The Rails Way
ActionCable
Haml, Slim, ERB
Pagination
Scopes
RailsConf 2019- Joel Hawksley

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en-usMarch 12, 2020

Episode 3: HEY, Productivity, Turbolinks, and Meetings

Sponsored By:

Linode

Panelists

Ron Cooke
Nate Hopkins
Andrew Mason

Guest

None this week

Show Notes

[01:32:15] Nate brings up Basecamp 3 and the new Hey! Menu, an email client competitor. Nate REALLY hopes it can replace Slack for him as he is tired of the constant notifications which mess with his workflow.

[05:08:28] Ever curious Andrew has pulled the source code from Basecamp 3 and gives us a sneak peek at what is hidden in there and what might be coming down the road for Hey!

[09:15:13] Nate also had to take a look and noticed that Basecamp is using an HTTP protocol vs WebSockets protocol. The Discourse team has articles that support doing it this way.

[11:07:28] Ron has been busy working in the React App and the Ruby API Server. He talks about having to relearn it after not doing it for a while. It’s not like riding a bike. ☺

[18:21:10] The guys dive into the deep end and discuss how configuration is “developer quicksand.” Ron also talks about another item of “quicksand” for him…tweaking the setup in his Notion App.

[21:32:20] On the subject of both project and time management methods, the guys talk about how very few things actually work for them. Nate remembers an interesting article on how sometimes just writing something down can create a mental imprint to help you to remember to do something.

[25:55:00] Nate circles back to the Hey! source code. Andrew forgot to mention one takeaway he saw, something called Harmony, which he expects David Heinemeier Hansson to announce at RailsConf in Portland. This lead into an in depth discussion on Turbolinks and why it got such a bad rap and how in reality it’s a very forward thinking library.
[33:21:29] Rack 2.2.1 got released. What’s new?? We are sure some of you are shouting, ”Please say bug fixes!” ☺
[37:03:08] Nate is excited about Samuel Williams joining the Rack team, who’s done a lot of “under the hood” work for Ruby Concurrency. Nate also can’t wait to see what he does with things like Falcon Web Server.

[43:46:09] Ron brings up the Basecamp book, “Shape Up.” This leads into a big conversation on doing stand ups at work.

[48:32:14] The guys talk about debugging with the Pry gem.

Links

Hey!
Yehuda Katz
Samuel Williams Website
Samuel Williams Twitter
React
Ruby On Rails Active
Support
Notion
David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)
RailsConf Portland
Turbolinks
Paul Graham "Maker's Schedule, Manager's
Schedule"
Rack Changelog
Ruby Concurrency
Falcon Web Server
Break
Pry
SameSite
MessageBus