Howdy Rip!
Chris Wanstrath (@defunkt) just posted the following on twitter.
“Hello Rip – http://hellorip.com/“
The Rip project describes itself as, “an attempt to create a next generation packaging system for Ruby.”
One of the cool features is that it supports multiple environments. For example, you can have different Rip environments (with different gem versioning) that are targeted towards specific applications. I have to dig around more through the project, but this looks fascinating.
Check it out at http://hellorip.com/
I’m also curious as to how you think you might be able to start using this.
- What are some ways that you could use Rip—http://heybrainstormr.com/t/pgte
Hello, HeyBrainstormr.com
If you follow me on twitter, you might have heard that we launched a little project that we’ve been cooking up at Planet Argon. (news post)
HeyBrainstormr is a lightweight web application that we created so that we could start a brainstorm on a specific topic and solicit ideas from each other. That’s all it does. Nothing more. Nothing less.
We know that having an open brainstorming session requires there to be zero criticism and opted to keep the process anonymous so that even the quiet people could share their ideas. :-)
We’ll be posting more details about it on our blog in the near future, but wanted to invite all of my readers to give it a whirl.
I have a few topics that I started (and tweeted about). Feel free to share your ideas on them. :-)
- I need some music suggestions. Help?
- I have writers block. Help me come up with some blog topic ideas?
- what can i do right now?
We hope that you find it as fun as we have.
82,520 minutes on Phusion Passenger
It’s been over 83,520 minutes since I made the switch from using mongrel as my development environment web server to Phusion Passenger. I’ve been extremely impressed with it. Our team has all switched over and haven’t really hit any obstacles in the transition.
Since some people asked me to let them know how this trial period worked out, I felt it was my duty to encourage you all to try it. You can check out my previous post, Switch to Passenger (mod_rails) in development on OSX in less than 7 minutes or your money back! to get rolling.
Additionally, if you’re looking for a streamlined Ruby on Rails deployment environment that includes Passenger, check out Rails Boxcar.
Building a prototype? Bring some rope.
While scanning through Allison’s copy of Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services
The problem with software prototypes
It seems to be widely understood that industrial design and mechanical engineering prototypes—from paperclips and tape to polished appearance models—are disposable learning tools. Prototyping is clearly distinct from manufacturing, so it would be ludicrous to think that even a late-stage prototype could be reused as part of the final product. In software, however, the tools used for anything other than paper prototyping are generally the same tools used for “manufacturing” (i.e., writing production code). For this reason, many stakeholders can’t see why a detailed prototype that appears functional is still many months away from completion.
It immediately reminded me of a few posts that I had written about three years ago on the topic of developing prototypes and NOT keeping them.
The author continues with…
It’s important to educate stakeholders that prototype code is kind of like the illusion of automatic doors on Star Trek—it looks like it’s working, but it’s really a guy standing behind the wall pulling a rope.
I completely agree that education is the most important aspect to managing client expectations. With regard to the amount of work that you put into a prototype, we need to be careful on how much time and energy is put into them. If we can get away with a guy (or some quick Javascript hacks) to demonstrate possible functionality, make sure we aren’t using much more than rope. Rope is cheap. Prototypes should be too.
Related Posts
On shells
Zsh versus Bash. Fight!
...because we need another religious war in the developer community. ;-)
(skitch via Gary)
Show me your and I'll show you mine (terminal prompts with git branches)
I asked on twitter but only got a small handful of responses. So, I’m taking it here.
Show me yours and I’ll show you mine. Your terminal prompt that you’re using. Inspire me with new ideas for my prompt.
Here is mine.
Now… show me yours.
