Issue 105 - August 9, 2012
Headlines
Floating around as an idea for a couple of years now, 'refinements' extend the functionality of classes within a certain module namespace. Performance issues have kept them from being readily accepted but Shugo Maeda has added to the latest MRI Ruby trunk as an experimental feature.
JRuby 1.7 is shaping up to be a big release (one big part is the default runtime mode is Ruby 1.9.3). So big, in fact, they really want to get it right and have another preview release for you to try. Be sure to report any bugs.
Reading
Phusion are excited about the new 'live streaming' features in Rails (announced last week) not least because Passenger Enterprise 4.0 is to become hybrid multi-processed, multi-threaded and evented. Lots of info here.
A look at adding SPDY support to your Rails apps when using Nginx and Passenger. SPDY is a networking protocol developed by Google that allows you to transport Web data with lower latency using compression, multiplexing and prioritization.
Timecop provides simple time travel and freezing capabilities in Ruby, but what if you're working on a JavaScript app backed and tested by a Rails application and you want to alter the test browser's clock as well? Ken Collins digs in.
Core Ruby developer Koichi Sasada asks Pythonistas for their impressions of a Python feature he wants to propose an equivalent for in Ruby 2.0. He got an answer direct from one of the maintainers of the system.
James Coglan demonstrates an approach to using Java to build a JRuby library / extension.
Gautam Rege walks through modelling and building a Ruby application that leans on MongoDB.
With David Bryant Copeland, author of Build Awesome Command-Line applications in Ruby.
Watching and Listening
Ransack can be used to build complex search forms. It also helps in adding sortable links and building a dynamic advanced search page. Ryan Bates shows us how.
Ever wanted to get into 2D graphics programming without leaving the comfort of the open web? This talk from H. Dean Hudson aims to get you up to speed on the basics for building Canvas-based games and apps that can integrate with a Ruby backend.
The first in a pair of recent Ruby Rogues podcast episodes, this time looking at the trials and tribulations of hiring programmers. (Step one: post a job listing in Ruby Weekly? ;-))
Libraries and Code
stubble is a super simple URL shortening app written in Ruby using Sinatra, Slim, and MongoDB. Use it as a foundation for your own URL shortening service or as an example project when learning Ruby, Sinatra, Slim, or MongoDB.
Ruby uses 'malloc' for memory allocation but the alternative 'jemalloc' can provide better performance and more efficient memory use. Je injects jemalloc support into your Ruby apps at runtime. I got no speed boost on a simple synthetic benchmark but your mileage may vary.
An experiment library that produces 'self-destructing' tokens which automatically expire based upon nothing but their own value and whose validity can be easily checked.
If you don't want to bother visitors with rich editors or HTML markup but still want them to be able to embed images, links, and content from sites like YouTube, this is worth checking out.
Jobs
Work on an agile team, influence product requirements, develop a feature and deploy it the same day, and then get home at a reasonable time to hangout with your family and friends. Goldstar was featured on 37Signals' Bootstrapped, Profitable and Proud series.
Last but not least..
JotBot is a cross-platform desktop application written in JRuby that uses Monkeybars. It was a commercial product released somewhere around 2009 but didn't take off. The code is being released to provide an example of Monkeybars usage.
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