--- title: "Ruby's 'main' object, broken CSV parsing, and building Linux desktop apps with Ruby" publication: "Ruby Weekly" issue: 414 published_at: "2018-08-30" canonical_url: "https://rubyweekly.com/issues/414" --- This week's Ruby news, issue 414 #414 — August 30, 2018 [Read on the Web](https://rubyweekly.com/issues/414) Ruby Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/fcbsxvg5mml0ckquksaa.jpg)](https://blog.phusion.nl/2018/08/30/rails-still/) [Rails.. Still? Plus Some Ruby Metaprogramming](https://blog.phusion.nl/2018/08/30/rails-still/) — Thoughts on two talks given at the Amsterdam.rb meetup earlier this week. The first reflecting on Ruby webapp frameworks, and the second covering _metaprogramming for generalists_ - [you can watch the Euruko version here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=265&v=1fIlcnrJHxs) Floor Drees (Phusion) [Ruby's 'main' Object Does What?](https://engineering.appfolio.com/appfolio-engineering/2018/8/9/rubys-main-object-does-what) — Noah takes a dive into the `main` object: _“Spoiler: there will be a bunch of spelunking, first in Ruby and then in Ruby’s C source code. We’ll talk about how to find code in both places.”_ This is a follow up to [this post](http://engineering.appfolio.com/appfolio-engineering/2018/8/8/a-tale-of-two-objects) on Rake. Noah Gibbs [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/14817adc.png)](https://start.sentry.io/for/ruby?utm_source=advertisement&utm_medium=display&utm_content=rubyweekly&utm_campaign=sponsorship&utm_term=primary) [Save Weeks per Year Fixing Unseen Bugs in Your Ruby App with Sentry](https://start.sentry.io/for/ruby?utm_source=advertisement&utm_medium=display&utm_content=rubyweekly&utm_campaign=sponsorship&utm_term=primary) — Relying on users to report errors? Use Sentry to cut time to resolution from 5 hours to 5 minutes. Eliminate noise and route alerts to the right person or team based on the commit. Sentry is open source and loved by 500K developers. [Sign up for free](https://start.sentry.io/for/ruby?utm_source=advertisement&utm_medium=display&utm_content=rubyweekly&utm_campaign=sponsorship&utm_term=primary). Sentry sponsor [Ruby 2.6 Adds Enumerable#filter as an Alias of Enumerable#select](https://blog.bigbinary.com/2018/08/28/ruby-2-6-adds-enumerable-filter-as-an-alias-of-enumerable-select.html) — The [motivation for this](https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/13784) is to make things easier for people coming from other languages. Amit Choudhary [Creating a Linux Desktop Application with Ruby](https://iridakos.com/tutorials/2018/01/25/creating-a-gtk-todo-application-with-ruby.html) — It’s several months old, but desktop Ruby posts are rare things, indeed, and this one goes into quite some depth on using GTK+ to create a To-Do app. Lazarus Lazaridis [Build a Collaborative Playlist over WhatsApp with Rails, Twilio, and Spotify](https://www.twilio.com/blog/collaborative-playlist-whatsapp-rails-twilio-spotify) — Leans on Twilio’s recent support for WhatsApp along with Spotify’s API for manipulating playlists. Phil Nash [Why The CSV Standard Library Is Broken (and How to Fix It)](https://github.com/csv11/docs/blob/master/why-the-csv-stdlib-is-broken.md) — An author of many Ruby-based CSV tools chimes in on why the standard library parser and it’s not because of its strict RFC implementation. Gerald Bauer 💻 Jobs [Senior/Lead Ruby Developer - Nimbl3, Bangkok (Relocation Support)](https://www.workhiro.com/companies/nimbl3/049ee05b?locale=en) — Join Nimbl3 to work on large-scale software development projects. We use top-notch technology, follow best practices and have fun. Nimbl3 [Principal Software Engineer - Edinburgh or Remote (UK)](https://www.freeagent.com/company/careers/) — Running on Rails since 2006, FreeAgent are hiring experienced Rubyists to lead architectural design, refactoring, and mentoring. FreeAgent [Find A Ruby Job Through Vettery](https://www.vettery.com/tech?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=cooper-rubyweekly&utm_term=tech&utm_content=grouped&utm_campaign=ad-77582) — Create a profile to connect with inspiring companies seeking Ruby devs. Vettery 📘 Articles & Tutorials [Security Tips for Rails Apps](https://drivy.engineering/security-tips-for-rails-apps/) — It’s easy to let a security vulnerability slip into your Rails code by blindly following conventions, so read this list to be safer. Adrien Siami (Drivy Engineering) [Rails Console Magic Tricks](https://medium.com/@lfv89/rails-console-magic-tricks-da1fdd657d32) — These can be mind-blowing if you don’t know about them, especially the ability to send requests to an instance of your app. Luis Vasconcellos [The Ruby Bibliography: Academic Writing on Ruby](http://rubybib.org/) — A list of theses and peer-reviewed papers and articles on or about Ruby. Chris Seaton et al. [Cloud Hosting Ruby Developers Love. Sign Up w/ $100 Credit](https://try.digitalocean.com/developers/?_dkitrig=Ruby&utm_source=paid_newsletter+ruby+weekly&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=2018_Brand&utm_content=8-30-18+ruby+weekly+cooperpress) — Deploy your next Ruby application on the most developer-friendly cloud platform with predictable pricing. DigitalOcean sponsor [Exporting Significant SQL Reports with ActiveRecord](https://drivy.engineering/streaming-raw-sql-results-with-active-record/) — Without blowing up your memory. The strategy used here involves using the MySQL client’s streaming support. Nicolas Zermati (Drivy Engineering) [Discussing Where, What and How to Test with Adam Hawkins](http://www.rubytestingpodcast.com/adam-hawkins) The Ruby Testing Podcast podcast [Discussing Upgrading a Rails Application Incrementally with Luke Francl](https://devchat.tv/ruby-rogues/rr-377-upgrading-a-rails-application-incrementally-with-luke-francl/) Ruby Rogues podcast [The Best Image Uploader for Rails — Revisited](https://blog.stanko.io/best-image-uploader-for-rails-revisited-3b3b7618cc4c) Stanko Krtalić Rusendić [Is Rails Still Relevant in 2018?](https://blog.eq8.eu/article/is-rails-still-relevant-in-2018.html) — Is it that time of year again? Addressing a question we have heard way too many times, including at the top of this very issue :-D Tomas Valent 🔧 Code & Tools [Active Storage Validations: Simple Validations for Active Storage](https://github.com/igorkasyanchuk/active_storage_validations) Igor Kasyanchuk [Jongleur: A Process Scheduler and Manager](https://gitlab.com/RedFred7/Jongleur) — Define a set of executable tasks along with their precedences and Jongleur will manage their execution. It can also run tasks in parallel. Fred Heath [Attendance: Speed Up ActiveRecord#present? Calls](https://github.com/schneems/attendance) — This gem monkeypatches ActiveRecord to speed up the `present?` call by not loading objects into memory. If it gets traction, Richard will submit it to the Rails core team. Richard Schneeman [Strings::ANSI: Handle ANSI Escape Codes in Strings](https://github.com/piotrmurach/strings-ansi) — Check for presence or strip those ANSI codes out. Piotr Murach [Rack::Attack: Rack Middleware for Blocking and Throttling](https://github.com/kickstarter/rack-attack) Kickstarter [Manifold Is the Marketplace for Independent Developer Services](https://www.manifold.co/?utm_campaign=ruby_weekly&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=sponsorship&utm_content=Aug30) Manifold sponsor [Marginalia: Adds Comments to ActiveRecord's SQL Queries](https://github.com/basecamp/marginalia) — By default, it adds the app, controller, and action names as a comment, which may help with your analysis. Basecamp [Localhost: Generating Per-User Self-Signed Root Certificates](https://github.com/socketry/localhost) — The kind of thing that could help with using HTTP/2 (which requires SSL) in your local dev environment. 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