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Ruby Inside (12 unread)

RubyGems 1.5.0 Released: Now Supports Ruby 1.9.2

Posted: January 31st, 2011, 7:33pm MST by Peter Cooper
Ryan Davis has announced the release of RubyGems 1.5.0. It comes just a month after the release of 1.4 which, notoriously, didn't work with Ruby 1.9.2. These problems have now all been ironed out and Ruby 1.8 and 1.9 users alike can safely upgrade (fingers crossed).

RubyGems is the popular (and official - as of Ruby 1.9) Ruby package manager with which most significant Ruby libraries and tools are distributed. The 1.5 release sees it pick up a few bug fixes and some enhancements, including:
- Ruby 1.9 support
- Post-build hooks that can cancel the gem install
- Gem.find_files is now 40% faster (on Ruby 1.9)
- Better errors for corrupt Gem files, including paths
- A new UPGRADING documentation file to help with Ruby 1.9-related issues
- gem update no longer erroneously tries to update RubyGems itself by default
To upgrade to RubyGems 1.5.0, run:
```
gem update --system
```
Alternatively, you can learn more in the new UPGRADING documentation, or if you don't already have RubyGems for some reason, you can download it from RubyGems.org.

UPDATE: RubyGems 1.5.0 and Bundler are not the best of friends! If you're depending on Bundler tonight, don't install RubyGems 1.5.0 just yet. However, a 1.5 compatible version of Bundler is due within the next 24 hours. A new version of Bundler has been released, supporting RubyGems 1.5.0. Upgrade now :-)

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Clever Algorithms: A Free Book of Nature-Inspired Ruby Recipes

Posted: January 25th, 2011, 5:13pm MST by Peter Cooper

Clever Algorithms is a newly released book by Jason Brownlee PhD that describes 45 algorithms from the Artificial Intelligence (AI) field with Ruby-based examples. It's well produced and, notably, free in its PDF and online formats. A print copy is available at a small cost.

The book kicks off with a chapter of background regarding AI and its problem domains and moves on to an array of algorithms in the probabilistic, neural networking, stochastic, swarm, and evolutionary spaces.

Ruby purists will note that even though the demonstrations are in Ruby, they're not very Ruby like. Classes are rarely defined and using methods defined in the main context as functions is the order of the day. Nonetheless, the book remains well written and interesting and the Ruby code - as generic as it is - will nonetheless help Rubyists get the idea behind many of the processes demonstrated.

This book provides a handbook of algorithmic recipes from the fields of Metaheuristics, Biologically Inspired Computation and Computational Intelligence that have been described in a complete, consistent, and centralized manner. These standardized descriptions were carefully designed to be accessible, usable, and understandable.

Most of the algorithms described in this book were originally inspired by biological and natural systems, such as the adaptive capabilities of genetic evolution and the acquired immune system, and the foraging behaviors of birds, bees, ants and bacteria. An encyclopedic algorithm reference, this book is intended for research scientists, engineers, students, and interested amateurs.

Jason Brownlee

Check out Jason's book at cleveralgorithms.com and the content and code are in this GitHub repository.

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Rails Ready: Ruby and Rails on Ubuntu in One Line

Posted: January 21st, 2011, 1:20pm MST by Peter Cooper
How would you like to get a full Ruby on Rails stack up on Ubuntu with one command?

Now you can by running Rails Ready. Rails Ready is a setup script that gets Ruby and Rails running on a fresh install of Ubuntu with one command (Tested on Ubuntu server 10.04 LTS (Long-term Support)).

Adam Stacoviak

Rails Ready is essentially just a shell script but one you might find useful if you're running Ubuntu (or - update - CentOS) and want to get the installation process done and over as quickly as possible. It follows on rather nicely to our last post: Ruby Installer: Ruby and Rails on Windows in a Single, Easy Install!

If you have the time or you're installing this on your main development machine, however, I would recommend following Ryan Biggs' RVM based instructions (or my equivalent screencast) because RVM gives you more developer-level control later on (such as gem sets). UPDATE - Josh has been working hard and says that Rails Ready "now asks you if you want to build from source or install RVM" - nice!

Nonetheless, if you want to get a new Ubuntu (or CentOS) box running Rails as quickly as possible, Rails Ready is worth a try. The short version:
```
wget --no-check-certificate https://github.com/joshfng/railsready/raw/master/railsready.sh && bash railsready.sh
```
Before running the above, though, be aware of the ramifications. You should probably take a look at https://github.com/joshfng/railsready/raw/master/railsready.sh yourself to see if it's suitable for you.
Rails Installer: Ruby and Rails on Windows in a Single, Easy Install

Posted: January 18th, 2011, 4:58am MST by Peter Cooper

RailsInstaller is a new project from Wayne E Seguin (of RVM fame) that brings RubyInstaller-style simplicity to getting Ruby and Rails set up on Microsoft Windows (XP, Vista, or 7). In a single wizard-driven installation you get Ruby 1.8.7-p330 (with DevKit), Rails 3.0.3, Git, and SQLite 3.

Rails Installer was developed with help from Luis Lavena (a Ruby on Windows expert) and Dr. Nic Williams (Engine Yard's resident Australian comedian) and its release comes just weeks after Wayne was (re)hired by Engine Yard to work on new open source initiatives.

To get started, go to railsinstaller.org, download the "Rails Welcome Kit" and run the installer. There's a screencast you can watch too. The process is as simple as it sounds and you can have a basic, empty Rails project running within minutes.

If you want to follow along more, check out the @RailsInstaller Twitter account or the Rails Installer Google Group / mailing list.
Like RVM? Do Wayne a Favor..!
I've been speaking to Wayne and in the long term he will extend the RailsInstaller site with more information on where to go next and links to tutorials, etc, but for now he wants RailsInstaller.org to be the #1 "go to" site for budding Windows-based Rails developers. To help with this, he's keen for people to link to http://railsinstaller.org/ with the text Rails Windows Installer - making it more likely to come up if people Google for "rails windows" and similar.

Wayne is also keen for you to share Rails Installer with any/all Windows-based developers you know who might be interested in trying out Rails. A one-file, wizard driven installation process makes it look a lot better than the previous "download this, type that, download this, open that" process.

If you're interested in the source code behind the project and helping out at that level, there's the railsinstaller-windows project on GitHub you can check out too.
Ruby 1.9.2 Next, Please ;-)
I have only one complaint about RailsInstaller; it's Ruby 1.8.7 only (for now) but 1.9 is where it's at in 2011, especially for Rails 3! Nonetheless, I suspect further and more varied packages will be coming in due course. If you care that much about it in the short term, of course, you can use RubyInstaller 1.9.2 and install Rails by yourself the long way ;-)
A WebKit Plugin Written in MacRuby

Posted: January 13th, 2011, 3:23am MST by Peter Cooper

Eloy Duran (of the Dutch Rails consultancy Fingertips) has put together an interesting side project: a WebKit plugin written in MacRuby. His 'MacRubyWebKitPluginExample' project on GitHub is a short, self contained example of how to pull it off, so it's worth checking out if you want to do something similar. Eloy's example simply allows Ruby code to be supplied by a text box in a WebView and then executed by MacRuby on the back end.

Here's a video showing it in action:

Before you get too excited, there are some significant provisos. Eloy explains:

Whoa, hold your horses, son. Because this brings us to the most important note, and will most probably be sad news to you, which is that none of the common WebKit based browsers support this... This means no Safari nor Chrome. [Due to their lack of support for garbage collection.]

The latter could possibly be compiled with garbage collection support, it’s completely open-source after all, but I was not able to do so in my quick attempts. In case you'd like to have a go, I could not get ‘Chromium Framework.framework’ to support it. Let me know if you are successful.

However, it's possible to use the plugin from a Web browser because, well, that's what a WebView is. You can build a simple Web browser

Eloy Duran

So it's early days, but these problems seem surmountable, and in the interim it could be a useful technique for those of you building MacRuby OS X apps with custom WebKit WebViews.

Thanks to Ilya Grigorik for pointing this project out on Twitter.
Parslet – A Simple PEG Parser Framework for Ruby

Posted: January 11th, 2011, 7:45pm MST by Peter Cooper

Parslet is a new "simple parser framework" for Ruby built by Kaspar Schiess. It follows the PEG (parsing expression grammar) style of parsing and its primary goals are to be simple, testable, and to have extensive and powerful error reporting features (something that Kaspar states Treetop sorely lacks).

If you've already used Treetop, you might wonder what the hoopla is about. The key difference is that Parslet does not generate code to represent the parsing grammars you create as Treetop does - it works directly from rules defined using standard Ruby syntax (Treetop has its own Ruby-esque grammar language). Parslet's error messages are also significantly nicer than Treetop's when you inevitably run into trouble with your grammar as they're generated by Parslet itself and don't spring from Treetop's internally generated code.

So if you need to build a parser (or think you might), check out Parslet - it has a great homepage with some useful documentation. Installation is simple (gem install parslet) and Kaspar has put together a "getting started" tutorial that walks through building a basic grammar for a teeny-tiny programming language. It concludes with a complete example of a programming language interpreter in a mere 49 lines.
JRuby 1.6.0 RC1 Released: JRuby Gets All 1.9.2 On Us

Posted: January 11th, 2011, 8:33am MST by Peter Cooper
The JRuby team has announced the release of JRuby 1.6.0 Release Candidate 1. The final release is still a little way off but the bulk of the work is in place. It's billed as the "largest release of JRuby to date" which, given how awesome 1.5 was, is a big deal, especially as it adds initial Ruby 1.9.2 language and standard library compatibility (though 1.8.7 is still the "default").

So, what's new?
- Ruby 1.9.2 language and API compatibility (use the --1.9 command line option to get it)
- Ruby 1.9.2 stdlib included (even in jruby-complete.jar)
- General performance and stability improvements
- RubyGems 1.4.2 included
- Experimental C extension support (!)
The JRuby team are especially keen for people to try out the new Ruby 1.9.2 support so that they can round out and perfect their 1.9.2 compatibility before the final release.

You can grab the 1.6.0.RC1 builds of JRuby from the JRuby download page. I haven't had any luck with RVM yet but I suspect it'll be supporting this release really soon..

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Ruby-Core Speaks on Ruby 1.8.8, 1.9.3 and 2.0

Posted: January 7th, 2011, 9:09am MST by Peter Cooper
You may imagine that the ruby-core mailing list is a 24/7 programming disco dealing with core Ruby implementation topics.. but no, it's usually a low-traffic list with calm discussion of bugs and patches. This week, however, some Interesting Stuff™ has happened and the kimono has been lifted on a few issues including, notably, a potential Ruby 1.8.8.

Yui Naruse, one of the core Ruby committers, was trying to dispel myths that the Japanese-language ruby-dev mailing list is a hotbed of illicit Ruby implementation activity by inviting people to ask any implementation-related questions they liked in ruby-core. From the results of this, we can pick up a few tidbits:

What's going on with Ruby 1.9.1?

Still alive but is less active because of yugui's resource. I think, it will die soon.
Yui Naruse

When will Ruby 1.9.3 be released?

Not decided but we want to release 1.9.x every 1.5 years (to prevent 1.9.2 become too stable one like 1.8.6). So it may be released in 2011-12-25 or 2012.
Yui Naruse

What about Ruby 2.0?

See Matz's presentation at RubyConf 2010. [..] But when we relase Ruby 2.0 is not decided. I think it takes several years [PC: emphasis mine].
Yui Naruse

Yes, several years. Ruby 2.0 is our Perl 6.
Ruby 1.8.8 - Another Update to the 1.8 Branch?
Yui also let slip that that there could be a Ruby 1.8.8 waiting in the wings and the next day Shota Fukumori posted Let's begin a talk for "1.8.8", an English translation of a Japanese ruby-dev post. It's a little hard to read but the general points are:
- Ruby 1.9.0 came out 3 years ago and Ruby 1.8.7 will be 3 years old in June 2011. This is the longest it has been between significant releases.
- Ruby 1.9.2 is recommended for new development but, it is claimed, many "can't use 1.9.x in actuality" because "extension libraries" do not work [I'm not au fait with libraries used in Japan but most of the mainstream ones now are fine IME].
- Ruby 1.8 must not become "uncontrolled" [Unmaintained, I'm assuming..]
From these points, Shota proposes three ways forward:
1. 1.8.8 could be created as a "better 1.8.7" with a release date of Summer 2011.
2. 1.8.8 can be worked on until it is "ideal" and users are not affected. A release date of 2020 is proposed. [This is the joke entry, I take it.]
3. No 1.8.8 ever.
The ultimate question, though, is "What do we do?" Ultimately it's for the community to decide. Matz himself has said:

We haven't have any consensus yet. Maybe it's good time to start discussion. I myself don't think 1.8.8 is needed. But there might be demand for 1.8.8 or later.
Matz

So if this is something you care strongly for, get discussing. IMHO, I want to encourage people onto 1.9.2 as much as possible. The water's warm, the libraries are (finally) friendly, and Ruby 1.9 is better in many ways.
And if you're not yawning yet..
In other ruby-core news, Lucas Nussbaum kicked off a heated debate about the virtues of moving MRI development to Git (it ain't gunna happen) and Ryan "zenspider" Davis proposes that gem_prelude should die (based on the RubyGems team's experiences with Ruby 1.9.2 and the new RubyGems 1.4).
VCR: A Recorder For All Your Tests’ HTTP Interactions

Posted: January 4th, 2011, 6:19am MST by Peter Cooper
VCR is a library by Myron Marston that records your test suite's HTTP interactions so that they can be quickly replayed during future test runs. The big win is that you get predictable, quick and accurate tests. If you need to update the data, just delete the fixtures VCR generates and you're good to go.

On the surface, VCR sounds like it copies the work of libraries like FakeWeb and Webmock, but VCR uses those libraries to provide a cleaner, more abstracted experience. VCR supports the mocking features of FakeWeb, Webmock, Typhoeus and Faraday out of the box, and further, supports multiple HTTP client libraries including Net::HTTP, Typhoeus, HTTPClient, Curb, Patron, em-http-request and Net::HTTP-based clients like HTTParty, RESTClient and Mechanize.

You can learn more at the VCR GitHub page (it has a good, basic README) or give it a try right now with the following:
```
sudo gem install webmock vcr
```
And then run the following code:
```
require 'rubygems'
require 'test/unit'
require 'vcr'

VCR.config do |c|
  c.cassette_library_dir = 'fixtures/vcr_cassettes'
  c.stub_with :webmock # or :fakeweb
end

class VCRTest  Test::Unit::TestCase
  def test_example_dot_com
    VCR.use_cassette('synopsis', :record => :new_episodes) do
      response = Net::HTTP.get_response(URI.parse('http://example.com/'))
      assert_match /You have reached this web page by typing.*example\.com/, response.body
    end
  end
end
```
The first run will fetch example.com and save the completed response into a fixtures file generated at ./fixtures/vcr_cassettes/synopsis.yml. Future runs will then look for that fixture file and use the earlier response if present.

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A Tender, Loving RubyConf Presentation on Performance Analysis

Posted: January 3rd, 2011, 11:35am MST by Peter Cooper

At RubyConf X in November 2010, Aaron Patterson (a.k.a tenderlove) gave a 45 minute talk called ZOMG WHY IS THIS CODE SO SLOW? The video of this conference, as recorded by the always awesome Confreaks, is now online. It's a must watch, if only to learn how he got commit access to both Ruby and Rails (a rare feat indeed). In the talk Aaron examines his work on Arel (as used to build up SQL queries in Rails 3.0) and how he boosted its performance, a topic he also covered in an October 2010 blog post.

The official synopsis:

In this talk, we'll take a look at different tips and tricks for writing speedy code in Ruby. We'll look at techniques for analyzing our Ruby code to find the slow spots, and ways we can speed up those hot spots. MRI's VM will be analyzed in order to understand how to take maximum advantage of our Virtual Machine. Tools for uncovering the hidden algorithms used in our legacy code will be on display! Learning to mathematically represent those algorithms will be discussed so that we can slice away at our slow code! Bring your helmets and seat belts and get ready to strap yourself in for some EXTREME programming! If you attend this talk we'll give you the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge! Space is limited, so ACT NOW!
Aaron Patterson

Just go watch it folks.
Peter Cooper’s Online “Introduction to Ruby” Class Starts January 10

Posted: January 3rd, 2011, 7:10am MST by Peter Cooper
Starting January 10, 2011 (just one week after this post), I'll be teaching an online Ruby course with CodeLesson.com - me being Peter Cooper, author of Beginning Ruby. It lasts 4 weeks and will cover most things a new Ruby developer (or programmer in general) needs to know to become a confident, intermediate-level Rubyist. It's a great springboard from which to move on to Rails or other more advanced Ruby topics.

Naturally, the course is below the experience level of most Ruby Inside readers, but it might suit your boss, your new non-Ruby co-workers, or merely anyone you know who has some tech savvy and would find learning programming in Ruby a buzz.

Topics I'll be covering include:
- Installing and running Ruby
- Using the interactive Ruby shell (irb)
- Looking up Ruby documentation and help
- Expressions and variables
- Built-in data types (strings, arrays, hashes, etc.)
- Flow control
- Classes and modules
- RubyGems and library management
- File handling and IO
- Web and network access
- Producing documentation
- Testing
- The Ruby community and how to benefit from it
- Ruby project structure
- Rack and Sinatra (to produce basic webapps)
- Building and releasing a gem
- RSpec
Except for the topics covered each week, the course isn't tightly scheduled. Participants don't need to be online certain times or follow along with real-time "webinar" presentations. It's more like a distance learning course. There'll be instructions to follow, articles to read, videos to watch, and a course textbook to refer to (my book Beginning Ruby - a free copy is provided). Questions and discussion then take place on forums provided by CodeLesson.

Nonetheless, I'm going to also run some optional "surgery hours" where people can come to me on IRC or instant messaging to ask me questions or get a walk through any tricky topics. The timing of these will be determined as to the participants' various needs as we go along.

The course costs $295 for the 4 weeks (though there's a discount for group signups) and the main value comes from having access to me, asking me questions, and letting me walk you through particular sticking points. You can pick up a book for $30 but a course like this gives you a mentor, a schedule, and everything I provide will be well suited to learning Ruby at a level suitable for 2011 - a tricky promise for any book to offer given how quickly the Ruby world changes.

So, interested? Or have a boss/coworker/similar who'd benefit? Check out the Ruby course page on CodeLesson.com for more info. If you join the course, I'll see you next week!

P.S. If you have any questions, I can be found at.. peter -at- peterc.org.
9 Ruby and Rails Jobs for January 2011

Posted: January 2nd, 2011, 11:38pm MST by Peter Cooper

It looks like California's the place to be if you're a Rubyist or Rails developer looking for a full-time position right now. 6 of today's 9 positions are in California with 5 of those in the Bay Area. Elsewhere, there are also positions in Texas, Illinois, and the UK. Good luck!
The Jobs
Solar Universe is looking for a Rails Developer in Livermore, California. Solar Universe is an interesting solar energy installation and financing company.

Spiceworks is looking for a User Interface Developer in Austin, Texas. Spiceworks develops social business applications. A degree in math, engineer, CS, or related field is preferred.

Braintree is looking for a Ruby on Rails Support Engineer in Chicago, Illinois. Braintree are one of the top payment system providers - they're used by Engine Yard, 37signals, and GitHub! A very tempting job offer this - well worth reading.

SolarCity is looking for a Sr. Software Engineer (Ruby on Rails) in San Mateo, California.

Lemur Heavy Industries is looking for a Ruby on Rails Developer in Culver City, California.

Ooyala is looking for a Ruby on Rails Engineer in Mountain View, California.

Demandbase, Inc. is looking for a Senior Ruby DevOps Engineer in San Francisco, California. DemandBase builds cloud-hosted business analytics apps. A lot of cloud related skills will be beneficial.

Wildfire Interactive is looking for a Ruby Developer in Palo Alto, California.

FreeAgent is looking for multiple Ruby Engineers in Edinburgh and Cambridge, UK. FreeAgent is a fast growing and popular British startup that builds fantastic online accounting software.
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