diff --git a/public/2010/01.html b/public/2010/01.html index 8deb59d..9877ff9 100644 --- a/public/2010/01.html +++ b/public/2010/01.html @@ -9,8 +9,8 @@ January 2010 – BoochTek, LLC - - + + - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@
-

Introduction

+

Introduction

-

Welcome to the BoochTek blog. BoochTek, LLC is a small web development company, based in St. Louis, Missouri. We specialize in Ruby on Rails, jQuery (JavaScript), and PHP.

+

Welcome to the BoochTek blog. BoochTek, LLC is a small web development company, based in St. Louis, Missouri. We specialize in Ruby on Rails, jQuery (JavaScript), and PHP.

This bog will be a place where we can share some of our experiences in web development, Open Source, programming, and technology in general.

+ Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging
@@ -100,52 +100,52 @@

Pages

Categories

@@ -156,21 +156,21 @@

- BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -44,17 +44,17 @@ - - + + - + - - - - + + + + @@ -65,7 +65,7 @@
-

Welcome to the BoochTek blog. BoochTek, LLC is a small web development company, based in St. Louis, Missouri. We specialize in Ruby on Rails, jQuery (JavaScript), and PHP.

+

Welcome to the BoochTek blog. BoochTek, LLC is a small web development company, based in St. Louis, Missouri. We specialize in Ruby on Rails, jQuery (JavaScript), and PHP.

This bog will be a place where we can share some of our experiences in web development, Open Source, programming, and technology in general.

+ Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging @@ -160,21 +160,21 @@

- BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -44,18 +44,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, System Admin
@@ -103,7 +103,7 @@

Bulk Rename in Bash

-

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+

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@@ -116,14 +116,14 @@

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+

- - - + + + - - + + @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ - - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@
-

Write Comments For Yourself

+

Write Comments For Yourself

-

Amos and I got in a heated discussion recently on whether we should write a single line comment to better explain some code. (The code in question was Amos’s very elegant solution to testing whether a job got sent to Resque.)

+

Amos and I got in a heated discussion recently on whether we should write a single line comment to better explain some code. (The code in question was Amos’s very elegant solution to testing whether a job got sent to Resque.)

Amos doesn’t believe in writing comments much at all. He thinks that if you’re writing a comment, it means that you’re doing something wrong, and that you probably need to write the code more clearly.

I agree with that, to a point. First off, it’s not necessary to write perfect code. If you can change a class or method name to better describe what you’re doing (and more importantly, why you’re doing it) then you should definitely do so. But it’s not always worth refactoring until you get every “why” answered. More importantly, I don’t think it’s even possible to capture everything in the code that is worth capturing. For example, why did you choose this implementation, as opposed to another that might be more obvious or common?

After our argument, I came up with a good rule of thumb (or “pattern”):

@@ -142,7 +142,7 @@

- Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories ProgrammingLeave a comment on Write Comments For Yourself + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories ProgrammingLeave a comment on Write Comments For Yourself

@@ -151,52 +151,52 @@

Pages

Categories

@@ -207,21 +207,21 @@

- BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -44,18 +44,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Programming
@@ -105,7 +105,7 @@

Write Comments For Yourself

- - - + + + - - + + @@ -44,18 +44,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Programming, Ruby
@@ -128,7 +128,7 @@

Debugging Pattern – Grenade

- - - + + + - - + + @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ - - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ +

My Thoughts on Python vs. Ruby

@@ -250,7 +250,7 @@

Where Ruby Rocks

+ Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Programming, Python, Ruby1 Comment on My Thoughts on Python vs. Ruby @@ -259,52 +259,52 @@

Where Ruby Rocks

@@ -315,21 +315,21 @@

Where Ruby Rocks

- BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
- + - - + + @@ -46,18 +46,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ @@ -118,17 +118,17 @@

this Stack Overflow answer. Basically, create a minimal model object that contains the field and the validation. Then test that the model behaves like you expect with different values and validations.

+

Integration testing can also be a bit of a challenge. I recommend following the example from this Stack Overflow answer. Basically, create a minimal model object that contains the field and the validation. Then test that the model behaves like you expect with different values and validations.

+ Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby on Rails, TDDLeave a comment on Testing Rails Validators
-

Introspective

+

Introspective

@@ -141,7 +141,7 @@

Amos, a trusted colleague of mine. Amos then passed it on to
+they told Amos, a trusted colleague of mine. Amos then passed it on to
me. I’m grateful for that — this is the best way for me to have received
that criticism.

What I did next is the astonishing thing. I swallowed my pride for a
@@ -169,7 +169,7 @@

The Why Game. This worked amazingly well. It helped me to find the
+play The Why Game. This worked amazingly well. It helped me to find the
root reasons why I was holding back change. Basically I’m afraid of
failure. Going deeper, we looked into why I’m afraid of failure. This
line of inquiry was particularly effective. Hopefully it’ll be enough for
@@ -225,17 +225,17 @@

his thoughts on the introspective.

+

Amos has written up his thoughts on the introspective.

+ Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile2 Comments on Introspective

-

What’s Your Open Source Resolution?

+

What’s Your Open Source Resolution?

@@ -243,7 +243,7 @@

St. Louis GNU/Linux Users Group (STLLUG). I’ve been running the group so long that I’ve somewhat stagnated. It’s great to find someone who will bring a fresh energy and new ideas. Thanks, Andrew!

+

I was lucky enough this past year to find someone interested in helping to run the St. Louis GNU/Linux Users Group (STLLUG). I’ve been running the group so long that I’ve somewhat stagnated. It’s great to find someone who will bring a fresh energy and new ideas. Thanks, Andrew!

Mostly freed from the more general administrative tasks (mostly planning meeting topics and speakers), I’m hoping to find the time to work on a few projects. First, I want to overhaul the web site. It needs a new look, as well as an easier way to update it. I’m planning to implement some sort of CMS — possibly WordPress or Octopress, or at the very least, a git repo to manage updates.

Blog regularly

I installed WordPress a long time ago, but I haven’t published many posts. I’ve got a few drafts in various stages. So this year I’m going to actually get the blog going, and hopefully post about once a week. I’ll be sharing things I learn on the Internet, as well as some of the things I learn from my experiences with various technologies and techniques.

@@ -266,14 +266,14 @@

Publish and maintain several Ruby gems

Build some apps

I enjoyed building a quick Rails app during last year’s Rails Rumble, even if it doesn’t turn out to be useful or make any money. I’d like to create a few small apps again this year, either in Rails or Apache Cordova. I’ve got some ideas — we’ll see how if they turn into anything useful or worth selling.

Podcast more often

-

Last year, I started joining the This Agile Life podcast. I enjoy it. I’m hoping to continue with that, and possibly doing some podcasting about Ruby and Rails.

+

Last year, I started joining the This Agile Life podcast. I enjoy it. I’m hoping to continue with that, and possibly doing some podcasting about Ruby and Rails.

Present at a conference

I’m going to attempt to give a presentation at a conference. I often give presentations at local groups, but haven’t addressed a larger audience. I’ve got a few ideas rattling around, and will see if I can turn them into presentations worthy of a larger conference.

What’s your Open Source resolution?

+ Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Open SourceLeave a comment on What’s Your Open Source Resolution?
@@ -282,52 +282,52 @@

Present at a conference

@@ -338,21 +338,21 @@

Present at a conference

- BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
- + - - + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
-

BoochTek, LLC

+

BoochTek, LLC

Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@

What’s Your Open Source Resolution?

I’ve been using GNU/Linux since 1994, starting with a Slackware 2.2 CD-ROM I ordered from the back of a magazine. I’ve been heavily involved in my local GNU/Linux community since 1999, and I give frequent presentations at various groups. I’ve made some small contributions to several Open Source projects.

But I don’t feel like I’ve done enough to contribute to the wider community. So this year, I’m going to resolve to step up my contributions, and do more.

Change my role in the LUG

-

I was lucky enough this past year to find someone interested in helping to run the St. Louis GNU/Linux Users Group (STLLUG). I’ve been running the group so long that I’ve somewhat stagnated. It’s great to find someone who will bring a fresh energy and new ideas. Thanks, Andrew!

+

I was lucky enough this past year to find someone interested in helping to run the St. Louis GNU/Linux Users Group (STLLUG). I’ve been running the group so long that I’ve somewhat stagnated. It’s great to find someone who will bring a fresh energy and new ideas. Thanks, Andrew!

Mostly freed from the more general administrative tasks (mostly planning meeting topics and speakers), I’m hoping to find the time to work on a few projects. First, I want to overhaul the web site. It needs a new look, as well as an easier way to update it. I’m planning to implement some sort of CMS — possibly WordPress or Octopress, or at the very least, a git repo to manage updates.

Blog regularly

I installed WordPress a long time ago, but I haven’t published many posts. I’ve got a few drafts in various stages. So this year I’m going to actually get the blog going, and hopefully post about once a week. I’ll be sharing things I learn on the Internet, as well as some of the things I learn from my experiences with various technologies and techniques.

@@ -117,14 +117,14 @@

Publish and maintain several Ruby gems

Build some apps

I enjoyed building a quick Rails app during last year’s Rails Rumble, even if it doesn’t turn out to be useful or make any money. I’d like to create a few small apps again this year, either in Rails or Apache Cordova. I’ve got some ideas — we’ll see how if they turn into anything useful or worth selling.

Podcast more often

-

Last year, I started joining the This Agile Life podcast. I enjoy it. I’m hoping to continue with that, and possibly doing some podcasting about Ruby and Rails.

+

Last year, I started joining the This Agile Life podcast. I enjoy it. I’m hoping to continue with that, and possibly doing some podcasting about Ruby and Rails.

Present at a conference

I’m going to attempt to give a presentation at a conference. I often give presentations at local groups, but haven’t addressed a larger audience. I’ve got a few ideas rattling around, and will see if I can turn them into presentations worthy of a larger conference.

What’s your Open Source resolution?

+ Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Open Source
@@ -132,7 +132,7 @@

Present at a conference

-

Leave a Reply

+

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

@@ -145,14 +145,14 @@

Leave a Reply

Post navigation

-
+

- - + + - - - + + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
-

BoochTek, LLC

+

BoochTek, LLC

Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

@@ -99,7 +99,7 @@

Introspective

after reading the rest of this post. Maybe it’s just the confrontation
part I don’t handle well.) Thankfully the blow was softened somewhat,
because the person providing the criticism didn’t tell me directly —
-they told Amos, a trusted colleague of mine. Amos then passed it on to
+they told Amos, a trusted colleague of mine. Amos then passed it on to
me. I’m grateful for that — this is the best way for me to have received
that criticism.

What I did next is the astonishing thing. I swallowed my pride for a
@@ -127,7 +127,7 @@

Introspective

So we talked things through some. We went on some tangents. We made some
progress — things that I could write down as take-aways and action items.
We got off-topic again, and then came back to it. Then Amos decided to
-play The Why Game. This worked amazingly well. It helped me to find the
+play The Why Game. This worked amazingly well. It helped me to find the
root reasons why I was holding back change. Basically I’m afraid of
failure. Going deeper, we looked into why I’m afraid of failure. This
line of inquiry was particularly effective. Hopefully it’ll be enough for
@@ -183,11 +183,11 @@

Introspective

probably more effective than you could have imagined that it might be.
I hope that this exercise will help me make the changes required, to make
me a better person, and help the team become the best that we can be.

-

Amos has written up his thoughts on the introspective.

+

Amos has written up his thoughts on the introspective.

+ Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile
@@ -199,11 +199,11 @@

  1. - Pingback: Episode 33 – Wanted Posters
    + Pingback: Episode 33 – Wanted Posters

  • - Pingback: Episode 34 – So I have a rational fear of spiders (Introspectives)
    + Pingback: Episode 34 – So I have a rational fear of spiders (Introspectives)
    • @@ -211,7 +211,7 @@

    -

    Leave a Reply

    +

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    @@ -224,14 +224,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

    Post navigation

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    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -123,11 +123,11 @@

    Testing Rails Validators

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby on Rails, TDD
    @@ -135,7 +135,7 @@

    Testing Rails Validators

    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ - - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ +

    Chording Keyers

    @@ -89,48 +89,48 @@

    HandyKey now. It’s $200 ($220 Canadian), and comes in only USB.

    +

    The Twiddler has been around quite a while, as probably the main commercially available keyer for wearable computing. There was a time that it was unavailable, but there’s a new version available from HandyKey now. It’s $200 ($220 Canadian), and comes in only USB.

    The Twiddler looks like a small TV remote. The current version (2.1) has 4 thumb keys, a thumb joystick (for mouse), and 12 small finger keys. It has good community support, including an alternate chord layout.

    In10did Decatxt

    -

    In10did has been trying to bring out a few variations of their devices. The Decatxt looks like a pack of cigarettes, with 8 keys on the front and 2 thumb keys. It can be used with 1 or 2 hands. All letters can be typed with 1 finger or 1 thumb and 1 finger.

    +

    In10did has been trying to bring out a few variations of their devices. The Decatxt looks like a pack of cigarettes, with 8 keys on the front and 2 thumb keys. It can be used with 1 or 2 hands. All letters can be typed with 1 finger or 1 thumb and 1 finger.

    The Decatxt has USB and Bluetooth models, but I’m unable to find pricing or a way to buy one. It looks like there have been no updates for over a year, so I’m concerned that this is going to be vaporware.

    CyKey

    -

    The CyKey is based on the Microwriter, which goes back to the early 1980s. The Microwriter was a desktop-based device, but it looks like the CyKey might be able to be used as a hand-held device. It has 9 buttons on the face, arranged in 3 groups of 3 buttons.

    +

    The CyKey is based on the Microwriter, which goes back to the early 1980s. The Microwriter was a desktop-based device, but it looks like the CyKey might be able to be used as a hand-held device. It has 9 buttons on the face, arranged in 3 groups of 3 buttons.

    The CyKey is $125 (£75) and works over InfraRed connected to USB. A Bluetooth model is supposedly in the works.

    EkaPad

    -

    The EkaPad is like a cross between the Decatxt and the Twiddler. It has 12 buttons on the face, but no thumb keys. It’s got a nice well-thought-out design that looks quite ergonomic.

    +

    The EkaPad is like a cross between the Decatxt and the Twiddler. It has 12 buttons on the face, but no thumb keys. It’s got a nice well-thought-out design that looks quite ergonomic.

    The EkaPad is $150, available in USB only. A desktop holder is available to hold it upright, or it can be used hand-held.

    FrogPad

    -

    The FrogPad is meant to be used on a flat surface only. It looks kind of like a third of a laptop keyboard. It’s got 15 regular keys and 5 modifier keys. Only 1 key and 1 modifier can be chorded. Right-handed and left-handed models are available, with USB connectivity.

    -

    The FrogPad2 was recently announced, replacing the original FrogPad. It switches to standard desktop-style keys, and adds some more keys along the top. It supports USB On-the-Go and Bluetooth. I’m not really interested in this model with its regular keys, but it doesn’t appear that the original version is being made any longer. The new models are priced at $200. I believe the old models were $150.

    +

    The FrogPad is meant to be used on a flat surface only. It looks kind of like a third of a laptop keyboard. It’s got 15 regular keys and 5 modifier keys. Only 1 key and 1 modifier can be chorded. Right-handed and left-handed models are available, with USB connectivity.

    +

    The FrogPad2 was recently announced, replacing the original FrogPad. It switches to standard desktop-style keys, and adds some more keys along the top. It supports USB On-the-Go and Bluetooth. I’m not really interested in this model with its regular keys, but it doesn’t appear that the original version is being made any longer. The new models are priced at $200. I believe the old models were $150.

    Chordite

    -

    The Chordite looks the most promising, but it’s only a concept with some DIY prototypes. It’s a hand-held device, with 2 buttons on each of the 4 fingers — one activated by the distal phalanx and the other by the middle phalanx. This initially sounds like it would be difficult to press 2 different buttons with 1 finger, but I think the way they’re positioned would make it actually work really well.

    +

    The Chordite looks the most promising, but it’s only a concept with some DIY prototypes. It’s a hand-held device, with 2 buttons on each of the 4 fingers — one activated by the distal phalanx and the other by the middle phalanx. This initially sounds like it would be difficult to press 2 different buttons with 1 finger, but I think the way they’re positioned would make it actually work really well.

    Septambic Keyer

    -

    The septambic keyer is another DIY concept, hand-built and used by wearable computing folks. It’s fitted to your palm, and you squeeze your fingers toward a fist to activate the buttons. There’s one button for each of the 4 fingers, and 3 for the thumb.

    +

    The septambic keyer is another DIY concept, hand-built and used by wearable computing folks. It’s fitted to your palm, and you squeeze your fingers toward a fist to activate the buttons. There’s one button for each of the 4 fingers, and 3 for the thumb.

    Clove 2

    -

    The Clove 2 is a Bluetooth-enabled glove with 5 buttons — 1 for each finger. It’s another do-it-yourself project.

    +

    The Clove 2 is a Bluetooth-enabled glove with 5 buttons — 1 for each finger. It’s another do-it-yourself project.

    Software Options

    -

    I found an interesting project called ASETNIOP that allows chording on a standard Qwerty keyboard. (Assuming the keyboard supports multi-key roll-over well enough. Most keyboards should work.) It’s got a really nice online interactive tutorial. You basically chord with the 8 home-row keys, plus the spacebar.

    -

    For Android, a program called GKOS for Android uses multi-touch with 1 or 2 button presses. The buttons are different sizes, depending on their frequency. I like this concept, but I don’t think the implementation is quite ready for production.

    -

    I also found an app for iOS called Nintype that is a combination between Swype and a chording keyer.

    +

    I found an interesting project called ASETNIOP that allows chording on a standard Qwerty keyboard. (Assuming the keyboard supports multi-key roll-over well enough. Most keyboards should work.) It’s got a really nice online interactive tutorial. You basically chord with the 8 home-row keys, plus the spacebar.

    +

    For Android, a program called GKOS for Android uses multi-touch with 1 or 2 button presses. The buttons are different sizes, depending on their frequency. I like this concept, but I don’t think the implementation is quite ready for production.

    +

    I also found an app for iOS called Nintype that is a combination between Swype and a chording keyer.

    Conclusion

    I think I’m going to try the Twiddler. If I find the concept to be a good one, hopefully I’ll build myself a Chordite (or have someone build one for me).

    -

    I’m also going to play with implementing some of the ideas from ASETNIOP, using KeyRemap4MacBook.

    +

    I’m also going to play with implementing some of the ideas from ASETNIOP, using KeyRemap4MacBook.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Gadgets4 Comments on Chording Keyers
    -

    Includable ActiveRecord

    +

    Includable ActiveRecord

    -

    I created a Ruby gem recently, called includable-activerecord. It’s pretty small, but I thought I might explain why I created it, and discuss its implementation.

    +

    I created a Ruby gem recently, called includable-activerecord. It’s pretty small, but I thought I might explain why I created it, and discuss its implementation.

    Classical Inheritance

    When you use ActiveRecord, you normally include it in your model like this:

    class User < ActiveRecord::Base
@@ -148,9 +148,9 @@ 
    Classical Inheritance
    
 
    Implementation
    
 
    So I decided to see if I could implement the equivalent of the ActiveRecord::Base class as a module that could be mixed into model classes. I decided to call my mixin module ActiveRecord::Model, because classes that mix it in will behave as ActiveRecord models.
    
 
    It turns out that ActiveRecord::Base is a pretty complex class. It includes and extends a lot of other modules. Luckily, as of ActiveRecord 4.0, that’s all the code it includes.
    
-
    The module only defines a single class method, included. This is one of Ruby’s many hook methods. It gets called when the module in question gets included in another module, and receives that other model as its argument. All we need to have this method do is to include everything that ActiveRecord::Base includes, and extend everything that ActiveRecord::Base extends. Ruby provides a method that’s defined on all classes, called included_modules, which we can use to get the list of everything that’s included in ActiveRecord::Base. Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent list of extended_modules. But a quick search on Stack Overflow found an implementation of extended_modules that we could use.
    
+
    The module only defines a single class method, included. This is one of Ruby’s many hook methods. It gets called when the module in question gets included in another module, and receives that other model as its argument. All we need to have this method do is to include everything that ActiveRecord::Base includes, and extend everything that ActiveRecord::Base extends. Ruby provides a method that’s defined on all classes, called included_modules, which we can use to get the list of everything that’s included in ActiveRecord::Base. Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent list of extended_modules. But a quick search on Stack Overflow found an implementation of extended_modules that we could use.
    
 
    So with a bit of magic (i.e. hooks and meta-programming), we can get the lists of constituent modules from the ActiveRecord::Base class, and include them in our ActiveRecord::Model module.
    
-
    So with all that, we can now include the includable-activerecord gem and mix it in, with all the advantages that provides:
    
+
    So with all that, we can now include the includable-activerecord gem and mix it in, with all the advantages that provides:
    
 
    class User
   include ActiveRecord::Model
   # ...
@@ -159,45 +159,45 @@ 
    Implementation
    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Includable ActiveRecord
    -

    Empathy

    +

    Empathy

    I facilitated our team retrospective this morning. I felt like we made a little forward progress, but not as much as I would have liked. But it really brought one thing to the forefront of my thoughts today — empathy gained through communication.

    We have a pretty large team by Agile standards — we had 20 people in our retro: 16 developers, 3 QA folks, and 1 manager. Out of those, only about 5 or 6 speak up regularly. I recently sent out a survey to the team, trying to get feedback on how we could improve our retros. A couple of the questions tried to get a feel for why people aren’t speaking up more. Only about half the people responded, and the answers didn’t really answer my question as well as I had hoped.

    -

    So on Amos‘s suggestion, we did the Safety Check exercise. We got a good set of answers to why people don’t feel safe. About half of the answers were about the fear of looking stupid in front of other people. About half of those mentioned the manager — they’re worried they might get in trouble for what they say. We talked some about fear and how it’s more often than not misplaced. And that the worst consequences are usually not as bad as you might think. But then we got to the crux of the problem — there’s not enough trust amongst the team, and especially between the team members and the manager.

    +

    So on Amos‘s suggestion, we did the Safety Check exercise. We got a good set of answers to why people don’t feel safe. About half of the answers were about the fear of looking stupid in front of other people. About half of those mentioned the manager — they’re worried they might get in trouble for what they say. We talked some about fear and how it’s more often than not misplaced. And that the worst consequences are usually not as bad as you might think. But then we got to the crux of the problem — there’s not enough trust amongst the team, and especially between the team members and the manager.

    About half of our team is new (within the past 6 months) — including the manager. While the developers have made some good progress building trust amongst each other, we haven’t had as much time with the manager to build trust between him and the rest of the team. So the lack of trust isn’t at all surprising.

    Honestly, I already knew we had trust issues, and wanted to address them, but needed a way to lead the team to that same realization. With this exercise driving out the issue, we were then able to have a conversation about trust. The conversation was pretty good. We got more voices to contribute than probably any other topic we’d previously covered. (I was disappointed that the manager kept quiet though. I later found that he was trying to mitigate people’s fears by keeping quiet, but I urged him to contribute more in the future.)

    But one point really stood out in my mind — a point of view that I hadn’t previously thought much about. Lauren, one of our QA analysts, pointed out that most human communication is non-verbal. We give tons of cues via body language, facial expressions, eye contact, tone of voice, even posture. I don’t recall if Lauren said it explicitly, but she pointed out that these cues build empathy between the speakers. She encouraged us to use more voice chat and video chat, as opposed to IRC text chat, because it would create more empathy between the people communicating, which would lead to more trust.

    I spent most of the rest of the day talking to people on the phone or via Google Hangouts voice. And every single time, I consciously noticed that I was gaining empathy for the person I was speaking with. I assume (and hope) that that’s working both ways. I suppose that it’s always been happening, but I never really noticed it.

    -

    I’ve heard a lot of talk about empathy among Agile practitioners lately. It’s been mentioned on the Ruby Rogues podcast, and Angela Harms has been preaching it for years. I already understood how important it is. But until today, I didn’t really feel it happening.

    +

    I’ve heard a lot of talk about empathy among Agile practitioners lately. It’s been mentioned on the Ruby Rogues podcast, and Angela Harms has been preaching it for years. I already understood how important it is. But until today, I didn’t really feel it happening.

    So if you’re looking to build trust with someone, spend some time talking with them. Preferably in person, but if that’s not possible, seriously consider video or voice modes of communication, instead of sending an email or an instant message.

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, SecurityLeave a comment on Empathy
    -

    What I Want in a Blog Engine

    +

    What I Want in a Blog Engine

    -

    I’m considering moving away from WordPress, for a couple reasons:

    +

    I’m considering moving away from WordPress, for a couple reasons:

    • Security. There have been several vulnerabilities over the past few years, and I’ve never really had a high level of confidence that it’s secure. In addition, I now find the whole PHP model — every web app running as a single user, instead of leveraging UNIX permissions — to be broken.
      • -
    • Speed. I started to realize a couple years ago that a blog engine should generate static pages. The static pages should be updated whenever new content is added. There’s really no reason to re-generate the page every time someone wants to read it. At the very least, Server-Side Includes (SSI) or Edge-Side Includes (ESI) should be used.
      • +
    • Speed. I started to realize a couple years ago that a blog engine should generate static pages. The static pages should be updated whenever new content is added. There’s really no reason to re-generate the page every time someone wants to read it. At the very least, Server-Side Includes (SSI) or Edge-Side Includes (ESI) should be used.

    Now that I’m starting to actually blog consistently, it makes sense to change. But before I move to something different, I want to be sure that I find all the features that I need. This post is my thought process about what I want.

    Requirements

    @@ -205,11 +205,11 @@

    Requirements

  • Self hosted. I like to run my own servers. Partly so I can keep full control, and partly because I enjoy doing some system admin stuff (as long as it doesn’t take too much time).
  • Generation of static pages. Almost everything should be a static page by the time a user requests a page. Obviously, submitting comments would hit a dynamic page, and comment approval would likely be done through a dynamic part of the site. But publishing a blog post or comments should generate static files to be served by Apache or nginx.
  • Categories (or maybe tags). I want readers to be able to find other things that I’ve written that might interest them. A list of categories in a sidebar would help them find what interests them.
    • -
  • Site map. Especially an XML sitemap, so Google can index better. I also like the idea of readers being able to see everything in one place.
    • +
  • Site map. Especially an XML sitemap, so Google can index better. I also like the idea of readers being able to see everything in one place.
  • Archives. This is another way of letting readers see everything I’ve written, organized by publication date.
  • RSS and/or Atom. I want readers to be able to subscribe to my blog.
  • Media. I don’t think I necessarily need a media manager, just a simple way to add pictures to blog posts.
    • -
  • Comments. I want to allow comments, but I don’t want to use anything like Disqus. I want the comments to be in my own database, so they won’t disappear. I also dislike requiring JavaScript just to see comments. And I’ve worked at places where Disqus wouldn’t work, due to web proxy servers. Comments should be moderated by the site admin, editor, or author. Readers should not have to log in to post a comment, but it would be nice to allow users to log into Twitter or some other social network to provide their info.
    • +
  • Comments. I want to allow comments, but I don’t want to use anything like Disqus. I want the comments to be in my own database, so they won’t disappear. I also dislike requiring JavaScript just to see comments. And I’ve worked at places where Disqus wouldn’t work, due to web proxy servers. Comments should be moderated by the site admin, editor, or author. Readers should not have to log in to post a comment, but it would be nice to allow users to log into Twitter or some other social network to provide their info.
  • Pingbacks and Tweetbacks. I’d like to be able to see who’s referring to my articles.

    • Nice to Have

    @@ -233,16 +233,16 @@

    Nice to Have

  • Posting my tweets in a sidebar area. I’d be OK with this being done in client-side JavaScript. I’d also be OK with periodic polling of my Twitter feed, and updating the static content when appropriate.

    • Candidates

    -

    I’ve been playing with Jekyll lately, using it to generate a simple static site that can be updated easily. It’s pretty nice, and pretty easy to use. Something based on Jekyll would work well. The trickiest part will be figuring out how to manage comments. Or maybe I’ll just have to learn to live more minimally.

    -

    Octopress is the obvious candidate. It fits most of my needs and wants. Most likely I’ll write my own commenting engine and add it to my Octopress template.

    -

    The only other candidate that I’ve found is Ghost. It’s written in JavaScript and runs on Node. I don’t find Node to be that compelling, but the templates look great, and it’s designed for coding blogs.

    -

    I’ll probably take a quick look at Droplets, too. It’s written in PHP, but seems to fit my other requirements.

    +

    I’ve been playing with Jekyll lately, using it to generate a simple static site that can be updated easily. It’s pretty nice, and pretty easy to use. Something based on Jekyll would work well. The trickiest part will be figuring out how to manage comments. Or maybe I’ll just have to learn to live more minimally.

    +

    Octopress is the obvious candidate. It fits most of my needs and wants. Most likely I’ll write my own commenting engine and add it to my Octopress template.

    +

    The only other candidate that I’ve found is Ghost. It’s written in JavaScript and runs on Node. I don’t find Node to be that compelling, but the templates look great, and it’s designed for coding blogs.

    +

    I’ll probably take a quick look at Droplets, too. It’s written in PHP, but seems to fit my other requirements.

    Unfortunately, that seems to be all there is in this space. Maybe I need to investigate more. Or maybe Octopress just has the static blog generation marked cornered. Either way, I’ll probably change my blogging software in the next month or two. Wish me luck!

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging, Security, System AdminLeave a comment on What I Want in a Blog Engine
    @@ -251,52 +251,52 @@

    Candidates

    @@ -307,21 +307,21 @@

    Candidates

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -91,10 +91,10 @@

    What I Want in a Blog Engine

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging, Security, System Admin
    @@ -147,7 +147,7 @@

    Candidates

    -

    Leave a Reply

    +

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    @@ -160,14 +160,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

    Post navigation

    -
    +

    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -93,18 +93,18 @@

    Empathy

    I facilitated our team retrospective this morning. I felt like we made a little forward progress, but not as much as I would have liked. But it really brought one thing to the forefront of my thoughts today — empathy gained through communication.

    We have a pretty large team by Agile standards — we had 20 people in our retro: 16 developers, 3 QA folks, and 1 manager. Out of those, only about 5 or 6 speak up regularly. I recently sent out a survey to the team, trying to get feedback on how we could improve our retros. A couple of the questions tried to get a feel for why people aren’t speaking up more. Only about half the people responded, and the answers didn’t really answer my question as well as I had hoped.

    -

    So on Amos‘s suggestion, we did the Safety Check exercise. We got a good set of answers to why people don’t feel safe. About half of the answers were about the fear of looking stupid in front of other people. About half of those mentioned the manager — they’re worried they might get in trouble for what they say. We talked some about fear and how it’s more often than not misplaced. And that the worst consequences are usually not as bad as you might think. But then we got to the crux of the problem — there’s not enough trust amongst the team, and especially between the team members and the manager.

    +

    So on Amos‘s suggestion, we did the Safety Check exercise. We got a good set of answers to why people don’t feel safe. About half of the answers were about the fear of looking stupid in front of other people. About half of those mentioned the manager — they’re worried they might get in trouble for what they say. We talked some about fear and how it’s more often than not misplaced. And that the worst consequences are usually not as bad as you might think. But then we got to the crux of the problem — there’s not enough trust amongst the team, and especially between the team members and the manager.

    About half of our team is new (within the past 6 months) — including the manager. While the developers have made some good progress building trust amongst each other, we haven’t had as much time with the manager to build trust between him and the rest of the team. So the lack of trust isn’t at all surprising.

    Honestly, I already knew we had trust issues, and wanted to address them, but needed a way to lead the team to that same realization. With this exercise driving out the issue, we were then able to have a conversation about trust. The conversation was pretty good. We got more voices to contribute than probably any other topic we’d previously covered. (I was disappointed that the manager kept quiet though. I later found that he was trying to mitigate people’s fears by keeping quiet, but I urged him to contribute more in the future.)

    But one point really stood out in my mind — a point of view that I hadn’t previously thought much about. Lauren, one of our QA analysts, pointed out that most human communication is non-verbal. We give tons of cues via body language, facial expressions, eye contact, tone of voice, even posture. I don’t recall if Lauren said it explicitly, but she pointed out that these cues build empathy between the speakers. She encouraged us to use more voice chat and video chat, as opposed to IRC text chat, because it would create more empathy between the people communicating, which would lead to more trust.

    I spent most of the rest of the day talking to people on the phone or via Google Hangouts voice. And every single time, I consciously noticed that I was gaining empathy for the person I was speaking with. I assume (and hope) that that’s working both ways. I suppose that it’s always been happening, but I never really noticed it.

    -

    I’ve heard a lot of talk about empathy among Agile practitioners lately. It’s been mentioned on the Ruby Rogues podcast, and Angela Harms has been preaching it for years. I already understood how important it is. But until today, I didn’t really feel it happening.

    +

    I’ve heard a lot of talk about empathy among Agile practitioners lately. It’s been mentioned on the Ruby Rogues podcast, and Angela Harms has been preaching it for years. I already understood how important it is. But until today, I didn’t really feel it happening.

    So if you’re looking to build trust with someone, spend some time talking with them. Preferably in person, but if that’s not possible, seriously consider video or voice modes of communication, instead of sending an email or an instant message.

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Security
    @@ -112,7 +112,7 @@

    Empathy

    -

    Leave a Reply

    +

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    @@ -125,14 +125,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

    Post navigation

    -
    +

    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -91,7 +91,7 @@

    Includable ActiveRecord

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on Rails
    @@ -128,7 +128,7 @@

    Implementation

    -

    Leave a Reply

    +

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    @@ -141,14 +141,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

    Post navigation

    -
    +

    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -94,37 +94,37 @@

    Chording Keyers

    I’m considering buying a chording keyer. A keyer is a 1-handed text input device. Chording means that you can hit more than 1 key at a time. I’ve been interested in these for a long time actually. They’ve been popular in the wearable computing (“cyborg”) field, but never caught on anywhere else. I’ve always thought that 1-handed chording keyer would be a great input device to use with a cell phone. It’d be even better with a heads-up display like the Google Glass.

    There are quite a few chording keyers available. It doesn’t appear that any will meet exactly what I’m really looking for, but I might take the leap anyway. It should be a hand-held device. I really want a Bluetooth device, so I can use it with a computer, phone, or tablet. Below are the ones I’m considering.

    Twiddler

    -

    The Twiddler has been around quite a while, as probably the main commercially available keyer for wearable computing. There was a time that it was unavailable, but there’s a new version available from HandyKey now. It’s $200 ($220 Canadian), and comes in only USB.

    +

    The Twiddler has been around quite a while, as probably the main commercially available keyer for wearable computing. There was a time that it was unavailable, but there’s a new version available from HandyKey now. It’s $200 ($220 Canadian), and comes in only USB.

    The Twiddler looks like a small TV remote. The current version (2.1) has 4 thumb keys, a thumb joystick (for mouse), and 12 small finger keys. It has good community support, including an alternate chord layout.

    In10did Decatxt

    -

    In10did has been trying to bring out a few variations of their devices. The Decatxt looks like a pack of cigarettes, with 8 keys on the front and 2 thumb keys. It can be used with 1 or 2 hands. All letters can be typed with 1 finger or 1 thumb and 1 finger.

    +

    In10did has been trying to bring out a few variations of their devices. The Decatxt looks like a pack of cigarettes, with 8 keys on the front and 2 thumb keys. It can be used with 1 or 2 hands. All letters can be typed with 1 finger or 1 thumb and 1 finger.

    The Decatxt has USB and Bluetooth models, but I’m unable to find pricing or a way to buy one. It looks like there have been no updates for over a year, so I’m concerned that this is going to be vaporware.

    CyKey

    -

    The CyKey is based on the Microwriter, which goes back to the early 1980s. The Microwriter was a desktop-based device, but it looks like the CyKey might be able to be used as a hand-held device. It has 9 buttons on the face, arranged in 3 groups of 3 buttons.

    +

    The CyKey is based on the Microwriter, which goes back to the early 1980s. The Microwriter was a desktop-based device, but it looks like the CyKey might be able to be used as a hand-held device. It has 9 buttons on the face, arranged in 3 groups of 3 buttons.

    The CyKey is $125 (£75) and works over InfraRed connected to USB. A Bluetooth model is supposedly in the works.

    EkaPad

    -

    The EkaPad is like a cross between the Decatxt and the Twiddler. It has 12 buttons on the face, but no thumb keys. It’s got a nice well-thought-out design that looks quite ergonomic.

    +

    The EkaPad is like a cross between the Decatxt and the Twiddler. It has 12 buttons on the face, but no thumb keys. It’s got a nice well-thought-out design that looks quite ergonomic.

    The EkaPad is $150, available in USB only. A desktop holder is available to hold it upright, or it can be used hand-held.

    FrogPad

    -

    The FrogPad is meant to be used on a flat surface only. It looks kind of like a third of a laptop keyboard. It’s got 15 regular keys and 5 modifier keys. Only 1 key and 1 modifier can be chorded. Right-handed and left-handed models are available, with USB connectivity.

    -

    The FrogPad2 was recently announced, replacing the original FrogPad. It switches to standard desktop-style keys, and adds some more keys along the top. It supports USB On-the-Go and Bluetooth. I’m not really interested in this model with its regular keys, but it doesn’t appear that the original version is being made any longer. The new models are priced at $200. I believe the old models were $150.

    +

    The FrogPad is meant to be used on a flat surface only. It looks kind of like a third of a laptop keyboard. It’s got 15 regular keys and 5 modifier keys. Only 1 key and 1 modifier can be chorded. Right-handed and left-handed models are available, with USB connectivity.

    +

    The FrogPad2 was recently announced, replacing the original FrogPad. It switches to standard desktop-style keys, and adds some more keys along the top. It supports USB On-the-Go and Bluetooth. I’m not really interested in this model with its regular keys, but it doesn’t appear that the original version is being made any longer. The new models are priced at $200. I believe the old models were $150.

    Chordite

    -

    The Chordite looks the most promising, but it’s only a concept with some DIY prototypes. It’s a hand-held device, with 2 buttons on each of the 4 fingers — one activated by the distal phalanx and the other by the middle phalanx. This initially sounds like it would be difficult to press 2 different buttons with 1 finger, but I think the way they’re positioned would make it actually work really well.

    +

    The Chordite looks the most promising, but it’s only a concept with some DIY prototypes. It’s a hand-held device, with 2 buttons on each of the 4 fingers — one activated by the distal phalanx and the other by the middle phalanx. This initially sounds like it would be difficult to press 2 different buttons with 1 finger, but I think the way they’re positioned would make it actually work really well.

    Septambic Keyer

    -

    The septambic keyer is another DIY concept, hand-built and used by wearable computing folks. It’s fitted to your palm, and you squeeze your fingers toward a fist to activate the buttons. There’s one button for each of the 4 fingers, and 3 for the thumb.

    +

    The septambic keyer is another DIY concept, hand-built and used by wearable computing folks. It’s fitted to your palm, and you squeeze your fingers toward a fist to activate the buttons. There’s one button for each of the 4 fingers, and 3 for the thumb.

    Clove 2

    -

    The Clove 2 is a Bluetooth-enabled glove with 5 buttons — 1 for each finger. It’s another do-it-yourself project.

    +

    The Clove 2 is a Bluetooth-enabled glove with 5 buttons — 1 for each finger. It’s another do-it-yourself project.

    Software Options

    -

    I found an interesting project called ASETNIOP that allows chording on a standard Qwerty keyboard. (Assuming the keyboard supports multi-key roll-over well enough. Most keyboards should work.) It’s got a really nice online interactive tutorial. You basically chord with the 8 home-row keys, plus the spacebar.

    -

    For Android, a program called GKOS for Android uses multi-touch with 1 or 2 button presses. The buttons are different sizes, depending on their frequency. I like this concept, but I don’t think the implementation is quite ready for production.

    -

    I also found an app for iOS called Nintype that is a combination between Swype and a chording keyer.

    +

    I found an interesting project called ASETNIOP that allows chording on a standard Qwerty keyboard. (Assuming the keyboard supports multi-key roll-over well enough. Most keyboards should work.) It’s got a really nice online interactive tutorial. You basically chord with the 8 home-row keys, plus the spacebar.

    +

    For Android, a program called GKOS for Android uses multi-touch with 1 or 2 button presses. The buttons are different sizes, depending on their frequency. I like this concept, but I don’t think the implementation is quite ready for production.

    +

    I also found an app for iOS called Nintype that is a combination between Swype and a chording keyer.

    Conclusion

    I think I’m going to try the Twiddler. If I find the concept to be a good one, hopefully I’ll build myself a Chordite (or have someone build one for me).

    -

    I’m also going to play with implementing some of the ideas from ASETNIOP, using KeyRemap4MacBook.

    +

    I’m also going to play with implementing some of the ideas from ASETNIOP, using KeyRemap4MacBook.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Gadgets
    @@ -138,10 +138,10 @@

    - Matthias says:
    + Matthias says:

    - + @@ -150,22 +150,22 @@

    -

    Frogpad2 failed recently (see https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=105714169451329), but there is another possibility using freeware: http://www.autohotkey.com/ and scripts (easy adaptable!?):
    -half querty: http://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/1257-half-qwerty-one-handed-typing/
    -frogpad: https://github.com/clarkm/dupepad/blob/master/frogpad.ahk
    +

    Frogpad2 failed recently (see https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=105714169451329), but there is another possibility using freeware: http://www.autohotkey.com/ and scripts (easy adaptable!?):
    +half querty: http://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/1257-half-qwerty-one-handed-typing/
    +frogpad: https://github.com/clarkm/dupepad/blob/master/frogpad.ahk
    Will be trying soon…

    -
    Reply
    +
    Reply

    • - + @@ -177,16 +177,16 @@

    The In10did DecaTxt is available on eBay and Amazon now. I ordered one recently and had it shipped over from the USA, which was a bit expensive when customs fees are added. It arrived yesterday morning and I plugged it in after arriving home from work. Sadly, it appears to do nothing whatsoever. Not sure if this model is DOA (but surely they test them?), or what. If I can get it to work, or get a replacement shipped, I’ll try to record my WPM with the device every day for a couple of weeks, to see where the improvement curve starts to taper off.

    -
    Reply
    +
    Reply
    - + @@ -198,16 +198,16 @@

    Update: It works just fine! Actually the problem was that my laptop only supports Bluetooth 3.0, but at least 4.0 is needed. It also wasn’t discoverable by my phone because Android 4.3 or newer is needed. Tested it on a newer phone and on my work PC and it connected straight away. Looking forward to trying it on an Android tablet and measuring my speed over a few weeks.

    -
    Reply
    +
    Reply
    - + @@ -221,7 +221,7 @@

    Wayne

    -
    Reply
    +
    Reply
    @@ -233,7 +233,7 @@

    -

    Leave a Reply

    +

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    @@ -246,14 +246,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

    Post navigation

    -
    +

    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ - - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@
    -

    Brilliant – My Very Own Programming Language

    +

    Brilliant – My Very Own Programming Language

    -

    I’ve decided to design and implement my own programming language, and call it Brilliant.

    +

    I’ve decided to design and implement my own programming language, and call it Brilliant.

    I’ve been interested in programming languages and linguistics almost as long as I’ve been using computers. I’ve long thought that if I ever go back to college, it’s likely that I’ll concentrate on programming languages as a specialty.

    -

    My recent discovery and involvement with the Crystal programming language has gotten me excited about new language ideas. It’s also helped me realize that implementing a language myself is feasible, and that there’s no better time to start than now.

    +

    My recent discovery and involvement with the Crystal programming language has gotten me excited about new language ideas. It’s also helped me realize that implementing a language myself is feasible, and that there’s no better time to start than now.

    Implementation

    For now, the Brilliant implementation doesn’t let you do much more than “Hello World”. But you gotta start somewhere. So this article isn’t really “Introducing Brilliant” so much as the start of a series of articles on its design and implementation.

    I wanted to use a PEG (parsing expression grammar) parser for several reasons. For one, they seem to have gained a lot of popularity in the past few years. Also, PEGs cannot be ambiguous, which can solve a few difficult problems, such as the “dangling else“. Perhaps my favorite feature of PEG grammars is that you don’t need a separate tokenizer (lexer). This provides a nice advantage in that we can use keywords like “class” as variables, as long as they’re not used in a place where the keyword would make sense.

    -

    So knowing that I wanted to use a PEG, I had to find a PEG parser. I kind of wanted to use ANTLR, which has been a leading parser for many years. But the PEG seems to be new to version 4, and I couldn’t find any Ruby bindings for version 4. Treetop seems to be the most popular parser for Ruby, but I found the EBNF format that Rattler uses to be more to my taste. I think the fact that it’s newer also gives it a few advantages, having had a chance to learn some lessons from Treetop.

    -

    I thought about using the Rubinius VM, but decided to go with LLVM, mainly since it has slightly better docs for Ruby, and because it’s what Crystal uses. Also, it’s pretty easy to get it to compile to a binary executable or run in a JIT. In the future, I might consider switching to the Rubinius VM, the Erlang VM, or the Perl 6 VM (Parrot). But for now, I like the idea of being able to compile to a binary and easily interface with C, just like Crystal.

    +

    So knowing that I wanted to use a PEG, I had to find a PEG parser. I kind of wanted to use ANTLR, which has been a leading parser for many years. But the PEG seems to be new to version 4, and I couldn’t find any Ruby bindings for version 4. Treetop seems to be the most popular parser for Ruby, but I found the EBNF format that Rattler uses to be more to my taste. I think the fact that it’s newer also gives it a few advantages, having had a chance to learn some lessons from Treetop.

    +

    I thought about using the Rubinius VM, but decided to go with LLVM, mainly since it has slightly better docs for Ruby, and because it’s what Crystal uses. Also, it’s pretty easy to get it to compile to a binary executable or run in a JIT. In the future, I might consider switching to the Rubinius VM, the Erlang VM, or the Perl 6 VM (Parrot). But for now, I like the idea of being able to compile to a binary and easily interface with C, just like Crystal.

    Goals

    My main goal is to have fun playing around with language ideas.

    I’ve found a really great language in Ruby, so I’ll be using it as a starting point. But Ruby does have its faults. In some ways, I want to answer the question “what would Ruby look like if we designed it today?”.

    @@ -102,7 +102,7 @@

    Goals

    I’m not so much as interested in cutting-edge features, as in features that can be easily used by the average programmer. More importantly, I’m interested in how features interact with each other, so they fit well together to create a whole that’s greater than the sum of the parts.

    Naming

    -

    I wanted to name my programming language “Fermat”. I’ve long been intrigued by Fermat’s Last Theorem, and Fermat’s Little Theorem is important in number theory. Unfortunately, there’s already a computer algebra system with that name.

    +

    I wanted to name my programming language “Fermat”. I’ve long been intrigued by Fermat’s Last Theorem, and Fermat’s Little Theorem is important in number theory. Unfortunately, there’s already a computer algebra system with that name.

    So I decided to find a name in the same vein as “Ruby” and “Crystal”. I looked at the Wikipedia page for “gemstones” for some inspiration. A lot of the names of gemstones are already taken. I considered some obscure gemstones, but saw the word “brilliant” and thought it was decent. It’s not the name of another gemstone, but still evokes some similarity to Ruby and Crystal.

    So that’s the name for now. Perhaps I’ll decide to change it at some point in the future, but I needed a name for the project, as well as a file extension for source code files. I chose “bril” for that. I suppose “br” would be a better choice. Perhaps I’ll change that before the next article in this series.

    Future

    @@ -111,25 +111,25 @@

    Future

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Brilliant, Languages1 Comment on Brilliant – My Very Own Programming Language
    -

    Estimation Isn’t Agile

    +

    Estimation Isn’t Agile

    I don’t believe that estimation should be part of any Agile practice.

    One of our managers recently mentioned that we hadn’t met the “contract” that we had “committed” to in our last iteration. This was complete nonsense, because A) we hadn’t made any such commitments, and B) we completed many more story points than the previous iterations (and without inflating story points).

    -

    estimates-as-deadlines

    -

    But her language made me come to several realizations. First and foremost, estimates are contracts. Sure, they’re not supposed to be treated as commitments, but they almost always are. And what does the Agile Manifesto say about this? It says that we should value customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan. So it’s pretty clear that treating estimates as commitments is completely counter to the Agile values.

    +

    estimates-as-deadlines

    +

    But her language made me come to several realizations. First and foremost, estimates are contracts. Sure, they’re not supposed to be treated as commitments, but they almost always are. And what does the Agile Manifesto say about this? It says that we should value customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan. So it’s pretty clear that treating estimates as commitments is completely counter to the Agile values.

    Why does this matter? What benefits do the Agile values bring us? I think the biggest benefit they bring is changing the way that we work, so that we can better deliver value to our customers. Without Agile, we’d just keep working the way we’ve always done things. And that didn’t seem to be working out so well. If we follow the Agile values and principles, at least we’ll have a fighting chance of improving our ability to deliver value.

    Ask yourself — have you ever seen a software development project that was on time and on budget? Where the estimates were spot-on? Of course not. For one, we’re terrible at estimating. For another, our plans change — either from external factors, or from what we learn as we go.

    Improved Estimation

    -

    To me, Agile is also about facing reality — and embracing it. It realizes that we’re terrible at estimating. It realizes that plans change. Most Agile methodologies have some tricks to counteract Hofstadter’s law. Generally, we use relative story points instead of hours, and then use an empirical factor to convert points to hours.

    +

    To me, Agile is also about facing reality — and embracing it. It realizes that we’re terrible at estimating. It realizes that plans change. Most Agile methodologies have some tricks to counteract Hofstadter’s law. Generally, we use relative story points instead of hours, and then use an empirical factor to convert points to hours.

    When this works, it is better than any other estimation I’ve ever seen. But it doesn’t work very often. People have trouble with relative estimation. How do you set the basis for what a point means without relating it to actual hours? Affinity estimation could work, but then you have to remember what the basis was. We’ve got a large distributed team, and when we tried this, we couldn’t all remember what the basis was.

    Since we couldn’t get affinity estimation to work, we tried changing to perfect hours (only powers of 2). But then people thought of them as time. When we took longer than the estimate on an individual story, managers and team members thought we were taking longer than we should have. So our estimates ended up causing problems.

    What Can We Do Instead?

    @@ -138,7 +138,7 @@

    What Can We Do Instead?

    What if there’s more than 1 thing that’s most important? Then you’ve failed. You’ve failed at logic if you can’t understand that only 1 thing can be most important. You’ve failed at prioritizing the customers’ needs. You’ve failed at project management.

    Arguments

    1. Why can’t you just tell us how long it will really take?

    -

    Because we don’t know. Because we can’t know. This is the first time we’ve ever implemented the functionality you’ve asked for. If we’d done it before, we’d just use that existing code. As Glenn Vanderburg pointed out in his excellent talk on Software Engineering, we’re not building software, we’re architecting it.

    +

    Because we don’t know. Because we can’t know. This is the first time we’ve ever implemented the functionality you’ve asked for. If we’d done it before, we’d just use that existing code. As Glenn Vanderburg pointed out in his excellent talk on Software Engineering, we’re not building software, we’re architecting it.

    2. But we have to tell our customers what to expect.

    Why? Is the product so bad that you can’t keep customers around without leading them on with future enhancements? And why do customers need exact dates? A general roadmap telling them what the priorities for upcoming features should be sufficient.

    3. But we have to have messaging about new features.

    @@ -151,13 +151,13 @@

    Arguments

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, EstimationTags , 3 Comments on Estimation Isn’t Agile
    -

    Slow Down!

    +

    Slow Down!

    @@ -170,7 +170,7 @@

    Speed and Code Quality

    So when you try to write code quickly, code quality decreases, leading to a code base that takes more time to make changes to. Conversely, when you slow down, your code quality improves, and it becomes easier to make changes more quickly. So when writing code, slowing down in the short run leads to a speed-up in the long run.

    Speed and Process Improvement

    But writing code isn’t the only place where we try to speed up. On an Agile team, we’re always trying to improve the way we work — especially at the beginning stages of an Agile transformation. So we’re eager to make changes in our processes. But I’d urge you to slow down here as well.

    -

    My colleague Amos and I frequently argue over pair switching. It’s funny, because we agree on everything except for 1 small detail. We both think pair switching is very important, to ensure that team members see more of what’s going on, to bring more ideas to each story, to prevent knowledge silos, and to encourage team ownership. Where we disagree is how long an ideal pairing session should last. I think pairs should switch every 2 hours, and he thinks 1 hour is ideal. I’ve seen teams reach the 1 hour pairing sessions successfully. But usually not without some pain and even often failing at the first attempt.

    +

    My colleague Amos and I frequently argue over pair switching. It’s funny, because we agree on everything except for 1 small detail. We both think pair switching is very important, to ensure that team members see more of what’s going on, to bring more ideas to each story, to prevent knowledge silos, and to encourage team ownership. Where we disagree is how long an ideal pairing session should last. I think pairs should switch every 2 hours, and he thinks 1 hour is ideal. I’ve seen teams reach the 1 hour pairing sessions successfully. But usually not without some pain and even often failing at the first attempt.

    There’s nothing inherently wrong with failing. But if you fail at something, you’re not likely to try again. After all, you should learn from your failures, right?

    So if you want your team to do something, you probably don’t want them to fail at it. If they fail, they won’t want to try a second time. That’s just human nature, and learning from failure. While you might think that they failed because they weren’t ready for the change yet, they’ll most likely think that they failed because this particular change won’t work for their situation. And they probably won’t know what to change when trying again, so they won’t try again.

    I’ve seen this over and over. Back when Linux was up-and-coming, when a consultant pushed a company into using Linux before they were ready for it, and it didn’t work out, that company was cautious about trying again. So instead of being on the leading edge of using Linux, or even the middle of the pack, they ended up more toward the trailing edge. Had they not been pushed, they would have gotten more benefit in the long run.

    @@ -178,19 +178,19 @@

    Speed and Process Improvement

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, ProgrammingLeave a comment on Slow Down!
    -

    Burying the Lede

    +

    Burying the Lede

    Most of us don’t write very readable shell scripts. There are plenty of things we could do better, but today I want to talk about one in particular — burying the lede.

    -

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    +

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    To begin a story with details of secondary importance to the reader while postponing more essential points or facts.

    Like a good news article, code should tell a story. And the story should start with what’s most important. In the case of code, the most important information is the high-level functionality — a succinct summary of what the program does. In other words, write (and organize) the code top-down, as opposed to bottom-up.

    Unfortunately, shell script doesn’t make this easy. Due to the way shell scripts are interpreted, you can’t call a function until after you’ve defined it. This leads to most of us structuring our code like this:

    @@ -216,36 +216,36 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Burying the Lede + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Burying the Lede

    -

    Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys

    +

    Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys

    I recently decided to start using Emacs again. I used it extensively from the early 1990s until the early 2000s. I pretty much stopped using it when I had a sysadmin job with no Emacs on the servers, and no ability to install it. With the rising popularity of tmux and tmate for remote pairing, and my dislike for vim’s modes, I decided to try going back to Emacs in the terminal.

    One thing I really want in a text editor is good cursor key support. Shifted cursor keys
    -should select text, and Control+left and right should move by words. (Apple HIG says to use Option+left and right to move by words; most apps on Mac OS X seem to support both.) Things have worked this way on almost every text editor on every OS I’ve used — Amiga, DOS, Windows, NeXT, Mac, Motif, Gnome, KDE. It’s a part of the CUA standard that’s been in common usage on everything since the mid-1980s.

    -

    Enabling cursor keys in Emacs was pretty easy. I’ve decided to use Prelude to make getting started with Emacs easy. Emacs comes with the cursor keys enabled, but Prelude disables them. Undoing Prelude’s change is pretty easy:

    +should select text, and Control+left and right should move by words. (Apple HIG says to use Option+left and right to move by words; most apps on Mac OS X seem to support both.) Things have worked this way on almost every text editor on every OS I’ve used — Amiga, DOS, Windows, NeXT, Mac, Motif, Gnome, KDE. It’s a part of the CUA standard that’s been in common usage on everything since the mid-1980s.

    +

    Enabling cursor keys in Emacs was pretty easy. I’ve decided to use Prelude to make getting started with Emacs easy. Emacs comes with the cursor keys enabled, but Prelude disables them. Undoing Prelude’s change is pretty easy:

    (setq prelude-guru nil)

    Trying to make shifted cursor keys work is where the trouble began. They work in the GUI version of Emacs, but not from the terminal. It turns out that the Mac Terminal doesn’t distinguish between cursor keys and shifted cursor keys in its default configuration. So I had to figure out how to configure key bindings in Terminal.

    That’s easy enough — they’re in the preferences. But what should I set them to? This took a lot of research. Terminal emulation and ANSI code sequences are obscure, complex, and inconsistent. I eventually found the info I needed. For starters, Shift+Right, Shift+Left, Shift+Home, and Shift+End are defined in the terminfo. The rest I was able to piece together from various sources around the Internet.

    -

    I’m also trying to script my Mac configuration. So instead of manually adding all the keybindings in the Terminal preferences pane, I decided to write a script. Mac OS X does a decent job of allowing you to change preferences from the command line. For example, to always show the tab bar:

    +

    I’m also trying to script my Mac configuration. So instead of manually adding all the keybindings in the Terminal preferences pane, I decided to write a script. Mac OS X does a decent job of allowing you to change preferences from the command line. For example, to always show the tab bar:

    defaults write -app Terminal ShowTabBar 1
    -

    Easy enough, except for a couple problems. First, I had to figure out the obscure syntax used in the preferences for key codes. I was able to piece these together with some more Internet research. But the really big problem is that the keyboard bindings are 2 levels deep within a “dictionary” (hash map). And the defaults command doesn’t handle that. There are some obscure utilities that handle nested preferences, but they don’t work well with the preferences caching in Mac OS X 10.9 — a problem I ran into while testing.

    +

    Easy enough, except for a couple problems. First, I had to figure out the obscure syntax used in the preferences for key codes. I was able to piece these together with some more Internet research. But the really big problem is that the keyboard bindings are 2 levels deep within a “dictionary” (hash map). And the defaults command doesn’t handle that. There are some obscure utilities that handle nested preferences, but they don’t work well with the preferences caching in Mac OS X 10.9 — a problem I ran into while testing.

    So now I’m writing a utility in Python that does what the defaults command does, but that will handle nested dictionaries.

    There’s a term for this process of having to solve one issue before you can solve another, and the issues get several layers deep. It’s called yak shaving.

    Here’s another good example:

    -
    Father from Malcolm in the middle having to fix one thing before fixing another, ad infinitum.
    Yak shaving – home repairs
    +
    Father from Malcolm in the middle having to fix one thing before fixing another, ad infinitum.
    Yak shaving – home repairs

    I’m sure this will be the first of many posts about me yak shaving.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys
    @@ -254,52 +254,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -310,21 +310,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -93,23 +93,23 @@

    Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Shell, System Admin
    @@ -117,7 +117,7 @@

    Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys

    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

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    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -92,7 +92,7 @@

    Burying the Lede

    Most of us don’t write very readable shell scripts. There are plenty of things we could do better, but today I want to talk about one in particular — burying the lede.

    -

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    +

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    To begin a story with details of secondary importance to the reader while postponing more essential points or facts.

    Like a good news article, code should tell a story. And the story should start with what’s most important. In the case of code, the most important information is the high-level functionality — a succinct summary of what the program does. In other words, write (and organize) the code top-down, as opposed to bottom-up.

    Unfortunately, shell script doesn’t make this easy. Due to the way shell scripts are interpreted, you can’t call a function until after you’ve defined it. This leads to most of us structuring our code like this:

    @@ -118,7 +118,7 @@

    Burying the Lede

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, Shell, System Admin
    @@ -126,7 +126,7 @@

    Burying the Lede

    -

    Leave a Reply

    +

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    @@ -139,14 +139,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

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    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
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    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -99,7 +99,7 @@

    Speed and Code Quality

    So when you try to write code quickly, code quality decreases, leading to a code base that takes more time to make changes to. Conversely, when you slow down, your code quality improves, and it becomes easier to make changes more quickly. So when writing code, slowing down in the short run leads to a speed-up in the long run.

    Speed and Process Improvement

    But writing code isn’t the only place where we try to speed up. On an Agile team, we’re always trying to improve the way we work — especially at the beginning stages of an Agile transformation. So we’re eager to make changes in our processes. But I’d urge you to slow down here as well.

    -

    My colleague Amos and I frequently argue over pair switching. It’s funny, because we agree on everything except for 1 small detail. We both think pair switching is very important, to ensure that team members see more of what’s going on, to bring more ideas to each story, to prevent knowledge silos, and to encourage team ownership. Where we disagree is how long an ideal pairing session should last. I think pairs should switch every 2 hours, and he thinks 1 hour is ideal. I’ve seen teams reach the 1 hour pairing sessions successfully. But usually not without some pain and even often failing at the first attempt.

    +

    My colleague Amos and I frequently argue over pair switching. It’s funny, because we agree on everything except for 1 small detail. We both think pair switching is very important, to ensure that team members see more of what’s going on, to bring more ideas to each story, to prevent knowledge silos, and to encourage team ownership. Where we disagree is how long an ideal pairing session should last. I think pairs should switch every 2 hours, and he thinks 1 hour is ideal. I’ve seen teams reach the 1 hour pairing sessions successfully. But usually not without some pain and even often failing at the first attempt.

    There’s nothing inherently wrong with failing. But if you fail at something, you’re not likely to try again. After all, you should learn from your failures, right?

    So if you want your team to do something, you probably don’t want them to fail at it. If they fail, they won’t want to try a second time. That’s just human nature, and learning from failure. While you might think that they failed because they weren’t ready for the change yet, they’ll most likely think that they failed because this particular change won’t work for their situation. And they probably won’t know what to change when trying again, so they won’t try again.

    I’ve seen this over and over. Back when Linux was up-and-coming, when a consultant pushed a company into using Linux before they were ready for it, and it didn’t work out, that company was cautious about trying again. So instead of being on the leading edge of using Linux, or even the middle of the pack, they ended up more toward the trailing edge. Had they not been pushed, they would have gotten more benefit in the long run.

    @@ -107,7 +107,7 @@

    Speed and Process Improvement

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Programming
    @@ -115,7 +115,7 @@

    Speed and Process Improvement

    -

    Leave a Reply

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    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    @@ -128,14 +128,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

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    BoochTek, LLC

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    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -93,12 +93,12 @@

    Estimation Isn’t Agile

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, EstimationTags ,
    @@ -134,10 +134,10 @@

    - + @@ -151,20 +151,20 @@

    Teams should question what the manager actually needs, rather than blindly exposing planning numbers.

    -
    Reply
    +
    Reply
  • - Pingback: Five Blogs – 25 March 2014 | 5blogs
    + Pingback: Five Blogs – 25 March 2014 | 5blogs
  • - Olena says:
    + Olena says:
    • - + @@ -181,7 +181,7 @@

    I do understand why Agile can’t answer on question When? But it still doesn’t help with making a business in brutal, full of competitors world J.

    -
    Reply
    +
    Reply
    @@ -189,7 +189,7 @@

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    Leave a Reply

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    @@ -202,14 +202,14 @@

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    BoochTek, LLC

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    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -91,14 +91,14 @@

    Brilliant – My Very Own Programming Language

    -

    I’ve decided to design and implement my own programming language, and call it Brilliant.

    +

    I’ve decided to design and implement my own programming language, and call it Brilliant.

    I’ve been interested in programming languages and linguistics almost as long as I’ve been using computers. I’ve long thought that if I ever go back to college, it’s likely that I’ll concentrate on programming languages as a specialty.

    -

    My recent discovery and involvement with the Crystal programming language has gotten me excited about new language ideas. It’s also helped me realize that implementing a language myself is feasible, and that there’s no better time to start than now.

    +

    My recent discovery and involvement with the Crystal programming language has gotten me excited about new language ideas. It’s also helped me realize that implementing a language myself is feasible, and that there’s no better time to start than now.

    Implementation

    For now, the Brilliant implementation doesn’t let you do much more than “Hello World”. But you gotta start somewhere. So this article isn’t really “Introducing Brilliant” so much as the start of a series of articles on its design and implementation.

    I wanted to use a PEG (parsing expression grammar) parser for several reasons. For one, they seem to have gained a lot of popularity in the past few years. Also, PEGs cannot be ambiguous, which can solve a few difficult problems, such as the “dangling else“. Perhaps my favorite feature of PEG grammars is that you don’t need a separate tokenizer (lexer). This provides a nice advantage in that we can use keywords like “class” as variables, as long as they’re not used in a place where the keyword would make sense.

    -

    So knowing that I wanted to use a PEG, I had to find a PEG parser. I kind of wanted to use ANTLR, which has been a leading parser for many years. But the PEG seems to be new to version 4, and I couldn’t find any Ruby bindings for version 4. Treetop seems to be the most popular parser for Ruby, but I found the EBNF format that Rattler uses to be more to my taste. I think the fact that it’s newer also gives it a few advantages, having had a chance to learn some lessons from Treetop.

    -

    I thought about using the Rubinius VM, but decided to go with LLVM, mainly since it has slightly better docs for Ruby, and because it’s what Crystal uses. Also, it’s pretty easy to get it to compile to a binary executable or run in a JIT. In the future, I might consider switching to the Rubinius VM, the Erlang VM, or the Perl 6 VM (Parrot). But for now, I like the idea of being able to compile to a binary and easily interface with C, just like Crystal.

    +

    So knowing that I wanted to use a PEG, I had to find a PEG parser. I kind of wanted to use ANTLR, which has been a leading parser for many years. But the PEG seems to be new to version 4, and I couldn’t find any Ruby bindings for version 4. Treetop seems to be the most popular parser for Ruby, but I found the EBNF format that Rattler uses to be more to my taste. I think the fact that it’s newer also gives it a few advantages, having had a chance to learn some lessons from Treetop.

    +

    I thought about using the Rubinius VM, but decided to go with LLVM, mainly since it has slightly better docs for Ruby, and because it’s what Crystal uses. Also, it’s pretty easy to get it to compile to a binary executable or run in a JIT. In the future, I might consider switching to the Rubinius VM, the Erlang VM, or the Perl 6 VM (Parrot). But for now, I like the idea of being able to compile to a binary and easily interface with C, just like Crystal.

    Goals

    My main goal is to have fun playing around with language ideas.

    I’ve found a really great language in Ruby, so I’ll be using it as a starting point. But Ruby does have its faults. In some ways, I want to answer the question “what would Ruby look like if we designed it today?”.

    @@ -107,7 +107,7 @@

    Goals

    I’m not so much as interested in cutting-edge features, as in features that can be easily used by the average programmer. More importantly, I’m interested in how features interact with each other, so they fit well together to create a whole that’s greater than the sum of the parts.

    Naming

    -

    I wanted to name my programming language “Fermat”. I’ve long been intrigued by Fermat’s Last Theorem, and Fermat’s Little Theorem is important in number theory. Unfortunately, there’s already a computer algebra system with that name.

    +

    I wanted to name my programming language “Fermat”. I’ve long been intrigued by Fermat’s Last Theorem, and Fermat’s Little Theorem is important in number theory. Unfortunately, there’s already a computer algebra system with that name.

    So I decided to find a name in the same vein as “Ruby” and “Crystal”. I looked at the Wikipedia page for “gemstones” for some inspiration. A lot of the names of gemstones are already taken. I considered some obscure gemstones, but saw the word “brilliant” and thought it was decent. It’s not the name of another gemstone, but still evokes some similarity to Ruby and Crystal.

    So that’s the name for now. Perhaps I’ll decide to change it at some point in the future, but I needed a name for the project, as well as a file extension for source code files. I chose “bril” for that. I suppose “br” would be a better choice. Perhaps I’ll change that before the next article in this series.

    Future

    @@ -116,7 +116,7 @@

    Future

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Brilliant, Languages
    @@ -130,10 +130,10 @@

    - + @@ -145,7 +145,7 @@

    Cool! Creating a programming language is very fun and you learn a lot in the process. It can sometimes be frustrating and very challenging. The most important thing is to never give up. I’m really curious about the syntax and semantic you have in mind. Good luck!

    -
    Reply
    +
    Reply
    @@ -153,7 +153,7 @@

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    @@ -166,14 +166,14 @@

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    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ - - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@
    -

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    +

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    @@ -97,7 +97,7 @@

    Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    +

    So when I was learning about Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    class User
   include Virtus.model
 end
    @@ -120,13 +120,13 @@

    Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

    +

    The use of this idiom seems to be catching on a bit in the Ruby community. I’ve started using it myself, and will be adding it to my Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

     

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Ruby2 Comments on Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    @@ -135,52 +135,52 @@

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    @@ -191,21 +191,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
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    BoochTek, LLC

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    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -102,7 +102,7 @@

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    But that’s not valid Ruby; include doesn’t let you pass anything other than a module.

    -

    So when I was learning about Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    +

    So when I was learning about Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    class User
   include Virtus.model
 end
    @@ -125,13 +125,13 @@

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    We could even pass a block. But how do we process those options? There are a few different ways. However we do it, we have to be sure to return a module. And we can create modules in a few different ways.

    Virtus uses the builder pattern. It takes the parameters passed in and builds a module dynamically. By that, I mean that it calls Module.new and then adds methods to that module. It does this by mixing in other modules, but it could do it by dynamically defining methods as well.

    I’ve never seen this pattern in any other language. It’s obviously only possible because we can dynamically create modules.

    -

    The use of this idiom seems to be catching on a bit in the Ruby community. I’ve started using it myself, and will be adding it to my Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

    +

    The use of this idiom seems to be catching on a bit in the Ruby community. I’ve started using it myself, and will be adding it to my Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

     

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Ruby
    @@ -145,10 +145,10 @@

    - + @@ -167,16 +167,16 @@

    -
    Reply
    +
    Reply
  • +
    Reply
    • @@ -211,7 +211,7 @@

    -

    Leave a Reply

    +

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    @@ -224,14 +224,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

    Post navigation

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    - - + + - - - + + + - - - - + + + + - - + + - - + +
    @@ -69,8 +69,8 @@

    Main menu

    @@ -79,7 +79,7 @@

    Post navigation

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    - Posted on by
    + Posted on by
    @@ -94,7 +94,7 @@

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    include MyORM::Model, table: 'people' end

    But that’s not valid Ruby; include doesn’t let you pass anything other than a module.

    -

    So when I was learning about Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    +

    So when I was learning about Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    class User
   include Virtus.model
 end
    @@ -117,13 +117,13 @@

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    We could even pass a block. But how do we process those options? There are a few different ways. However we do it, we have to be sure to return a module. And we can create modules in a few different ways.

    Virtus uses the builder pattern. It takes the parameters passed in and builds a module dynamically. By that, I mean that it calls Module.new and then adds methods to that module. It does this by mixing in other modules, but it could do it by dynamically defining methods as well.

    I’ve never seen this pattern in any other language. It’s obviously only possible because we can dynamically create modules.

    -

    The use of this idiom seems to be catching on a bit in the Ruby community. I’ve started using it myself, and will be adding it to my Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

    +

    The use of this idiom seems to be catching on a bit in the Ruby community. I’ve started using it myself, and will be adding it to my Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

     

     

    @@ -139,7 +139,7 @@

    - Amos King on said: + Amos King on said:
    @@ -164,7 +164,7 @@

    - + - - - - + + + + - - + + - - + + @@ -40,15 +40,15 @@
    @@ -70,8 +70,8 @@

    Main menu

    @@ -80,7 +80,7 @@

    Post navigation

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    - Posted on by
    + Posted on by
    @@ -95,7 +95,7 @@

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    include MyORM::Model, table: 'people' end

    But that’s not valid Ruby; include doesn’t let you pass anything other than a module.

    -

    So when I was learning about Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    +

    So when I was learning about Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    class User
   include Virtus.model
 end
    @@ -118,13 +118,13 @@

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    We could even pass a block. But how do we process those options? There are a few different ways. However we do it, we have to be sure to return a module. And we can create modules in a few different ways.

    Virtus uses the builder pattern. It takes the parameters passed in and builds a module dynamically. By that, I mean that it calls Module.new and then adds methods to that module. It does this by mixing in other modules, but it could do it by dynamically defining methods as well.

    I’ve never seen this pattern in any other language. It’s obviously only possible because we can dynamically create modules.

    -

    The use of this idiom seems to be catching on a bit in the Ruby community. I’ve started using it myself, and will be adding it to my Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

    +

    The use of this idiom seems to be catching on a bit in the Ruby community. I’ve started using it myself, and will be adding it to my Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

     

     

    @@ -140,7 +140,7 @@

    - Amos King on said: + Amos King on said:
    @@ -165,7 +165,7 @@

    - + - - - - + + + + - - + + - - + + @@ -40,15 +40,15 @@
    @@ -70,8 +70,8 @@

    Main menu

    @@ -80,7 +80,7 @@

    Post navigation

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    - Posted on by
    + Posted on by
    @@ -95,7 +95,7 @@

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    include MyORM::Model, table: 'people' end

    But that’s not valid Ruby; include doesn’t let you pass anything other than a module.

    -

    So when I was learning about Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    +

    So when I was learning about Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    class User
   include Virtus.model
 end
    @@ -118,13 +118,13 @@

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    We could even pass a block. But how do we process those options? There are a few different ways. However we do it, we have to be sure to return a module. And we can create modules in a few different ways.

    Virtus uses the builder pattern. It takes the parameters passed in and builds a module dynamically. By that, I mean that it calls Module.new and then adds methods to that module. It does this by mixing in other modules, but it could do it by dynamically defining methods as well.

    I’ve never seen this pattern in any other language. It’s obviously only possible because we can dynamically create modules.

    -

    The use of this idiom seems to be catching on a bit in the Ruby community. I’ve started using it myself, and will be adding it to my Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

    +

    The use of this idiom seems to be catching on a bit in the Ruby community. I’ve started using it myself, and will be adding it to my Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

     

     

    @@ -140,7 +140,7 @@

    - Amos King on said: + Amos King on said:
    @@ -165,7 +165,7 @@

    - + @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ - - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@
    -

    TDD Is Alive And Well

    +

    TDD Is Alive And Well

    -

    I went to RailsConf this year, and the very first talk was a keynote by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), the creator of Ruby on Rails. The TL;DR of his talk was “TDD rarely has value”. He followed up with a blog post the next day, titled “TDD is dead. Long live testing.“, and 2 more posts. I think this line of thought is terribly misguided, and causing more harm than good. This article is my response.

    +

    I went to RailsConf this year, and the very first talk was a keynote by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), the creator of Ruby on Rails. The TL;DR of his talk was “TDD rarely has value”. He followed up with a blog post the next day, titled “TDD is dead. Long live testing.“, and 2 more posts. I think this line of thought is terribly misguided, and causing more harm than good. This article is my response.

    First, I would like to address the good points of the talk. He said that programming is pseudoscience, and that people want to tell us that there’s a secret to being a better programmer. But what it really takes is working hard — reading a lot of code, writing a lot of code, and rewriting a lot of code. He’s right. And I also agree with him that you should forget about patterns for a while when learning to code. Beginners try to throw patterns at a problem instead of letting the patterns emerge where they’re supposed to.

    I don’t completely agree that programming is a pseudoscience. In some ways it is, but I think it’s more of a craft. It’s a craft, because there’s a lot of science involved, but there’s also an art to doing it well. And like any craft, you’re always working to get better. So to respond to DHH’s stance that “software is more like poetry than physics”, I think it falls
    somewhere in between.

    With regard to the software engineering practices we use, there really isn’t much science available, mostly because it’s a soft science. That is, it’s really hard to isolate a single variable when comparing code between projects. And nobody has the time or money to write the same code so many times that the differences would be statistically significant.

    -

    So we don’t have much science on TDD. But we do have some. Here’s a collection of several: StudiesOfTestDrivenDevelopment. And here’s one that explicitly looks are the difference between test-first and test-last: Does Test-Driven Development Really Improve Software Design Quality? What do these tell us? They tell us that TDD costs us about 10-30% in short-term productivity; reduces bugs by 30-90%, and decreases code complexity by about 30%. As Code Complete tells us (in section 20.5, with studies to back it up), improving quality reduces development costs. So, like most Agile practices, this is a case where spending a bit more time in the short term leads to time savings in the long term.

    +

    So we don’t have much science on TDD. But we do have some. Here’s a collection of several: StudiesOfTestDrivenDevelopment. And here’s one that explicitly looks are the difference between test-first and test-last: Does Test-Driven Development Really Improve Software Design Quality? What do these tell us? They tell us that TDD costs us about 10-30% in short-term productivity; reduces bugs by 30-90%, and decreases code complexity by about 30%. As Code Complete tells us (in section 20.5, with studies to back it up), improving quality reduces development costs. So, like most Agile practices, this is a case where spending a bit more time in the short term leads to time savings in the long term.

    The more important lesson in the talk was that you have to do what works best for you and your situation. If TDD doesn’t give better results, then either find out how to make it give better results, or stop using it. As we often say in the Agile world, Agile doesn’t mean that you can stop using your brain. While I think TDD is appropriate in most situations, there are cases where it’s not worth the additional up-front cost. If the most important thing for your project is time-to-market, then not testing might be the right decision for you.

    To me, TDD provides a bunch of benefits. First and foremost, TDD is a design discipline. It ensures that I think about how my code will be used before I think about how to implement it. This is very powerful in ensuring that the code is well-written from the perspective of other code using it.

    Tested code provides confidence to be able to make changes without breaking things. If we write tests after the code, we’re less likely to write them. Tests written after the code also tend to test the implementation instead of the desired functionality. What we really want is tests written as a specification. With tests as a specification, we can come back later and understand why code was written. Without tests, or with poor tests, we can’t understand why the code is there; if we want to rewrite it, we don’t have the confidence that we’re not missing something. Writing tests first also ensures that we only write the code that is needed to implement the required functionality.

    @@ -99,17 +99,17 @@

    Monogamous TDD by Uncle Bob Martin -
  • When TDD doesn’t work by Uncle Bob Martin
    • -
  • RIP TDD by Kent Beck
    • -
  • How testability can help by Tom Stuart
    • -
  • This Agile Life Episode 47 (including myself)
    • +
  • Monogamous TDD by Uncle Bob Martin
    • +
  • When TDD doesn’t work by Uncle Bob Martin
    • +
  • RIP TDD by Kent Beck
    • +
  • How testability can help by Tom Stuart
    • +
  • This Agile Life Episode 47 (including myself)

    •  

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Ruby on Rails, TDD2 Comments on TDD Is Alive And Well

    @@ -118,52 +118,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -174,21 +174,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress

    - + - - + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -91,12 +91,12 @@

    TDD Is Alive And Well

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Ruby on Rails, TDD

  • - Pingback: (Pros/Cons of Testing & TDD) The Price is Right – Ep. 83 | This Agile Life
    + Pingback: (Pros/Cons of Testing & TDD) The Price is Right – Ep. 83 | This Agile Life
    • @@ -138,7 +138,7 @@

    -

    Leave a Reply

    +

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    @@ -151,14 +151,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

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    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ - - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ +

    Hexagonal Rails Controllers

    I’ve had a long love-hate relationship with Rails. I love the MVC framework and how it’s improved our speed of writing web apps. But I’ve never really been completely happy with it. I don’t generally agree with most of its opinions. I prefer models that follow the Data Mapper pattern, not the Active Record pattern. This includes separating the persistence layer from the models’ business logic. I prefer Slim or HAML to ERB. I prefer RSpec to Test::Unit or MiniTest. When Merb hit the scene, I was ready to make the jump, until Merb merged with Rails.

    -

    So inspired by PJ Hagerty’s recent article on alternative Ruby web frameworks, I started thinking about how I’d write a replacement for Rails. I’d definitely keep the basic MVC framework. But I’d also want to implement a more hexagonal architecture.

    +

    So inspired by PJ Hagerty’s recent article on alternative Ruby web frameworks, I started thinking about how I’d write a replacement for Rails. I’d definitely keep the basic MVC framework. But I’d also want to implement a more hexagonal architecture.

    I started sketching out what this would look like, but I ended up starting with a Rails controller and finding the simplest way to make it hexagonal. I really don’t like callbacks, because they make tracing program execution difficult. But I didn’t see any other alternative. I found a simple pub/sub Ruby library called Wisper. It literally has only publish, subscribe, and on methods. (You use on to register single callbacks via blocks, and subscribe to register an object with method names corresponding to the callback names.)

    -

    The trick was figuring out how to break the controller into 2 pieces. What finally helped me was to find the single responsibilities of the 2 pieces. The Rails controller would remain in charge of managing the web interface, but would delegate to the other piece to handle any application-specific business logic. I decided to re-watch Uncle Bob Martin’s “Architecture The Lost Years” talk, which was the first time I was introduced to the ideas of Hexagonal Architecture. (He doesn’t name the architecture in the talk, but later calls it Clean Architecture.) He does a decent job of explaining how to break these 2 pieces apart. He used the term “interactor” in that talk, so I decided to go with that. He said that Jacobsen calls it a Control Object in Object Oriented Software Engineering, but that’s too close to Rails’s “controller”.

    +

    The trick was figuring out how to break the controller into 2 pieces. What finally helped me was to find the single responsibilities of the 2 pieces. The Rails controller would remain in charge of managing the web interface, but would delegate to the other piece to handle any application-specific business logic. I decided to re-watch Uncle Bob Martin’s “Architecture The Lost Years” talk, which was the first time I was introduced to the ideas of Hexagonal Architecture. (He doesn’t name the architecture in the talk, but later calls it Clean Architecture.) He does a decent job of explaining how to break these 2 pieces apart. He used the term “interactor” in that talk, so I decided to go with that. He said that Jacobsen calls it a Control Object in Object Oriented Software Engineering, but that’s too close to Rails’s “controller”.

    So here’s an example of what I ended up with:

    class OrderController < ApplicationController
   def index
@@ -127,27 +127,27 @@ 
    Trailblazer does it that way. And for more complicated business logic, I would do that too, using the Method Object pattern. But like a Rails controller, there’s a lot in common among all the operations. I feel like a separate class for each operation for each would create too many coupled classes.
    
+
    I do have a few problems with this solution though. I’m not a fan of the name “interactor” for the business logic. I thought about calling it OrderOperator, or maybe OrderOperations, because it’s really a collection of operations. Perhaps it would be better to separate each operation into a separate class. Trailblazer does it that way. And for more complicated business logic, I would do that too, using the Method Object pattern. But like a Rails controller, there’s a lot in common among all the operations. I feel like a separate class for each operation for each would create too many coupled classes.
    
 
    I’m also uncomfortable with the fact that the controller is delegating almost everything to the interactor. I guess this is OK, but it feels like there’s too little left when every line starts with interactor. I suppose extracting things some more would help mitigate this concern I’ll likely write a small gem to perform that extraction. I expect that that will allow a typical controller to be written in only a few lines. And maybe the same for the interactor side.
    
 
    With the business logic extracted out of the controller, it was really easy for me to write a command-line version of the app. As Uncle Bob says, “the web is not particularly important to your application.”
    
-
    I’ve put the code for this example on GitHub: https://github.com/boochtek/hexagonal-rails. I’ll likely experiment with it some more over the next few weeks and months.
    
+
    I’ve put the code for this example on GitHub: https://github.com/boochtek/hexagonal-rails. I’ll likely experiment with it some more over the next few weeks and months.
    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Hexagonal Rails Controllers
    -

    Resolutions

    +

    Resolutions

    January kept me pretty busy, so I’m a little late to this. But better late than never. And as an Agile practitioner, I don’t think personal retrospectives should be limited to one time of year.

    Review of 2014

    -

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    +

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    Plans for 2015

    I’d like to keep things rolling from last year, but crank up a few things. My plans are quite ambitious, so I don’t expect to get everything done by any means. But I think by setting the bar high, I’ll end up with a lot I can be proud of.

    Job Hunting

    @@ -155,10 +155,10 @@

    Job Hunting

    Conferences

    I was incredibly nervous leading up to my RubyConf presentation. Part of that was just the common fear of public speaking. For me, that only kicks in at around 100 people, and this audience was around 250. I think another reason was that I chose a really ambitious topic, and I kept finding more that I wanted to talk about, but wasn’t prepared for. But I think I did a pretty good job presenting an advanced topic. And I was so pumped by the sense of accomplishment as soon as I finished. So I’m hoping to do it more. I’ve already submitted a couple proposals, and plan to submit several more.

    Blogging

    -

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    -

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    +

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    +

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    Programming Language Design

    -

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    +

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    I’m also going to spend a lot of time learning a bunch more programming languages, so I have a better understanding of possible features, combinations of features, and their interactions. I’ve already start with Elixir, Clojure, and Racket. I’m hoping to also look at OCaml, Factor, and Haskell. I’ll probably also take a look at the 2 “Seven Languages in Seven Weeks” books.

    Agile Book

    I think people often have trouble getting started with Agile. I started on a book last year, and got down quite a lot of good ideas. But I realized that I’m going to have a hard time organizing all those ideas into something coherent. Still, I’d like to try to get something out there that lets people get started with Agile. My idea is to present a toolbox of practices to get started with and build on that foundation over time with additional practices. Sort of a playbook on how to get started over the first 6 to 12 months and be successful. I want to make some progress on the book, at least enough to decide whether it’s worth the effort to finish it and self-publish it.

    @@ -166,7 +166,7 @@

    Agile Book

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Blogging, Brilliant, Resolutions, SecurityLeave a comment on Resolutions
    @@ -175,52 +175,52 @@

    Agile Book

    @@ -231,21 +231,21 @@

    Agile Book

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -93,7 +93,7 @@

    Resolutions

    January kept me pretty busy, so I’m a little late to this. But better late than never. And as an Agile practitioner, I don’t think personal retrospectives should be limited to one time of year.

    Review of 2014

    -

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    +

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    Plans for 2015

    I’d like to keep things rolling from last year, but crank up a few things. My plans are quite ambitious, so I don’t expect to get everything done by any means. But I think by setting the bar high, I’ll end up with a lot I can be proud of.

    Job Hunting

    @@ -101,10 +101,10 @@

    Job Hunting

    Conferences

    I was incredibly nervous leading up to my RubyConf presentation. Part of that was just the common fear of public speaking. For me, that only kicks in at around 100 people, and this audience was around 250. I think another reason was that I chose a really ambitious topic, and I kept finding more that I wanted to talk about, but wasn’t prepared for. But I think I did a pretty good job presenting an advanced topic. And I was so pumped by the sense of accomplishment as soon as I finished. So I’m hoping to do it more. I’ve already submitted a couple proposals, and plan to submit several more.

    Blogging

    -

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    -

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    +

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    +

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    Programming Language Design

    -

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    +

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    I’m also going to spend a lot of time learning a bunch more programming languages, so I have a better understanding of possible features, combinations of features, and their interactions. I’ve already start with Elixir, Clojure, and Racket. I’m hoping to also look at OCaml, Factor, and Haskell. I’ll probably also take a look at the 2 “Seven Languages in Seven Weeks” books.

    Agile Book

    I think people often have trouble getting started with Agile. I started on a book last year, and got down quite a lot of good ideas. But I realized that I’m going to have a hard time organizing all those ideas into something coherent. Still, I’d like to try to get something out there that lets people get started with Agile. My idea is to present a toolbox of practices to get started with and build on that foundation over time with additional practices. Sort of a playbook on how to get started over the first 6 to 12 months and be successful. I want to make some progress on the book, at least enough to decide whether it’s worth the effort to finish it and self-publish it.

    @@ -112,7 +112,7 @@

    Agile Book

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Blogging, Brilliant, Resolutions, Security
    @@ -120,7 +120,7 @@

    Agile Book

    -

    Leave a Reply

    +

    Leave a Reply

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    @@ -133,14 +133,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

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    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -92,9 +92,9 @@

    Hexagonal Rails Controllers

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on Rails
    @@ -147,7 +147,7 @@

    Hexagonal Rails Controllers

    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ - - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@
    -

    The Power of 1%

    +

    The Power of 1%

    -

    I frequently participate in a podcast called This Agile Life. Recently, a listener asked how much time Agile teams should spend on self improvement. I said 10% to 25%, leaning towards 15% to 20% for most teams. That comes to at least one hour per day, and maybe even more than one day per week.

    +

    I frequently participate in a podcast called This Agile Life. Recently, a listener asked how much time Agile teams should spend on self improvement. I said 10% to 25%, leaning towards 15% to 20% for most teams. That comes to at least one hour per day, and maybe even more than one day per week.

    I’m including personal self improvement and team retrospectives in this self-improvement time. This can be as simple as configuring your IDE to make you more efficient, learning to use a tool better, or following up on action items from a retro.

    That may seem like a lot of time “wasted”. But I think I can justify the cost of all that time.

    The purpose of spending time on team or self-improvement — the whole point — is to increase our performance and our efficiency. How much improvement can we expect? Can we improve by 1% each week? That doesn’t sound too unreasonable. I think that’s an achievable goal for almost any team, at least on average.

    @@ -99,7 +99,7 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile

    @@ -108,52 +108,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -164,21 +164,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress

    - + - - + + @@ -44,18 +44,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -66,7 +66,7 @@
    -

    I frequently participate in a podcast called This Agile Life. Recently, a listener asked how much time Agile teams should spend on self improvement. I said 10% to 25%, leaning towards 15% to 20% for most teams. That comes to at least one hour per day, and maybe even more than one day per week.

    +

    I frequently participate in a podcast called This Agile Life. Recently, a listener asked how much time Agile teams should spend on self improvement. I said 10% to 25%, leaning towards 15% to 20% for most teams. That comes to at least one hour per day, and maybe even more than one day per week.

    I’m including personal self improvement and team retrospectives in this self-improvement time. This can be as simple as configuring your IDE to make you more efficient, learning to use a tool better, or following up on action items from a retro.

    That may seem like a lot of time “wasted”. But I think I can justify the cost of all that time.

    The purpose of spending time on team or self-improvement — the whole point — is to increase our performance and our efficiency. How much improvement can we expect? Can we improve by 1% each week? That doesn’t sound too unreasonable. I think that’s an achievable goal for almost any team, at least on average.

    @@ -99,19 +99,19 @@

    The Power of 1%

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile @@ -201,21 +201,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -46,18 +46,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -68,7 +68,7 @@

    I ran into some former colleagues recently, from a company where I had worked to help transform the team to be more Agile. They’ve gone through some reorganization and management changes recently. One of the guys said that their team culture has helped them maintain quality in the face of those changes. This struck me as odd, since I had considered the work I had done there as somewhat of a disappointment. While I felt I had made a small dent, I didn’t feel like I’d made a true Agile transformation. Much of what I had taught didn’t seem to “stick”.

    Later that night I thought about why my opinion of the team and his opinion were so different. There are a lot of reasons why an Agile “transformation” could fail. It could be due to lack of support from management. Or even worse, not getting the team members to buy into the ideas — usually due to fear of change. But while those had some effect in this case, they weren’t really the main issues. Now that I’ve had some time and some distance from that team, I’ve gained some clarity on what the real issues were.

    I think the reason that I think this transformation was a failure was due to the continued pace of change that true Agile requires. Basically the team experienced “change fatigue”, where everything keeps changing and you feel like you can never catch your breath. But the more interesting thing is how our perceptions differed. He seemed to think that the transformation was a success — they’re doing things better than they used to. I view it as more of a failure, because they basically stopped improving — at least at the pace that I was hoping for.

    -

    I think this difference in mindset is pretty fundamental. My view of Agile involves continuous improvement — always inspecting and adapting our processes. I suppose that means that my preferred flavor of Agile is “Kaizen“. But other people don’t see improvement and change as a constant — they see each change as a means to an end. I’m starting to realize that neither viewpoint is objectively correct. Maybe they’re both fine viewpoints to have. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself and view that engagement as a failure, especially if my teammates view it as a success. Maybe perfection is the enemy of the good. And maybe I need to learn to be happy with “good enough”.

    +

    I think this difference in mindset is pretty fundamental. My view of Agile involves continuous improvement — always inspecting and adapting our processes. I suppose that means that my preferred flavor of Agile is “Kaizen“. But other people don’t see improvement and change as a constant — they see each change as a means to an end. I’m starting to realize that neither viewpoint is objectively correct. Maybe they’re both fine viewpoints to have. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself and view that engagement as a failure, especially if my teammates view it as a success. Maybe perfection is the enemy of the good. And maybe I need to learn to be happy with “good enough”.

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile
    @@ -104,7 +104,7 @@

    Good Enough

    -

    Leave a Reply

    +

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    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    @@ -117,14 +117,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

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    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -46,18 +46,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, TDD
    @@ -112,10 +112,10 @@

    - Neem says:
    + Neem says:

    - + @@ -127,16 +127,16 @@

    I think it’s important for people to realize that TDD is *really* hard when you’re first learning how to just code in general. In that case, I think it’s useful to let people spike out something and figure out how to do it and then redo it test first. I’ve always had a hard time when people will tell me to do it test-first, and I’m sitting there thinking that I don’t even know how to do it without tests much less test-first. Luckily, I stuck with it, but I know a lot of beginners who got burnt out on that.

    -
    Reply
    +
    Reply
  • +
    Reply
    • @@ -159,7 +159,7 @@

    -

    Leave a Reply

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    @@ -172,14 +172,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

    Post navigation

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    +

    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -46,18 +46,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile
    @@ -106,7 +106,7 @@

    From Agile To Happiness

    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ - - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@
    -

    Not Quite Callbacks

    +

    Not Quite Callbacks

    -

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    +

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    The problem is that we used callbacks (actually, a publish/subscribe mechanism) in a situation where they don’t seem to quite fit:

      def show
     interactor.on(:display) { |order| render order }
@@ -94,14 +94,14 @@ 
    Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:
    
+
    I discussed this problem with my friend and colleague, Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:
    
 
      def show
     interactor.get(params[:id]) do |on|
       on.display { |order| render order }
       on.not_found { |order_id| render status: 404 }
     end
   end
    
-
    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.
    
+
    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.
    
 
    Riposte also gives you the option of using the response object directly, instead of passing a block:
    
 
      def show
     on = interactor.get(params[:id])
@@ -113,25 +113,25 @@ 
    
-		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Not Quite Callbacks			
+		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Not Quite Callbacks
    -

    Architectural Thoughts

    +

    Architectural Thoughts

    -

    I’ve started working on my own framework in Ruby in the past couple days. It’s built upon my recent work at understanding Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest 2011 talk, and his article on Clean Architecture, and the resulting hexagonal architecture (AKA ports and adapters).

    -

    Somehow my research in that vein led me to Gary Bernhardt’s Boundaries talk. I’ve read a lot about the talk, and knew about the idea of “functional core / imperative shell”. And I’ve worked with a lot of similar ideas lately. But I believe this is the first time that I actually watched the whole video.

    +

    I’ve started working on my own framework in Ruby in the past couple days. It’s built upon my recent work at understanding Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest 2011 talk, and his article on Clean Architecture, and the resulting hexagonal architecture (AKA ports and adapters).

    +

    Somehow my research in that vein led me to Gary Bernhardt’s Boundaries talk. I’ve read a lot about the talk, and knew about the idea of “functional core / imperative shell”. And I’ve worked with a lot of similar ideas lately. But I believe this is the first time that I actually watched the whole video.

    Even after having read a lot about similar ideas, it was pretty mind-expanding. Gary’s really good at presenting these kinds of ideas in a simple way.

    OOP as usually taught includes encapsulation of data together with behavior, with mutable objects. Functional programming separates data and behavior, with mostly immutable data. From experience, encapsulating data and behavior together seems helpful. But experience also shows that immutability is useful. So it would be good to have both of those together. This is something I’ve been thinking for a few years — how best do we get both?

    Gary calls the combination “FauxO”. Logic and data are still combined, but there’s no mutation. Anywhere OOP would normally have mutation would just generate a new object. There’s no language restriction involved in enforcing immutability — just discipline.

    But without mutability, it’s hard to do IO and maintain state. So Gary’s solution is to encapsulate as much as possible into an immutable (functional or FauxO) core, and around that, use an imperative (traditional OOP) shell. The functional core contains the bulk of the logic, and the imperative shell is a glue layer that handles the real world, including disk, network, and other I/O.

    The result of this is that the shell has fewer paths, but more dependencies. The core contains no dependencies, but encapsulates the different logic paths. So we’re encapsulating dependencies on one side, and business logic on the other side. Or put another way, the way to figure out the separation is by doing as much as you can without mutation, and then encapsulating the mutation separately.

    -

    I love how this naturally breaks things up, so that the core is all testable with unit tests, and the imperative shell is tested with integration tests. And since the shell has few or no logic paths, you get the testing pyramid, with more unit tests and fewer integration tests. The whole thing ends up being quite beautiful. Tests end up being very fast without any extra effort — not even stubbing or mocking. This tells us that things have been decomposed very well — an elegant design.

    +

    I love how this naturally breaks things up, so that the core is all testable with unit tests, and the imperative shell is tested with integration tests. And since the shell has few or no logic paths, you get the testing pyramid, with more unit tests and fewer integration tests. The whole thing ends up being quite beautiful. Tests end up being very fast without any extra effort — not even stubbing or mocking. This tells us that things have been decomposed very well — an elegant design.

    Gary makes the case that immutable objects can be treated as values, and passed across boundaries. Even process boundaries. This is something I’ve noticed as I’ve been working on my own Uncle Bob style hexagonal framework, but nobody in that camp ever mentioned that — they prefer DTOs or something more like hashes. I’m completely against hashes, because of the “stringly-typed” problem. And I don’t see much advantage in a DTO if I’ve got an immutable object; I’d be basically copying the object to an almost identical object. And I’d be losing any laziness possible for derived values within the original immutable object.

    It’s striking to me how Gary’s image of an imperative shell around a functional core, plus Net, Disk, and State outside of the shell mirror’s Uncle Bob’s concentric circles. Uncle Bob has entities in the middle, surrounded by use cases, surrounded by Web, DB, and UI.

    Another advantage that Gary shows is that breaking things up this way allows easy concurrency. In his example, he shows using the actor model — either just using threads and queues, or an actor library (or language feature).

    @@ -140,7 +140,7 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Programming, Ruby, Web DevelopmentLeave a comment on Architectural Thoughts + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Programming, Ruby, Web DevelopmentLeave a comment on Architectural Thoughts

    @@ -149,52 +149,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -205,21 +205,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -46,18 +46,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Programming, Ruby, Web Development
    @@ -112,7 +112,7 @@

    Architectural Thoughts

    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -46,18 +46,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -68,7 +68,7 @@
    -

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    +

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    The problem is that we used callbacks (actually, a publish/subscribe mechanism) in a situation where they don’t seem to quite fit:

      def show
     interactor.on(:display) { |order| render order }
@@ -96,14 +96,14 @@ 
    Not Quite Callbacks
    	
     interactor.get(params[:id])
   end

    What we really want is to respond in different ways, depending on the result of the call to interactor.get(). There’s no good reason to define the responses before the call. It makes a lot more sense to define the responses after the call, because they’ll happen after the call. I’d much prefer that the code be written in the order that it will be run.

    -

    I discussed this problem with my friend and colleague, Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:

    +

    I discussed this problem with my friend and colleague, Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:

      def show
     interactor.get(params[:id]) do |on|
       on.display { |order| render order }
       on.not_found { |order_id| render status: 404 }
     end
   end
    -

    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.

    +

    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.

    Riposte also gives you the option of using the response object directly, instead of passing a block:

      def show
     on = interactor.get(params[:id])
@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@ 
    Not Quite Callbacks
    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Ruby, Ruby on Rails
    @@ -123,7 +123,7 @@

    Not Quite Callbacks

    -

    Leave a Reply

    +

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    @@ -136,14 +136,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

    Post navigation

    -
    +

    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ - - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@
    -

    Potential F5 Vulnerability

    +

    Potential F5 Vulnerability

    @@ -94,14 +94,14 @@

    CVE-2002-0392), fixed by vendors long ago. After a while, we realized that if we hit the servers directly, we did not get the indication of a vulnerability. If we hit the site through the F5 VIP, we saw the immediate termination of the connection. The issue is with handling of HTTP chunked encoding. Nginx had a similar issue in 2013 (CVE-2013-2028).

    +

    At first, we thought this was caused by Apache or Tomcat, or possibly the application code. But the reported vulnerability was an Apache CVE from 2002 (CVE-2002-0392), fixed by vendors long ago. After a while, we realized that if we hit the servers directly, we did not get the indication of a vulnerability. If we hit the site through the F5 VIP, we saw the immediate termination of the connection. The issue is with handling of HTTP chunked encoding. Nginx had a similar issue in 2013 (CVE-2013-2028).

    So we turned our attention to the F5 load balancers. We were able to confirm that other sites using F5 load balancers were exhibiting the same behavior. We also confirmed that WebInspect run against the servers directly did not show the issue (even as a false positive). We reported the issue to F5, and they are looking into it.

    I’m disclosing this publicly now for a few reasons. First, I’m not a security researcher, and almost nobody follows my blog — especially people looking for security issues that could be exploited. Second, I’ve not developed a payload, so I have no idea whether this is exploitable. But at this point, it’s merely a potential vulnerability. I’m not sure I’ll even spend the time to research and create a payload to prove the vulnerability. If I do, I’ll be more careful with the disclosure.

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories SecurityLeave a comment on Potential F5 Vulnerability

    @@ -110,52 +110,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -166,21 +166,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -46,18 +46,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Security
    @@ -111,7 +111,7 @@

    Potential F5 Vulnerability

    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ - - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ +

    The Problem With Estimates

    @@ -113,13 +113,13 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Estimation2 Comments on The Problem With Estimates + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Estimation2 Comments on The Problem With Estimates @@ -452,52 +452,52 @@

    Maintenance

    @@ -508,21 +508,21 @@

    Maintenance

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -46,18 +46,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Estimation
    @@ -132,10 +132,10 @@

    - Fredrik says:
    + Fredrik says:

    - + @@ -148,16 +148,16 @@

    Really?

    -
    Reply
    +
    Reply
  • +
    Reply
    • @@ -177,7 +177,7 @@

    -

    Leave a Reply

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    @@ -190,14 +190,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

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    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ - - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ +

    Show and Tell

    @@ -95,13 +95,13 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories AgileLeave a comment on Show and Tell + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories AgileLeave a comment on Show and Tell
    -

    Impromptu Retrospective

    +

    Impromptu Retrospective

    -

    I’m surprised that I haven’t gotten this story down in print before. It’s something I’ve mentioned many times — including a few times on the podcast. It’s a great story about the power of retrospectives, and it’s a great story about the power of a blameless post-mortem.

    -

    I don’t recall all the specifics at this point. It was about 5 years ago. I’d just noticed that Arun had made some sort of mistake. That’s fine, people make mistakes. The thing that was different about his mistake was that I had made the same mistake about a week prior. And Amos had made the same mistake about a week before that.

    +

    I’m surprised that I haven’t gotten this story down in print before. It’s something I’ve mentioned many times — including a few times on the podcast. It’s a great story about the power of retrospectives, and it’s a great story about the power of a blameless post-mortem.

    +

    I don’t recall all the specifics at this point. It was about 5 years ago. I’d just noticed that Arun had made some sort of mistake. That’s fine, people make mistakes. The thing that was different about his mistake was that I had made the same mistake about a week prior. And Amos had made the same mistake about a week before that.

    Noticing a pattern of mistakes, Amos and I called an impromptu retrospective. We gathered all the developers into a conference room. We explained the problem that we were running into. At first, Arun was defensive. That’s understandable; he thought we were there to come down on him, to lay blame. But we made it clear that we weren’t focusing on him. We admitted that we had also made the same mistake recently. We weren’t there to lay blame; we were there to figure out how our team could stop making the mistake. It took Arun a few minutes to get over the defensiveness.

    With the defensiveness out of the way, we could focus on the issue at hand. We were able to figure out the root cause of us all making the mistake. (I don’t know if we played the “5 whys” game, but I’m sure we effectively did something similar.) And with that, we were able to change our process, so that nobody else would make the same mistake again.

    There are 2 important points to this story. First, you don’t have to wait until a scheduled retrospective to hold a retrospective. This one was impromptu, and it’s the best one we ever had. We saw a problem, addressed it, and found a solution in less than an hour. Had we waited until the end of the week, we would have forgotten some of the details, and wouldn’t have been as effective at solving the problem. Second, when addressing problems, take your ego out of the equation. If you’re in a position of authority, take the blame — but never place blame. Focus on what’s important — solving the problem.

    @@ -143,7 +143,7 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, RetrospectivesLeave a comment on Impromptu Retrospective + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, RetrospectivesLeave a comment on Impromptu Retrospective

    @@ -152,52 +152,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -208,21 +208,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -46,18 +46,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Retrospectives
    @@ -107,7 +107,7 @@

    Impromptu Retrospective

    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -106,7 +106,7 @@

    What would make you happier at work?

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Retrospectives
    @@ -114,7 +114,7 @@

    What would make you happier at work?

    -

    Leave a Reply

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    @@ -127,14 +127,14 @@

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    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -100,7 +100,7 @@

    Show and Tell

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile
    @@ -108,7 +108,7 @@

    Show and Tell

    -

    Leave a Reply

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    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ - - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ +

    2015 Year in Review

    -

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    +

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    • Job Hunting
    • Conferences
      • @@ -95,14 +95,14 @@

      Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      -

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      +

      I got pretty lucky on this one. My main contract with Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      +

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      Conferences

      -

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      -

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      -

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      +

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      +

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      +

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      Blogging

      -

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      +

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      I’m not so sure about the quality of my blog writing though. I know that practicing writing is supposed to make you better. I know I wrote some really good articles over the past year, but I think I also wrote some articles that weren’t very good. I think sometimes the deadline has caused more harm than good. I’m not really sure what to do about that; perhaps just pushing on is the right answer.

      Programming Language Design

      I’ve taken a lot of notes on the design of my programming language. Any time I learn something interesting about another language, or come up with another idea, I write it down.

      @@ -112,42 +112,42 @@

      Writing an Agile Book

      I’ve got some things to say about Agile, and want to write a book to express those ideas. I’ve made a start — I’ve got the chapters outlines, and have started on a few chapters. But I haven’t made as much progress as I’d like to. I shared what I’ve got with Amos, and he showed some interest in pairing with me on the writing. Hopefully we’ll work on it together in 2016 and publish it.

      Other

      There were a few other accomplishments that weren’t explicitly on my list, but I’d like to call attention to.

      -

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      -

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      -

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      +

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      +

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      +

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      Conclusion

      I’m pretty happy with my accomplishments this year. I made at least some progress on each of the goals I set. I’ve been thinking about my goals for next year; I’ll write that as a separate blog article next week.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging, Brilliant, Languages, Resolutions, RetrospectivesLeave a comment on 2015 Year in Review
    -

    Face Your Fears

    +

    Face Your Fears

    I’ve always been someone who faces my fears.

    -

    I have a moderate case of arachnophobia. I don’t run away when I see a spider, but it creeps my out when one is crawling on me. When I was in college, I decided to buy a tarantula to attempt to get over my irrational fear of spiders. I thought I’d be able to get more comfortable with the tarantula over time, eventually to the point of letting it crawl on my arm. It didn’t work. Although I did find that my fear of tarantulas is rational — I got a terrible case of hives just from touching the urticating hairs that fell off into its water sponge.

    -

    Last week, I was on vacation in Mexico. One of the excursions we took involved jumping in the water a lot. I’m not a strong swimmer — mostly because I have a hard time closing my nose; I hold my nose when I jump in. We zip-lined into the water a lot. At one point, there was a cliff to dive into the water from. It was about 15 feet above the water. It didn’t look so far down before jumping. But it felt like a really long way down the first time I jumped from it. It was pretty scary for me. So I did it a second time. There wasn’t any peer pressure to jump a second time. I literally jumped a second time specifically because I was scared.

    +

    I have a moderate case of arachnophobia. I don’t run away when I see a spider, but it creeps my out when one is crawling on me. When I was in college, I decided to buy a tarantula to attempt to get over my irrational fear of spiders. I thought I’d be able to get more comfortable with the tarantula over time, eventually to the point of letting it crawl on my arm. It didn’t work. Although I did find that my fear of tarantulas is rational — I got a terrible case of hives just from touching the urticating hairs that fell off into its water sponge.

    +

    Last week, I was on vacation in Mexico. One of the excursions we took involved jumping in the water a lot. I’m not a strong swimmer — mostly because I have a hard time closing my nose; I hold my nose when I jump in. We zip-lined into the water a lot. At one point, there was a cliff to dive into the water from. It was about 15 feet above the water. It didn’t look so far down before jumping. But it felt like a really long way down the first time I jumped from it. It was pretty scary for me. So I did it a second time. There wasn’t any peer pressure to jump a second time. I literally jumped a second time specifically because I was scared.

    Fear is a weird thing. Fear is there to protect us. But it’s there to protect us from the dangers of the African savannah. Most of the things our fears protect us from don’t exist in our everyday modern lives. So maybe we should work to gain a better understanding of how our fears work, to figure out when to pay attention to them and when to ignore them.

    -

    Fortunately, our brain has a good mechanism to help us do this. Our brains basically have 2 main processing systems. The first one is for quick reactions. This one involves things that are nearly reflexes. Fear is in this system. The second system is our analytical reasoning system. This system takes longer to process, but is able to take on more information.

    +

    Fortunately, our brain has a good mechanism to help us do this. Our brains basically have 2 main processing systems. The first one is for quick reactions. This one involves things that are nearly reflexes. Fear is in this system. The second system is our analytical reasoning system. This system takes longer to process, but is able to take on more information.

    Whenever the situation allows us time for both systems to work, we need to listen to them both. We need to listen to our fears, because they’re there for a reason. But that reason might not pertain to our situation. So we need to realize that, and let the slow analytical system determine if we should ignore our fears.

    If we don’t allow both systems to work, we’re not taking full advantage of our brains; we’re not taking full advantage of the situations that life is presenting to us.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories AgileLeave a comment on Face Your Fears
    @@ -211,52 +211,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -267,21 +267,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -119,7 +119,7 @@

    The Ultimate Optimization

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Programming
    @@ -127,7 +127,7 @@

    The Ultimate Optimization

    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -102,7 +102,7 @@

    Encouragement

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile
    @@ -110,7 +110,7 @@

    Encouragement

    -

    Leave a Reply

    +

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    @@ -123,14 +123,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

    Post navigation

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    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -92,16 +92,16 @@

    Face Your Fears

    I’ve always been someone who faces my fears.

    -

    I have a moderate case of arachnophobia. I don’t run away when I see a spider, but it creeps my out when one is crawling on me. When I was in college, I decided to buy a tarantula to attempt to get over my irrational fear of spiders. I thought I’d be able to get more comfortable with the tarantula over time, eventually to the point of letting it crawl on my arm. It didn’t work. Although I did find that my fear of tarantulas is rational — I got a terrible case of hives just from touching the urticating hairs that fell off into its water sponge.

    -

    Last week, I was on vacation in Mexico. One of the excursions we took involved jumping in the water a lot. I’m not a strong swimmer — mostly because I have a hard time closing my nose; I hold my nose when I jump in. We zip-lined into the water a lot. At one point, there was a cliff to dive into the water from. It was about 15 feet above the water. It didn’t look so far down before jumping. But it felt like a really long way down the first time I jumped from it. It was pretty scary for me. So I did it a second time. There wasn’t any peer pressure to jump a second time. I literally jumped a second time specifically because I was scared.

    +

    I have a moderate case of arachnophobia. I don’t run away when I see a spider, but it creeps my out when one is crawling on me. When I was in college, I decided to buy a tarantula to attempt to get over my irrational fear of spiders. I thought I’d be able to get more comfortable with the tarantula over time, eventually to the point of letting it crawl on my arm. It didn’t work. Although I did find that my fear of tarantulas is rational — I got a terrible case of hives just from touching the urticating hairs that fell off into its water sponge.

    +

    Last week, I was on vacation in Mexico. One of the excursions we took involved jumping in the water a lot. I’m not a strong swimmer — mostly because I have a hard time closing my nose; I hold my nose when I jump in. We zip-lined into the water a lot. At one point, there was a cliff to dive into the water from. It was about 15 feet above the water. It didn’t look so far down before jumping. But it felt like a really long way down the first time I jumped from it. It was pretty scary for me. So I did it a second time. There wasn’t any peer pressure to jump a second time. I literally jumped a second time specifically because I was scared.

    Fear is a weird thing. Fear is there to protect us. But it’s there to protect us from the dangers of the African savannah. Most of the things our fears protect us from don’t exist in our everyday modern lives. So maybe we should work to gain a better understanding of how our fears work, to figure out when to pay attention to them and when to ignore them.

    -

    Fortunately, our brain has a good mechanism to help us do this. Our brains basically have 2 main processing systems. The first one is for quick reactions. This one involves things that are nearly reflexes. Fear is in this system. The second system is our analytical reasoning system. This system takes longer to process, but is able to take on more information.

    +

    Fortunately, our brain has a good mechanism to help us do this. Our brains basically have 2 main processing systems. The first one is for quick reactions. This one involves things that are nearly reflexes. Fear is in this system. The second system is our analytical reasoning system. This system takes longer to process, but is able to take on more information.

    Whenever the situation allows us time for both systems to work, we need to listen to them both. We need to listen to our fears, because they’re there for a reason. But that reason might not pertain to our situation. So we need to realize that, and let the slow analytical system determine if we should ignore our fears.

    If we don’t allow both systems to work, we’re not taking full advantage of our brains; we’re not taking full advantage of the situations that life is presenting to us.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile
    @@ -109,7 +109,7 @@

    Face Your Fears

    -

    Leave a Reply

    +

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    @@ -122,14 +122,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

    Post navigation

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    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -48,18 +48,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -91,7 +91,7 @@

    2015 Year in Review

    -

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    +

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    • Job Hunting
    • Conferences
      • @@ -100,14 +100,14 @@

      2015 Year in Review

    • Writing an Agile Book

    Job Hunting

    -

    I got pretty lucky on this one. My main contract with Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

    -

    I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

    +

    I got pretty lucky on this one. My main contract with Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

    +

    I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

    Conferences

    -

    I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

    -

    I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

    -

    I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

    +

    I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

    +

    I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

    +

    I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

    Blogging

    -

    I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

    +

    I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

    I’m not so sure about the quality of my blog writing though. I know that practicing writing is supposed to make you better. I know I wrote some really good articles over the past year, but I think I also wrote some articles that weren’t very good. I think sometimes the deadline has caused more harm than good. I’m not really sure what to do about that; perhaps just pushing on is the right answer.

    Programming Language Design

    I’ve taken a lot of notes on the design of my programming language. Any time I learn something interesting about another language, or come up with another idea, I write it down.

    @@ -117,15 +117,15 @@

    Writing an Agile Book

    I’ve got some things to say about Agile, and want to write a book to express those ideas. I’ve made a start — I’ve got the chapters outlines, and have started on a few chapters. But I haven’t made as much progress as I’d like to. I shared what I’ve got with Amos, and he showed some interest in pairing with me on the writing. Hopefully we’ll work on it together in 2016 and publish it.

    Other

    There were a few other accomplishments that weren’t explicitly on my list, but I’d like to call attention to.

    -

    I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

    -

    I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

    -

    The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

    +

    I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

    +

    I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

    +

    The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

    Conclusion

    I’m pretty happy with my accomplishments this year. I made at least some progress on each of the goals I set. I’ve been thinking about my goals for next year; I’ll write that as a separate blog article next week.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging, Brilliant, Languages, Resolutions, Retrospectives
    @@ -133,7 +133,7 @@

    Conclusion

    -

    Leave a Reply

    +

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    @@ -146,14 +146,14 @@

    Leave a Reply

    Post navigation

    -
    +

    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ - - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@
    -

    Resolutions for 2016

    +

    Resolutions for 2016

    I’ve written up a list of career-related resolutions the past few years. I’ve been pretty successful meeting those goals, so I’m going to continue the tradition.

    Coding

    -

    I want to increase the Open Source code I write this year. That’s basically everything I write that’s not directly related to work.

    -

    I took over maintenance of Virtus late last year, but haven’t done a good job at finding the time for that. That’s probably more responding to issues on GitHub and merging pull requests. But eventually, I’ll likely add some features and do some refactoring.

    +

    I want to increase the Open Source code I write this year. That’s basically everything I write that’s not directly related to work.

    +

    I took over maintenance of Virtus late last year, but haven’t done a good job at finding the time for that. That’s probably more responding to issues on GitHub and merging pull requests. But eventually, I’ll likely add some features and do some refactoring.

    My goal is to work on 6 apps and libraries this year. That’s a pretty aggressive goal, but I want to focus on both learning new things and building some simple but useful things. Think MVP — focus on getting a lot of bang for not too much effort.

    I want to work on a new Rails app, to familiarize myself with Rails 5. I want to get some experience with some more modern gems. I also want to see if I can use some new techniques with a Rails app, especially things that might help us get closer to a hexagonal architecture. I’m also hoping to work with some different web frameworks — maybe Lotus, Rodakase, Trailblazer, or Phoenix. Or maybe one of the Crystal web frameworks.

    I also want to work on a couple Elm apps. I started the STL Elm group as an excuse to learn the language. I’d like to work on a Twitter client, that might eventually turn into a more general reading app. Beyond Twitter, it would keep track of things I want to read. The other Elm app I’d like to write is a game, based on the old Space Taxi game I loved to play on the Commodore 64.

    -

    I wrote a micro-ORM last year called Ruby Preserves. I’ve started converting that from working with raw SQL to sitting atop the awesome Sequel gem. The simplicity is still there so far, and basing it on Sequel has so far gone easier than I expected. But I haven’t figured out how to do relationships (JOINs) yet; that will be the real test.

    +

    I wrote a micro-ORM last year called Ruby Preserves. I’ve started converting that from working with raw SQL to sitting atop the awesome Sequel gem. The simplicity is still there so far, and basing it on Sequel has so far gone easier than I expected. But I haven’t figured out how to do relationships (JOINs) yet; that will be the real test.

    Conferences

    I’m pretty happy with my 2015 conference experience. I want to keep my conference level about the same. I don’t really want to commit to more talks than I gave last year. Conference presentations take a lot of time and energy to write and practice.

    I’m planning to go to RailsConf, RubyConf, and Strange Loop. I’m hoping to give a talk at each of those, if I can. But I’ll probably attend all of them even if I’m not speaking. I’m also submitting a talk to Agile 2016. I’m unlikely to go to any other conferences, and even more unlikely to give more than 4 conference talks.

    @@ -101,20 +101,20 @@

    Writing

    I really want to finish my Effective Agile book this year. I’m going to try to pull Amos in to pair with me on it occasionally, to move it forward. If I’m able to get it done, I’d also like to maybe write a book on Elm.

    I actually want to do less blogging this year. Well, sort of. I want to put coding and book writing ahead of blogging. If that means less blogging, I’m okay with that. So my goal for blogging is more like every other week. And when I do write a blog article, I’d rather it be related to some code I’m working on, something that I could use in my book, or some more in-depth thoughts about programming language design.

    Job Hunting

    -

    The contract I recently started at CenturyLink Cloud is open-ended, so I’ll likely be there for the entire year. I’m enjoying it so far; it’s a challenge, but I think I can make a significant impact. However, I’m really interested in moving to San Francisco in 2017. So I’m going to work on preparing for that in several ways.

    -

    I’m going to resurrect my LinkedIn account. I’ve neglected it for a few years now. I’ll make sure everything is up to date, and make some connections I’ve been putting off. I also want to reclaim my Stack Exchange and Hacker News accounts.

    -

    I’m going to pay a an expert to help me revamp my résumé. I think it’s pretty decent, but it could use some freshening up. I want it to stand out. I want to do a better job of explaining what I really do — which is to join a team to help them improve their processes and their technical skills.

    +

    The contract I recently started at CenturyLink Cloud is open-ended, so I’ll likely be there for the entire year. I’m enjoying it so far; it’s a challenge, but I think I can make a significant impact. However, I’m really interested in moving to San Francisco in 2017. So I’m going to work on preparing for that in several ways.

    +

    I’m going to resurrect my LinkedIn account. I’ve neglected it for a few years now. I’ll make sure everything is up to date, and make some connections I’ve been putting off. I also want to reclaim my Stack Exchange and Hacker News accounts.

    +

    I’m going to pay a an expert to help me revamp my résumé. I think it’s pretty decent, but it could use some freshening up. I want it to stand out. I want to do a better job of explaining what I really do — which is to join a team to help them improve their processes and their technical skills.

    I’ll also need to clean up all my web sites, so they look nice when people come to take a look at them. This includes my personal site, consulting business site, wiki, and blogs. I should also upgrade my server to the latest version of Debian, and use Ansible and some other tools to provision it using the principles of Infrastructure as Code.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories ResolutionsLeave a comment on Resolutions for 2016
    @@ -144,52 +144,52 @@

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    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -107,7 +107,7 @@

    Team Values

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Retrospectives
    @@ -115,7 +115,7 @@

    Team Values

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    Leave a Reply

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    @@ -128,14 +128,14 @@

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    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -93,12 +93,12 @@

    Resolutions for 2016

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Resolutions
    @@ -121,7 +121,7 @@

    Job Hunting

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    - - + + - - - + + + @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ - - + + @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ +

    My First Open Space

    @@ -104,7 +104,7 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories AgileLeave a comment on My First Open Space + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories AgileLeave a comment on My First Open Space @@ -113,52 +113,52 @@

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    BoochTek, LLC

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    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -109,7 +109,7 @@

    My First Open Space

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile
    @@ -117,7 +117,7 @@

    My First Open Space

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    Leave a Reply

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    BoochTek, LLC

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    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -100,7 +100,7 @@

    You Don’t Have to Be Right

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Empathy
  • - yves says:
    + yves says:
    • - + @@ -135,11 +135,11 @@

    Best of luck.

    -
    Reply
    +
    Reply
  • - Pingback: You Can’t Handle the Truth (Trust, Truth and Transparency) – 114 | This Agile Life
    + Pingback: You Can’t Handle the Truth (Trust, Truth and Transparency) – 114 | This Agile Life
    • @@ -147,7 +147,7 @@

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    The Problem With Estimates

    @@ -114,25 +114,25 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Estimation2 Comments on The Problem With Estimates + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Estimation2 Comments on The Problem With Estimates
    -

    Estimation Isn’t Agile

    +

    Estimation Isn’t Agile

    I don’t believe that estimation should be part of any Agile practice.

    One of our managers recently mentioned that we hadn’t met the “contract” that we had “committed” to in our last iteration. This was complete nonsense, because A) we hadn’t made any such commitments, and B) we completed many more story points than the previous iterations (and without inflating story points).

    -

    estimates-as-deadlines

    -

    But her language made me come to several realizations. First and foremost, estimates are contracts. Sure, they’re not supposed to be treated as commitments, but they almost always are. And what does the Agile Manifesto say about this? It says that we should value customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan. So it’s pretty clear that treating estimates as commitments is completely counter to the Agile values.

    +

    estimates-as-deadlines

    +

    But her language made me come to several realizations. First and foremost, estimates are contracts. Sure, they’re not supposed to be treated as commitments, but they almost always are. And what does the Agile Manifesto say about this? It says that we should value customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan. So it’s pretty clear that treating estimates as commitments is completely counter to the Agile values.

    Why does this matter? What benefits do the Agile values bring us? I think the biggest benefit they bring is changing the way that we work, so that we can better deliver value to our customers. Without Agile, we’d just keep working the way we’ve always done things. And that didn’t seem to be working out so well. If we follow the Agile values and principles, at least we’ll have a fighting chance of improving our ability to deliver value.

    Ask yourself — have you ever seen a software development project that was on time and on budget? Where the estimates were spot-on? Of course not. For one, we’re terrible at estimating. For another, our plans change — either from external factors, or from what we learn as we go.

    Improved Estimation

    -

    To me, Agile is also about facing reality — and embracing it. It realizes that we’re terrible at estimating. It realizes that plans change. Most Agile methodologies have some tricks to counteract Hofstadter’s law. Generally, we use relative story points instead of hours, and then use an empirical factor to convert points to hours.

    +

    To me, Agile is also about facing reality — and embracing it. It realizes that we’re terrible at estimating. It realizes that plans change. Most Agile methodologies have some tricks to counteract Hofstadter’s law. Generally, we use relative story points instead of hours, and then use an empirical factor to convert points to hours.

    When this works, it is better than any other estimation I’ve ever seen. But it doesn’t work very often. People have trouble with relative estimation. How do you set the basis for what a point means without relating it to actual hours? Affinity estimation could work, but then you have to remember what the basis was. We’ve got a large distributed team, and when we tried this, we couldn’t all remember what the basis was.

    Since we couldn’t get affinity estimation to work, we tried changing to perfect hours (only powers of 2). But then people thought of them as time. When we took longer than the estimate on an individual story, managers and team members thought we were taking longer than we should have. So our estimates ended up causing problems.

    What Can We Do Instead?

    @@ -141,7 +141,7 @@

    What Can We Do Instead?

    What if there’s more than 1 thing that’s most important? Then you’ve failed. You’ve failed at logic if you can’t understand that only 1 thing can be most important. You’ve failed at prioritizing the customers’ needs. You’ve failed at project management.

    Arguments

    1. Why can’t you just tell us how long it will really take?

    -

    Because we don’t know. Because we can’t know. This is the first time we’ve ever implemented the functionality you’ve asked for. If we’d done it before, we’d just use that existing code. As Glenn Vanderburg pointed out in his excellent talk on Software Engineering, we’re not building software, we’re architecting it.

    +

    Because we don’t know. Because we can’t know. This is the first time we’ve ever implemented the functionality you’ve asked for. If we’d done it before, we’d just use that existing code. As Glenn Vanderburg pointed out in his excellent talk on Software Engineering, we’re not building software, we’re architecting it.

    2. But we have to tell our customers what to expect.

    Why? Is the product so bad that you can’t keep customers around without leading them on with future enhancements? And why do customers need exact dates? A general roadmap telling them what the priorities for upcoming features should be sufficient.

    3. But we have to have messaging about new features.

    @@ -154,7 +154,7 @@

    Arguments

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, EstimationTags , 3 Comments on Estimation Isn’t Agile
    @@ -163,52 +163,52 @@

    Arguments

    @@ -219,21 +219,21 @@

    Arguments

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
    -

    From Agile To Happiness

    +

    From Agile To Happiness

    -

    The Agile Manifesto was written in 2001, as a way to explain the common values amongst several “light-weight” software development methodologies that had come about. The term “Agile” was chosen as a shorthand for those commonalities.

    -

    Once “Agile” started to show success, we started to see many people use the term to market their products and services, whether or not they really believed in the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto. It’s gotten to the point where some of us don’t see much value in using the term “Agile” any more. Even some of those involved in creating the manifesto have suggested new terms. Dave Thomas suggests “Agility” and Andy Hunt has started working on something called GROWS. Personally, I’m considering going back to the term “Extreme Programming”, even though I’ve incorporated ideas from other Agile methodologies.

    +

    The Agile Manifesto was written in 2001, as a way to explain the common values amongst several “light-weight” software development methodologies that had come about. The term “Agile” was chosen as a shorthand for those commonalities.

    +

    Once “Agile” started to show success, we started to see many people use the term to market their products and services, whether or not they really believed in the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto. It’s gotten to the point where some of us don’t see much value in using the term “Agile” any more. Even some of those involved in creating the manifesto have suggested new terms. Dave Thomas suggests “Agility” and Andy Hunt has started working on something called GROWS. Personally, I’m considering going back to the term “Extreme Programming”, even though I’ve incorporated ideas from other Agile methodologies.

    It recently occurred to me that Agile, when done “right”, is closely aligned with the happiness of the team members. This is really interesting, because it aligns the interests of the employees and the business — a win-win situation. My next thought was that maybe the next step after “Agile” will be a focus on happiness and motivation.

    -

    I’ve recently been thinking about personal motivation lately, in the context of team practices. According to Daniel Pink’s book Drive, people are motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose. I personally add a fourth that can sometimes trump the other three: identity. And of course, happiness can also be motivating — both in the attempt to achieve happiness and in just being happy. (I suspect that happiness is more of a parallel to motivation than a cause though.)

    +

    I’ve recently been thinking about personal motivation lately, in the context of team practices. According to Daniel Pink’s book Drive, people are motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose. I personally add a fourth that can sometimes trump the other three: identity. And of course, happiness can also be motivating — both in the attempt to achieve happiness and in just being happy. (I suspect that happiness is more of a parallel to motivation than a cause though.)

    There are a couple different ways that happiness can be achieved at work. The traditional way is for work to be a means to an end. In this view, the purpose of your job is to provide the money to live your life (outside of work) the way that you want to live it. There’s nothing wrong with this way of thinking. But for the lucky few, we can work on something that makes us happy in and of itself. That’s generally done by finding a job doing something that we enjoy.

    But perhaps that’s thinking about things the wrong way. For one, plenty of people who have gone that route are still unhappy at work. I think a lot of that has to do more with the context surrounding the work than the work itself. Maybe you’ve got a lousy manager. Maybe you don’t like the people you work with. Maybe the tools you have to work with are bad. Maybe the processes add a lot of unnecessary tedium.

    So maybe we need to find ways to be happier at work. Most of the Agile practices seem to make team members happy. For example, replacing a light-weight process for a heavier process always makes me happy. And I typically leave retrospectives in a good mood. So that’s a good starting point. But we should see if we can take the idea further. If we take employee happiness as a core value, where can we go? What kind of practices would we want to add? Please share any ideas in the comments below.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories AgileLeave a comment on From Agile To Happiness
    -

    When Should We Do TDD?

    +

    When Should We Do TDD?

    -

    On a recent episode (78) of This Agile Life, my fellow hosts talked about when to do Test-Driven Development (TDD). They all said that you should always do TDD — at least for anything that will go into production; there’s an exception for experimenting or “spiking”.

    +

    On a recent episode (78) of This Agile Life, my fellow hosts talked about when to do Test-Driven Development (TDD). They all said that you should always do TDD — at least for anything that will go into production; there’s an exception for experimenting or “spiking”.

    I wasn’t on that episode, but later commented on the topic. (Episode 83 — which wasn’t really all that great.) My take was slightly different. I said that you should do TDD only when the benefits outweigh the costs. Unfortunately, we usually greatly underestimate the benefits. And the costs often seem high at first, because it takes some time to get good at writing automated tests. Not to mention that both the costs and the benefits are usually hard to measure.

    -

    What is the cost of writing automated tests? I’ve asked this question before and recorded the answers (inasmuch as we have them) in a previous blog entry. TDD costs us about 10-30% in short-term productivity. The benefit that they found was a reduction in bugs by 30-90%, and a decrease in code complexity by about 30%.

    +

    What is the cost of writing automated tests? I’ve asked this question before and recorded the answers (inasmuch as we have them) in a previous blog entry. TDD costs us about 10-30% in short-term productivity. The benefit that they found was a reduction in bugs by 30-90%, and a decrease in code complexity by about 30%.

    But what about when the costs are higher than the normal 10 to 30 percent? One good example of this is when there’s no test framework for the situation you’re testing. This might be a new language or framework that you’re working with. More likely it’s a complex API that you have to mock out. So that could increase the cost of automated testing so as to outweigh the benefits — especially on a short project. I could imagine situations where the cost of writing the mocks could eat up more than the project itself.

    Another case where we might consider skipping testing is when we’re more concerned about time to market than quality. This is almost always a mistake. Your code will almost always last longer than you expect. (Remember Y2K?) And if the code lasts longer than you expect, that means you’ll have to deal with bugs that whole time. But we have to work with the information we have at the time we make our decisions. And sometimes that might tell us that time to market is more important than anything.

    One final case I can imagine is when a true expert is coding something that they’re very familiar with. I could picture someone like Uncle Bob writing code (in a language that he’s familiar with) without tests just as effectively as I could write code with tests.

    @@ -118,13 +118,13 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, TDD2 Comments on When Should We Do TDD? + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, TDD2 Comments on When Should We Do TDD?

    -

    Good Enough

    +

    Good Enough

    @@ -132,23 +132,23 @@

    Kaizen“. But other people don’t see improvement and change as a constant — they see each change as a means to an end. I’m starting to realize that neither viewpoint is objectively correct. Maybe they’re both fine viewpoints to have. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself and view that engagement as a failure, especially if my teammates view it as a success. Maybe perfection is the enemy of the good. And maybe I need to learn to be happy with “good enough”.

    +

    I think this difference in mindset is pretty fundamental. My view of Agile involves continuous improvement — always inspecting and adapting our processes. I suppose that means that my preferred flavor of Agile is “Kaizen“. But other people don’t see improvement and change as a constant — they see each change as a means to an end. I’m starting to realize that neither viewpoint is objectively correct. Maybe they’re both fine viewpoints to have. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself and view that engagement as a failure, especially if my teammates view it as a success. Maybe perfection is the enemy of the good. And maybe I need to learn to be happy with “good enough”.

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories AgileLeave a comment on Good Enough

    -

    The Power of 1%

    +

    The Power of 1%

    -

    I frequently participate in a podcast called This Agile Life. Recently, a listener asked how much time Agile teams should spend on self improvement. I said 10% to 25%, leaning towards 15% to 20% for most teams. That comes to at least one hour per day, and maybe even more than one day per week.

    +

    I frequently participate in a podcast called This Agile Life. Recently, a listener asked how much time Agile teams should spend on self improvement. I said 10% to 25%, leaning towards 15% to 20% for most teams. That comes to at least one hour per day, and maybe even more than one day per week.

    I’m including personal self improvement and team retrospectives in this self-improvement time. This can be as simple as configuring your IDE to make you more efficient, learning to use a tool better, or following up on action items from a retro.

    That may seem like a lot of time “wasted”. But I think I can justify the cost of all that time.

    The purpose of spending time on team or self-improvement — the whole point — is to increase our performance and our efficiency. How much improvement can we expect? Can we improve by 1% each week? That doesn’t sound too unreasonable. I think that’s an achievable goal for almost any team, at least on average.

    @@ -161,20 +161,20 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile

    -

    Resolutions

    +

    Resolutions

    January kept me pretty busy, so I’m a little late to this. But better late than never. And as an Agile practitioner, I don’t think personal retrospectives should be limited to one time of year.

    Review of 2014

    -

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    +

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    Plans for 2015

    I’d like to keep things rolling from last year, but crank up a few things. My plans are quite ambitious, so I don’t expect to get everything done by any means. But I think by setting the bar high, I’ll end up with a lot I can be proud of.

    Job Hunting

    @@ -182,10 +182,10 @@

    Job Hunting

    Conferences

    I was incredibly nervous leading up to my RubyConf presentation. Part of that was just the common fear of public speaking. For me, that only kicks in at around 100 people, and this audience was around 250. I think another reason was that I chose a really ambitious topic, and I kept finding more that I wanted to talk about, but wasn’t prepared for. But I think I did a pretty good job presenting an advanced topic. And I was so pumped by the sense of accomplishment as soon as I finished. So I’m hoping to do it more. I’ve already submitted a couple proposals, and plan to submit several more.

    Blogging

    -

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    -

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    +

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    +

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    Programming Language Design

    -

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    +

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    I’m also going to spend a lot of time learning a bunch more programming languages, so I have a better understanding of possible features, combinations of features, and their interactions. I’ve already start with Elixir, Clojure, and Racket. I’m hoping to also look at OCaml, Factor, and Haskell. I’ll probably also take a look at the 2 “Seven Languages in Seven Weeks” books.

    Agile Book

    I think people often have trouble getting started with Agile. I started on a book last year, and got down quite a lot of good ideas. But I realized that I’m going to have a hard time organizing all those ideas into something coherent. Still, I’d like to try to get something out there that lets people get started with Agile. My idea is to present a toolbox of practices to get started with and build on that foundation over time with additional practices. Sort of a playbook on how to get started over the first 6 to 12 months and be successful. I want to make some progress on the book, at least enough to decide whether it’s worth the effort to finish it and self-publish it.

    @@ -193,23 +193,23 @@

    Agile Book

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Blogging, Brilliant, Resolutions, SecurityLeave a comment on Resolutions
    -

    TDD Is Alive And Well

    +

    TDD Is Alive And Well

    -

    I went to RailsConf this year, and the very first talk was a keynote by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), the creator of Ruby on Rails. The TL;DR of his talk was “TDD rarely has value”. He followed up with a blog post the next day, titled “TDD is dead. Long live testing.“, and 2 more posts. I think this line of thought is terribly misguided, and causing more harm than good. This article is my response.

    +

    I went to RailsConf this year, and the very first talk was a keynote by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), the creator of Ruby on Rails. The TL;DR of his talk was “TDD rarely has value”. He followed up with a blog post the next day, titled “TDD is dead. Long live testing.“, and 2 more posts. I think this line of thought is terribly misguided, and causing more harm than good. This article is my response.

    First, I would like to address the good points of the talk. He said that programming is pseudoscience, and that people want to tell us that there’s a secret to being a better programmer. But what it really takes is working hard — reading a lot of code, writing a lot of code, and rewriting a lot of code. He’s right. And I also agree with him that you should forget about patterns for a while when learning to code. Beginners try to throw patterns at a problem instead of letting the patterns emerge where they’re supposed to.

    I don’t completely agree that programming is a pseudoscience. In some ways it is, but I think it’s more of a craft. It’s a craft, because there’s a lot of science involved, but there’s also an art to doing it well. And like any craft, you’re always working to get better. So to respond to DHH’s stance that “software is more like poetry than physics”, I think it falls
    somewhere in between.

    With regard to the software engineering practices we use, there really isn’t much science available, mostly because it’s a soft science. That is, it’s really hard to isolate a single variable when comparing code between projects. And nobody has the time or money to write the same code so many times that the differences would be statistically significant.

    -

    So we don’t have much science on TDD. But we do have some. Here’s a collection of several: StudiesOfTestDrivenDevelopment. And here’s one that explicitly looks are the difference between test-first and test-last: Does Test-Driven Development Really Improve Software Design Quality? What do these tell us? They tell us that TDD costs us about 10-30% in short-term productivity; reduces bugs by 30-90%, and decreases code complexity by about 30%. As Code Complete tells us (in section 20.5, with studies to back it up), improving quality reduces development costs. So, like most Agile practices, this is a case where spending a bit more time in the short term leads to time savings in the long term.

    +

    So we don’t have much science on TDD. But we do have some. Here’s a collection of several: StudiesOfTestDrivenDevelopment. And here’s one that explicitly looks are the difference between test-first and test-last: Does Test-Driven Development Really Improve Software Design Quality? What do these tell us? They tell us that TDD costs us about 10-30% in short-term productivity; reduces bugs by 30-90%, and decreases code complexity by about 30%. As Code Complete tells us (in section 20.5, with studies to back it up), improving quality reduces development costs. So, like most Agile practices, this is a case where spending a bit more time in the short term leads to time savings in the long term.

    The more important lesson in the talk was that you have to do what works best for you and your situation. If TDD doesn’t give better results, then either find out how to make it give better results, or stop using it. As we often say in the Agile world, Agile doesn’t mean that you can stop using your brain. While I think TDD is appropriate in most situations, there are cases where it’s not worth the additional up-front cost. If the most important thing for your project is time-to-market, then not testing might be the right decision for you.

    To me, TDD provides a bunch of benefits. First and foremost, TDD is a design discipline. It ensures that I think about how my code will be used before I think about how to implement it. This is very powerful in ensuring that the code is well-written from the perspective of other code using it.

    Tested code provides confidence to be able to make changes without breaking things. If we write tests after the code, we’re less likely to write them. Tests written after the code also tend to test the implementation instead of the desired functionality. What we really want is tests written as a specification. With tests as a specification, we can come back later and understand why code was written. Without tests, or with poor tests, we can’t understand why the code is there; if we want to rewrite it, we don’t have the confidence that we’re not missing something. Writing tests first also ensures that we only write the code that is needed to implement the required functionality.

    @@ -217,35 +217,35 @@

    Monogamous TDD by Uncle Bob Martin -
  • When TDD doesn’t work by Uncle Bob Martin
    • -
  • RIP TDD by Kent Beck
    • -
  • How testability can help by Tom Stuart
    • -
  • This Agile Life Episode 47 (including myself)
    • +
  • Monogamous TDD by Uncle Bob Martin
    • +
  • When TDD doesn’t work by Uncle Bob Martin
    • +
  • RIP TDD by Kent Beck
    • +
  • How testability can help by Tom Stuart
    • +
  • This Agile Life Episode 47 (including myself)

    •  

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Ruby on Rails, TDD2 Comments on TDD Is Alive And Well
    -

    Estimation Isn’t Agile

    +

    Estimation Isn’t Agile

    I don’t believe that estimation should be part of any Agile practice.

    One of our managers recently mentioned that we hadn’t met the “contract” that we had “committed” to in our last iteration. This was complete nonsense, because A) we hadn’t made any such commitments, and B) we completed many more story points than the previous iterations (and without inflating story points).

    -

    estimates-as-deadlines

    -

    But her language made me come to several realizations. First and foremost, estimates are contracts. Sure, they’re not supposed to be treated as commitments, but they almost always are. And what does the Agile Manifesto say about this? It says that we should value customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan. So it’s pretty clear that treating estimates as commitments is completely counter to the Agile values.

    +

    estimates-as-deadlines

    +

    But her language made me come to several realizations. First and foremost, estimates are contracts. Sure, they’re not supposed to be treated as commitments, but they almost always are. And what does the Agile Manifesto say about this? It says that we should value customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan. So it’s pretty clear that treating estimates as commitments is completely counter to the Agile values.

    Why does this matter? What benefits do the Agile values bring us? I think the biggest benefit they bring is changing the way that we work, so that we can better deliver value to our customers. Without Agile, we’d just keep working the way we’ve always done things. And that didn’t seem to be working out so well. If we follow the Agile values and principles, at least we’ll have a fighting chance of improving our ability to deliver value.

    Ask yourself — have you ever seen a software development project that was on time and on budget? Where the estimates were spot-on? Of course not. For one, we’re terrible at estimating. For another, our plans change — either from external factors, or from what we learn as we go.

    Improved Estimation

    -

    To me, Agile is also about facing reality — and embracing it. It realizes that we’re terrible at estimating. It realizes that plans change. Most Agile methodologies have some tricks to counteract Hofstadter’s law. Generally, we use relative story points instead of hours, and then use an empirical factor to convert points to hours.

    +

    To me, Agile is also about facing reality — and embracing it. It realizes that we’re terrible at estimating. It realizes that plans change. Most Agile methodologies have some tricks to counteract Hofstadter’s law. Generally, we use relative story points instead of hours, and then use an empirical factor to convert points to hours.

    When this works, it is better than any other estimation I’ve ever seen. But it doesn’t work very often. People have trouble with relative estimation. How do you set the basis for what a point means without relating it to actual hours? Affinity estimation could work, but then you have to remember what the basis was. We’ve got a large distributed team, and when we tried this, we couldn’t all remember what the basis was.

    Since we couldn’t get affinity estimation to work, we tried changing to perfect hours (only powers of 2). But then people thought of them as time. When we took longer than the estimate on an individual story, managers and team members thought we were taking longer than we should have. So our estimates ended up causing problems.

    What Can We Do Instead?

    @@ -254,7 +254,7 @@

    What Can We Do Instead?

    What if there’s more than 1 thing that’s most important? Then you’ve failed. You’ve failed at logic if you can’t understand that only 1 thing can be most important. You’ve failed at prioritizing the customers’ needs. You’ve failed at project management.

    Arguments

    1. Why can’t you just tell us how long it will really take?

    -

    Because we don’t know. Because we can’t know. This is the first time we’ve ever implemented the functionality you’ve asked for. If we’d done it before, we’d just use that existing code. As Glenn Vanderburg pointed out in his excellent talk on Software Engineering, we’re not building software, we’re architecting it.

    +

    Because we don’t know. Because we can’t know. This is the first time we’ve ever implemented the functionality you’ve asked for. If we’d done it before, we’d just use that existing code. As Glenn Vanderburg pointed out in his excellent talk on Software Engineering, we’re not building software, we’re architecting it.

    2. But we have to tell our customers what to expect.

    Why? Is the product so bad that you can’t keep customers around without leading them on with future enhancements? And why do customers need exact dates? A general roadmap telling them what the priorities for upcoming features should be sufficient.

    3. But we have to have messaging about new features.

    @@ -267,13 +267,13 @@

    Arguments

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, EstimationTags , 3 Comments on Estimation Isn’t Agile
    -

    Slow Down!

    +

    Slow Down!

    @@ -286,7 +286,7 @@

    Speed and Code Quality

    So when you try to write code quickly, code quality decreases, leading to a code base that takes more time to make changes to. Conversely, when you slow down, your code quality improves, and it becomes easier to make changes more quickly. So when writing code, slowing down in the short run leads to a speed-up in the long run.

    Speed and Process Improvement

    But writing code isn’t the only place where we try to speed up. On an Agile team, we’re always trying to improve the way we work — especially at the beginning stages of an Agile transformation. So we’re eager to make changes in our processes. But I’d urge you to slow down here as well.

    -

    My colleague Amos and I frequently argue over pair switching. It’s funny, because we agree on everything except for 1 small detail. We both think pair switching is very important, to ensure that team members see more of what’s going on, to bring more ideas to each story, to prevent knowledge silos, and to encourage team ownership. Where we disagree is how long an ideal pairing session should last. I think pairs should switch every 2 hours, and he thinks 1 hour is ideal. I’ve seen teams reach the 1 hour pairing sessions successfully. But usually not without some pain and even often failing at the first attempt.

    +

    My colleague Amos and I frequently argue over pair switching. It’s funny, because we agree on everything except for 1 small detail. We both think pair switching is very important, to ensure that team members see more of what’s going on, to bring more ideas to each story, to prevent knowledge silos, and to encourage team ownership. Where we disagree is how long an ideal pairing session should last. I think pairs should switch every 2 hours, and he thinks 1 hour is ideal. I’ve seen teams reach the 1 hour pairing sessions successfully. But usually not without some pain and even often failing at the first attempt.

    There’s nothing inherently wrong with failing. But if you fail at something, you’re not likely to try again. After all, you should learn from your failures, right?

    So if you want your team to do something, you probably don’t want them to fail at it. If they fail, they won’t want to try a second time. That’s just human nature, and learning from failure. While you might think that they failed because they weren’t ready for the change yet, they’ll most likely think that they failed because this particular change won’t work for their situation. And they probably won’t know what to change when trying again, so they won’t try again.

    I’ve seen this over and over. Back when Linux was up-and-coming, when a consultant pushed a company into using Linux before they were ready for it, and it didn’t work out, that company was cautious about trying again. So instead of being on the leading edge of using Linux, or even the middle of the pack, they ended up more toward the trailing edge. Had they not been pushed, they would have gotten more benefit in the long run.

    @@ -294,37 +294,37 @@

    Speed and Process Improvement

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, ProgrammingLeave a comment on Slow Down!
    -

    Empathy

    +

    Empathy

    I facilitated our team retrospective this morning. I felt like we made a little forward progress, but not as much as I would have liked. But it really brought one thing to the forefront of my thoughts today — empathy gained through communication.

    We have a pretty large team by Agile standards — we had 20 people in our retro: 16 developers, 3 QA folks, and 1 manager. Out of those, only about 5 or 6 speak up regularly. I recently sent out a survey to the team, trying to get feedback on how we could improve our retros. A couple of the questions tried to get a feel for why people aren’t speaking up more. Only about half the people responded, and the answers didn’t really answer my question as well as I had hoped.

    -

    So on Amos‘s suggestion, we did the Safety Check exercise. We got a good set of answers to why people don’t feel safe. About half of the answers were about the fear of looking stupid in front of other people. About half of those mentioned the manager — they’re worried they might get in trouble for what they say. We talked some about fear and how it’s more often than not misplaced. And that the worst consequences are usually not as bad as you might think. But then we got to the crux of the problem — there’s not enough trust amongst the team, and especially between the team members and the manager.

    +

    So on Amos‘s suggestion, we did the Safety Check exercise. We got a good set of answers to why people don’t feel safe. About half of the answers were about the fear of looking stupid in front of other people. About half of those mentioned the manager — they’re worried they might get in trouble for what they say. We talked some about fear and how it’s more often than not misplaced. And that the worst consequences are usually not as bad as you might think. But then we got to the crux of the problem — there’s not enough trust amongst the team, and especially between the team members and the manager.

    About half of our team is new (within the past 6 months) — including the manager. While the developers have made some good progress building trust amongst each other, we haven’t had as much time with the manager to build trust between him and the rest of the team. So the lack of trust isn’t at all surprising.

    Honestly, I already knew we had trust issues, and wanted to address them, but needed a way to lead the team to that same realization. With this exercise driving out the issue, we were then able to have a conversation about trust. The conversation was pretty good. We got more voices to contribute than probably any other topic we’d previously covered. (I was disappointed that the manager kept quiet though. I later found that he was trying to mitigate people’s fears by keeping quiet, but I urged him to contribute more in the future.)

    But one point really stood out in my mind — a point of view that I hadn’t previously thought much about. Lauren, one of our QA analysts, pointed out that most human communication is non-verbal. We give tons of cues via body language, facial expressions, eye contact, tone of voice, even posture. I don’t recall if Lauren said it explicitly, but she pointed out that these cues build empathy between the speakers. She encouraged us to use more voice chat and video chat, as opposed to IRC text chat, because it would create more empathy between the people communicating, which would lead to more trust.

    I spent most of the rest of the day talking to people on the phone or via Google Hangouts voice. And every single time, I consciously noticed that I was gaining empathy for the person I was speaking with. I assume (and hope) that that’s working both ways. I suppose that it’s always been happening, but I never really noticed it.

    -

    I’ve heard a lot of talk about empathy among Agile practitioners lately. It’s been mentioned on the Ruby Rogues podcast, and Angela Harms has been preaching it for years. I already understood how important it is. But until today, I didn’t really feel it happening.

    +

    I’ve heard a lot of talk about empathy among Agile practitioners lately. It’s been mentioned on the Ruby Rogues podcast, and Angela Harms has been preaching it for years. I already understood how important it is. But until today, I didn’t really feel it happening.

    So if you’re looking to build trust with someone, spend some time talking with them. Preferably in person, but if that’s not possible, seriously consider video or voice modes of communication, instead of sending an email or an instant message.

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, SecurityLeave a comment on Empathy
    -

    Testing Rails Validators

    +

    Testing Rails Validators

    @@ -361,20 +361,20 @@

    this Stack Overflow answer. Basically, create a minimal model object that contains the field and the validation. Then test that the model behaves like you expect with different values and validations.

    +

    Integration testing can also be a bit of a challenge. I recommend following the example from this Stack Overflow answer. Basically, create a minimal model object that contains the field and the validation. Then test that the model behaves like you expect with different values and validations.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby on Rails, TDDLeave a comment on Testing Rails Validators

    @@ -382,52 +382,52 @@

    Posts navigation

    @@ -438,21 +438,21 @@

    Posts navigation

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
    -

    Introspective

    +

    Introspective

    @@ -95,7 +95,7 @@

    Amos, a trusted colleague of mine. Amos then passed it on to
    +they told Amos, a trusted colleague of mine. Amos then passed it on to
    me. I’m grateful for that — this is the best way for me to have received
    that criticism.

    What I did next is the astonishing thing. I swallowed my pride for a
    @@ -123,7 +123,7 @@

    The Why Game. This worked amazingly well. It helped me to find the
    +play The Why Game. This worked amazingly well. It helped me to find the
    root reasons why I was holding back change. Basically I’m afraid of
    failure. Going deeper, we looked into why I’m afraid of failure. This
    line of inquiry was particularly effective. Hopefully it’ll be enough for
    @@ -179,18 +179,18 @@

    his thoughts on the introspective.

    +

    Amos has written up his thoughts on the introspective.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile2 Comments on Introspective

    @@ -199,52 +199,52 @@

    Posts navigation

    @@ -255,21 +255,21 @@

    Posts navigation

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ +

    Team Values

    @@ -103,18 +103,18 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, RetrospectivesLeave a comment on Team Values + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, RetrospectivesLeave a comment on Team Values
    -

    2015 Year in Review

    +

    2015 Year in Review

    -

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    +

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    • Job Hunting
    • Conferences
      • @@ -123,14 +123,14 @@

      Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      -

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      +

      I got pretty lucky on this one. My main contract with Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      +

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      Conferences

      -

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      -

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      -

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      +

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      +

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      +

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      Blogging

      -

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      +

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      I’m not so sure about the quality of my blog writing though. I know that practicing writing is supposed to make you better. I know I wrote some really good articles over the past year, but I think I also wrote some articles that weren’t very good. I think sometimes the deadline has caused more harm than good. I’m not really sure what to do about that; perhaps just pushing on is the right answer.

      Programming Language Design

      I’ve taken a lot of notes on the design of my programming language. Any time I learn something interesting about another language, or come up with another idea, I write it down.

      @@ -140,21 +140,21 @@

      Writing an Agile Book

      I’ve got some things to say about Agile, and want to write a book to express those ideas. I’ve made a start — I’ve got the chapters outlines, and have started on a few chapters. But I haven’t made as much progress as I’d like to. I shared what I’ve got with Amos, and he showed some interest in pairing with me on the writing. Hopefully we’ll work on it together in 2016 and publish it.

      Other

      There were a few other accomplishments that weren’t explicitly on my list, but I’d like to call attention to.

      -

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      -

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      -

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      +

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      +

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      +

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      Conclusion

      I’m pretty happy with my accomplishments this year. I made at least some progress on each of the goals I set. I’ve been thinking about my goals for next year; I’ll write that as a separate blog article next week.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging, Brilliant, Languages, Resolutions, RetrospectivesLeave a comment on 2015 Year in Review
    -

    Impromptu Retrospective

    +

    Impromptu Retrospective

    -

    I’m surprised that I haven’t gotten this story down in print before. It’s something I’ve mentioned many times — including a few times on the podcast. It’s a great story about the power of retrospectives, and it’s a great story about the power of a blameless post-mortem.

    -

    I don’t recall all the specifics at this point. It was about 5 years ago. I’d just noticed that Arun had made some sort of mistake. That’s fine, people make mistakes. The thing that was different about his mistake was that I had made the same mistake about a week prior. And Amos had made the same mistake about a week before that.

    +

    I’m surprised that I haven’t gotten this story down in print before. It’s something I’ve mentioned many times — including a few times on the podcast. It’s a great story about the power of retrospectives, and it’s a great story about the power of a blameless post-mortem.

    +

    I don’t recall all the specifics at this point. It was about 5 years ago. I’d just noticed that Arun had made some sort of mistake. That’s fine, people make mistakes. The thing that was different about his mistake was that I had made the same mistake about a week prior. And Amos had made the same mistake about a week before that.

    Noticing a pattern of mistakes, Amos and I called an impromptu retrospective. We gathered all the developers into a conference room. We explained the problem that we were running into. At first, Arun was defensive. That’s understandable; he thought we were there to come down on him, to lay blame. But we made it clear that we weren’t focusing on him. We admitted that we had also made the same mistake recently. We weren’t there to lay blame; we were there to figure out how our team could stop making the mistake. It took Arun a few minutes to get over the defensiveness.

    With the defensiveness out of the way, we could focus on the issue at hand. We were able to figure out the root cause of us all making the mistake. (I don’t know if we played the “5 whys” game, but I’m sure we effectively did something similar.) And with that, we were able to change our process, so that nobody else would make the same mistake again.

    There are 2 important points to this story. First, you don’t have to wait until a scheduled retrospective to hold a retrospective. This one was impromptu, and it’s the best one we ever had. We saw a problem, addressed it, and found a solution in less than an hour. Had we waited until the end of the week, we would have forgotten some of the details, and wouldn’t have been as effective at solving the problem. Second, when addressing problems, take your ego out of the equation. If you’re in a position of authority, take the blame — but never place blame. Focus on what’s important — solving the problem.

    @@ -196,7 +196,7 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, RetrospectivesLeave a comment on Impromptu Retrospective + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, RetrospectivesLeave a comment on Impromptu Retrospective

    @@ -205,52 +205,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -261,21 +261,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
    -

    When Should We Do TDD?

    +

    When Should We Do TDD?

    -

    On a recent episode (78) of This Agile Life, my fellow hosts talked about when to do Test-Driven Development (TDD). They all said that you should always do TDD — at least for anything that will go into production; there’s an exception for experimenting or “spiking”.

    +

    On a recent episode (78) of This Agile Life, my fellow hosts talked about when to do Test-Driven Development (TDD). They all said that you should always do TDD — at least for anything that will go into production; there’s an exception for experimenting or “spiking”.

    I wasn’t on that episode, but later commented on the topic. (Episode 83 — which wasn’t really all that great.) My take was slightly different. I said that you should do TDD only when the benefits outweigh the costs. Unfortunately, we usually greatly underestimate the benefits. And the costs often seem high at first, because it takes some time to get good at writing automated tests. Not to mention that both the costs and the benefits are usually hard to measure.

    -

    What is the cost of writing automated tests? I’ve asked this question before and recorded the answers (inasmuch as we have them) in a previous blog entry. TDD costs us about 10-30% in short-term productivity. The benefit that they found was a reduction in bugs by 30-90%, and a decrease in code complexity by about 30%.

    +

    What is the cost of writing automated tests? I’ve asked this question before and recorded the answers (inasmuch as we have them) in a previous blog entry. TDD costs us about 10-30% in short-term productivity. The benefit that they found was a reduction in bugs by 30-90%, and a decrease in code complexity by about 30%.

    But what about when the costs are higher than the normal 10 to 30 percent? One good example of this is when there’s no test framework for the situation you’re testing. This might be a new language or framework that you’re working with. More likely it’s a complex API that you have to mock out. So that could increase the cost of automated testing so as to outweigh the benefits — especially on a short project. I could imagine situations where the cost of writing the mocks could eat up more than the project itself.

    Another case where we might consider skipping testing is when we’re more concerned about time to market than quality. This is almost always a mistake. Your code will almost always last longer than you expect. (Remember Y2K?) And if the code lasts longer than you expect, that means you’ll have to deal with bugs that whole time. But we have to work with the information we have at the time we make our decisions. And sometimes that might tell us that time to market is more important than anything.

    One final case I can imagine is when a true expert is coding something that they’re very familiar with. I could picture someone like Uncle Bob writing code (in a language that he’s familiar with) without tests just as effectively as I could write code with tests.

    @@ -97,23 +97,23 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, TDD2 Comments on When Should We Do TDD? + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, TDD2 Comments on When Should We Do TDD?

    -

    TDD Is Alive And Well

    +

    TDD Is Alive And Well

    -

    I went to RailsConf this year, and the very first talk was a keynote by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), the creator of Ruby on Rails. The TL;DR of his talk was “TDD rarely has value”. He followed up with a blog post the next day, titled “TDD is dead. Long live testing.“, and 2 more posts. I think this line of thought is terribly misguided, and causing more harm than good. This article is my response.

    +

    I went to RailsConf this year, and the very first talk was a keynote by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), the creator of Ruby on Rails. The TL;DR of his talk was “TDD rarely has value”. He followed up with a blog post the next day, titled “TDD is dead. Long live testing.“, and 2 more posts. I think this line of thought is terribly misguided, and causing more harm than good. This article is my response.

    First, I would like to address the good points of the talk. He said that programming is pseudoscience, and that people want to tell us that there’s a secret to being a better programmer. But what it really takes is working hard — reading a lot of code, writing a lot of code, and rewriting a lot of code. He’s right. And I also agree with him that you should forget about patterns for a while when learning to code. Beginners try to throw patterns at a problem instead of letting the patterns emerge where they’re supposed to.

    I don’t completely agree that programming is a pseudoscience. In some ways it is, but I think it’s more of a craft. It’s a craft, because there’s a lot of science involved, but there’s also an art to doing it well. And like any craft, you’re always working to get better. So to respond to DHH’s stance that “software is more like poetry than physics”, I think it falls
    somewhere in between.

    With regard to the software engineering practices we use, there really isn’t much science available, mostly because it’s a soft science. That is, it’s really hard to isolate a single variable when comparing code between projects. And nobody has the time or money to write the same code so many times that the differences would be statistically significant.

    -

    So we don’t have much science on TDD. But we do have some. Here’s a collection of several: StudiesOfTestDrivenDevelopment. And here’s one that explicitly looks are the difference between test-first and test-last: Does Test-Driven Development Really Improve Software Design Quality? What do these tell us? They tell us that TDD costs us about 10-30% in short-term productivity; reduces bugs by 30-90%, and decreases code complexity by about 30%. As Code Complete tells us (in section 20.5, with studies to back it up), improving quality reduces development costs. So, like most Agile practices, this is a case where spending a bit more time in the short term leads to time savings in the long term.

    +

    So we don’t have much science on TDD. But we do have some. Here’s a collection of several: StudiesOfTestDrivenDevelopment. And here’s one that explicitly looks are the difference between test-first and test-last: Does Test-Driven Development Really Improve Software Design Quality? What do these tell us? They tell us that TDD costs us about 10-30% in short-term productivity; reduces bugs by 30-90%, and decreases code complexity by about 30%. As Code Complete tells us (in section 20.5, with studies to back it up), improving quality reduces development costs. So, like most Agile practices, this is a case where spending a bit more time in the short term leads to time savings in the long term.

    The more important lesson in the talk was that you have to do what works best for you and your situation. If TDD doesn’t give better results, then either find out how to make it give better results, or stop using it. As we often say in the Agile world, Agile doesn’t mean that you can stop using your brain. While I think TDD is appropriate in most situations, there are cases where it’s not worth the additional up-front cost. If the most important thing for your project is time-to-market, then not testing might be the right decision for you.

    To me, TDD provides a bunch of benefits. First and foremost, TDD is a design discipline. It ensures that I think about how my code will be used before I think about how to implement it. This is very powerful in ensuring that the code is well-written from the perspective of other code using it.

    Tested code provides confidence to be able to make changes without breaking things. If we write tests after the code, we’re less likely to write them. Tests written after the code also tend to test the implementation instead of the desired functionality. What we really want is tests written as a specification. With tests as a specification, we can come back later and understand why code was written. Without tests, or with poor tests, we can’t understand why the code is there; if we want to rewrite it, we don’t have the confidence that we’re not missing something. Writing tests first also ensures that we only write the code that is needed to implement the required functionality.

    @@ -121,23 +121,23 @@

    Monogamous TDD by Uncle Bob Martin -
  • When TDD doesn’t work by Uncle Bob Martin
    • -
  • RIP TDD by Kent Beck
    • -
  • How testability can help by Tom Stuart
    • -
  • This Agile Life Episode 47 (including myself)
    • +
  • Monogamous TDD by Uncle Bob Martin
    • +
  • When TDD doesn’t work by Uncle Bob Martin
    • +
  • RIP TDD by Kent Beck
    • +
  • How testability can help by Tom Stuart
    • +
  • This Agile Life Episode 47 (including myself)

    •  

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Ruby on Rails, TDD2 Comments on TDD Is Alive And Well
    -

    Testing Rails Validators

    +

    Testing Rails Validators

    @@ -174,11 +174,11 @@

    this Stack Overflow answer. Basically, create a minimal model object that contains the field and the validation. Then test that the model behaves like you expect with different values and validations.

    +

    Integration testing can also be a bit of a challenge. I recommend following the example from this Stack Overflow answer. Basically, create a minimal model object that contains the field and the validation. Then test that the model behaves like you expect with different values and validations.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby on Rails, TDDLeave a comment on Testing Rails Validators

    @@ -187,52 +187,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -243,21 +243,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
    -

    2015 Year in Review

    +

    2015 Year in Review

    -

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    +

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    • Job Hunting
    • Conferences
      • @@ -96,14 +96,14 @@

      Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      -

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      +

      I got pretty lucky on this one. My main contract with Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      +

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      Conferences

      -

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      -

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      -

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      +

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      +

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      +

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      Blogging

      -

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      +

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      I’m not so sure about the quality of my blog writing though. I know that practicing writing is supposed to make you better. I know I wrote some really good articles over the past year, but I think I also wrote some articles that weren’t very good. I think sometimes the deadline has caused more harm than good. I’m not really sure what to do about that; perhaps just pushing on is the right answer.

      Programming Language Design

      I’ve taken a lot of notes on the design of my programming language. Any time I learn something interesting about another language, or come up with another idea, I write it down.

      @@ -113,28 +113,28 @@

      Writing an Agile Book

      I’ve got some things to say about Agile, and want to write a book to express those ideas. I’ve made a start — I’ve got the chapters outlines, and have started on a few chapters. But I haven’t made as much progress as I’d like to. I shared what I’ve got with Amos, and he showed some interest in pairing with me on the writing. Hopefully we’ll work on it together in 2016 and publish it.

      Other

      There were a few other accomplishments that weren’t explicitly on my list, but I’d like to call attention to.

      -

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      -

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      -

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      +

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      +

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      +

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      Conclusion

      I’m pretty happy with my accomplishments this year. I made at least some progress on each of the goals I set. I’ve been thinking about my goals for next year; I’ll write that as a separate blog article next week.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging, Brilliant, Languages, Resolutions, RetrospectivesLeave a comment on 2015 Year in Review
    -

    Resolutions

    +

    Resolutions

    January kept me pretty busy, so I’m a little late to this. But better late than never. And as an Agile practitioner, I don’t think personal retrospectives should be limited to one time of year.

    Review of 2014

    -

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    +

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    Plans for 2015

    I’d like to keep things rolling from last year, but crank up a few things. My plans are quite ambitious, so I don’t expect to get everything done by any means. But I think by setting the bar high, I’ll end up with a lot I can be proud of.

    Job Hunting

    @@ -142,10 +142,10 @@

    Job Hunting

    Conferences

    I was incredibly nervous leading up to my RubyConf presentation. Part of that was just the common fear of public speaking. For me, that only kicks in at around 100 people, and this audience was around 250. I think another reason was that I chose a really ambitious topic, and I kept finding more that I wanted to talk about, but wasn’t prepared for. But I think I did a pretty good job presenting an advanced topic. And I was so pumped by the sense of accomplishment as soon as I finished. So I’m hoping to do it more. I’ve already submitted a couple proposals, and plan to submit several more.

    Blogging

    -

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    -

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    +

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    +

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    Programming Language Design

    -

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    +

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    I’m also going to spend a lot of time learning a bunch more programming languages, so I have a better understanding of possible features, combinations of features, and their interactions. I’ve already start with Elixir, Clojure, and Racket. I’m hoping to also look at OCaml, Factor, and Haskell. I’ll probably also take a look at the 2 “Seven Languages in Seven Weeks” books.

    Agile Book

    I think people often have trouble getting started with Agile. I started on a book last year, and got down quite a lot of good ideas. But I realized that I’m going to have a hard time organizing all those ideas into something coherent. Still, I’d like to try to get something out there that lets people get started with Agile. My idea is to present a toolbox of practices to get started with and build on that foundation over time with additional practices. Sort of a playbook on how to get started over the first 6 to 12 months and be successful. I want to make some progress on the book, at least enough to decide whether it’s worth the effort to finish it and self-publish it.

    @@ -153,21 +153,21 @@

    Agile Book

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Blogging, Brilliant, Resolutions, SecurityLeave a comment on Resolutions
    -

    What I Want in a Blog Engine

    +

    What I Want in a Blog Engine

    -

    I’m considering moving away from WordPress, for a couple reasons:

    +

    I’m considering moving away from WordPress, for a couple reasons:

    • Security. There have been several vulnerabilities over the past few years, and I’ve never really had a high level of confidence that it’s secure. In addition, I now find the whole PHP model — every web app running as a single user, instead of leveraging UNIX permissions — to be broken.
      • -
    • Speed. I started to realize a couple years ago that a blog engine should generate static pages. The static pages should be updated whenever new content is added. There’s really no reason to re-generate the page every time someone wants to read it. At the very least, Server-Side Includes (SSI) or Edge-Side Includes (ESI) should be used.
      • +
    • Speed. I started to realize a couple years ago that a blog engine should generate static pages. The static pages should be updated whenever new content is added. There’s really no reason to re-generate the page every time someone wants to read it. At the very least, Server-Side Includes (SSI) or Edge-Side Includes (ESI) should be used.

    Now that I’m starting to actually blog consistently, it makes sense to change. But before I move to something different, I want to be sure that I find all the features that I need. This post is my thought process about what I want.

    Requirements

    @@ -175,11 +175,11 @@

    Requirements

  • Self hosted. I like to run my own servers. Partly so I can keep full control, and partly because I enjoy doing some system admin stuff (as long as it doesn’t take too much time).
  • Generation of static pages. Almost everything should be a static page by the time a user requests a page. Obviously, submitting comments would hit a dynamic page, and comment approval would likely be done through a dynamic part of the site. But publishing a blog post or comments should generate static files to be served by Apache or nginx.
  • Categories (or maybe tags). I want readers to be able to find other things that I’ve written that might interest them. A list of categories in a sidebar would help them find what interests them.
    • -
  • Site map. Especially an XML sitemap, so Google can index better. I also like the idea of readers being able to see everything in one place.
    • +
  • Site map. Especially an XML sitemap, so Google can index better. I also like the idea of readers being able to see everything in one place.
  • Archives. This is another way of letting readers see everything I’ve written, organized by publication date.
  • RSS and/or Atom. I want readers to be able to subscribe to my blog.
  • Media. I don’t think I necessarily need a media manager, just a simple way to add pictures to blog posts.
    • -
  • Comments. I want to allow comments, but I don’t want to use anything like Disqus. I want the comments to be in my own database, so they won’t disappear. I also dislike requiring JavaScript just to see comments. And I’ve worked at places where Disqus wouldn’t work, due to web proxy servers. Comments should be moderated by the site admin, editor, or author. Readers should not have to log in to post a comment, but it would be nice to allow users to log into Twitter or some other social network to provide their info.
    • +
  • Comments. I want to allow comments, but I don’t want to use anything like Disqus. I want the comments to be in my own database, so they won’t disappear. I also dislike requiring JavaScript just to see comments. And I’ve worked at places where Disqus wouldn’t work, due to web proxy servers. Comments should be moderated by the site admin, editor, or author. Readers should not have to log in to post a comment, but it would be nice to allow users to log into Twitter or some other social network to provide their info.
  • Pingbacks and Tweetbacks. I’d like to be able to see who’s referring to my articles.

    • Nice to Have

    @@ -203,32 +203,32 @@

    Nice to Have

  • Posting my tweets in a sidebar area. I’d be OK with this being done in client-side JavaScript. I’d also be OK with periodic polling of my Twitter feed, and updating the static content when appropriate.

    • Candidates

    -

    I’ve been playing with Jekyll lately, using it to generate a simple static site that can be updated easily. It’s pretty nice, and pretty easy to use. Something based on Jekyll would work well. The trickiest part will be figuring out how to manage comments. Or maybe I’ll just have to learn to live more minimally.

    -

    Octopress is the obvious candidate. It fits most of my needs and wants. Most likely I’ll write my own commenting engine and add it to my Octopress template.

    -

    The only other candidate that I’ve found is Ghost. It’s written in JavaScript and runs on Node. I don’t find Node to be that compelling, but the templates look great, and it’s designed for coding blogs.

    -

    I’ll probably take a quick look at Droplets, too. It’s written in PHP, but seems to fit my other requirements.

    +

    I’ve been playing with Jekyll lately, using it to generate a simple static site that can be updated easily. It’s pretty nice, and pretty easy to use. Something based on Jekyll would work well. The trickiest part will be figuring out how to manage comments. Or maybe I’ll just have to learn to live more minimally.

    +

    Octopress is the obvious candidate. It fits most of my needs and wants. Most likely I’ll write my own commenting engine and add it to my Octopress template.

    +

    The only other candidate that I’ve found is Ghost. It’s written in JavaScript and runs on Node. I don’t find Node to be that compelling, but the templates look great, and it’s designed for coding blogs.

    +

    I’ll probably take a quick look at Droplets, too. It’s written in PHP, but seems to fit my other requirements.

    Unfortunately, that seems to be all there is in this space. Maybe I need to investigate more. Or maybe Octopress just has the static blog generation marked cornered. Either way, I’ll probably change my blogging software in the next month or two. Wish me luck!

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging, Security, System AdminLeave a comment on What I Want in a Blog Engine
    -

    Introduction

    +

    Introduction

    -

    Welcome to the BoochTek blog. BoochTek, LLC is a small web development company, based in St. Louis, Missouri. We specialize in Ruby on Rails, jQuery (JavaScript), and PHP.

    +

    Welcome to the BoochTek blog. BoochTek, LLC is a small web development company, based in St. Louis, Missouri. We specialize in Ruby on Rails, jQuery (JavaScript), and PHP.

    This bog will be a place where we can share some of our experiences in web development, Open Source, programming, and technology in general.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging
    @@ -237,52 +237,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -293,21 +293,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
    -

    Chording Keyers

    +

    Chording Keyers

    @@ -90,37 +90,37 @@

    HandyKey now. It’s $200 ($220 Canadian), and comes in only USB.

    +

    The Twiddler has been around quite a while, as probably the main commercially available keyer for wearable computing. There was a time that it was unavailable, but there’s a new version available from HandyKey now. It’s $200 ($220 Canadian), and comes in only USB.

    The Twiddler looks like a small TV remote. The current version (2.1) has 4 thumb keys, a thumb joystick (for mouse), and 12 small finger keys. It has good community support, including an alternate chord layout.

    In10did Decatxt

    -

    In10did has been trying to bring out a few variations of their devices. The Decatxt looks like a pack of cigarettes, with 8 keys on the front and 2 thumb keys. It can be used with 1 or 2 hands. All letters can be typed with 1 finger or 1 thumb and 1 finger.

    +

    In10did has been trying to bring out a few variations of their devices. The Decatxt looks like a pack of cigarettes, with 8 keys on the front and 2 thumb keys. It can be used with 1 or 2 hands. All letters can be typed with 1 finger or 1 thumb and 1 finger.

    The Decatxt has USB and Bluetooth models, but I’m unable to find pricing or a way to buy one. It looks like there have been no updates for over a year, so I’m concerned that this is going to be vaporware.

    CyKey

    -

    The CyKey is based on the Microwriter, which goes back to the early 1980s. The Microwriter was a desktop-based device, but it looks like the CyKey might be able to be used as a hand-held device. It has 9 buttons on the face, arranged in 3 groups of 3 buttons.

    +

    The CyKey is based on the Microwriter, which goes back to the early 1980s. The Microwriter was a desktop-based device, but it looks like the CyKey might be able to be used as a hand-held device. It has 9 buttons on the face, arranged in 3 groups of 3 buttons.

    The CyKey is $125 (£75) and works over InfraRed connected to USB. A Bluetooth model is supposedly in the works.

    EkaPad

    -

    The EkaPad is like a cross between the Decatxt and the Twiddler. It has 12 buttons on the face, but no thumb keys. It’s got a nice well-thought-out design that looks quite ergonomic.

    +

    The EkaPad is like a cross between the Decatxt and the Twiddler. It has 12 buttons on the face, but no thumb keys. It’s got a nice well-thought-out design that looks quite ergonomic.

    The EkaPad is $150, available in USB only. A desktop holder is available to hold it upright, or it can be used hand-held.

    FrogPad

    -

    The FrogPad is meant to be used on a flat surface only. It looks kind of like a third of a laptop keyboard. It’s got 15 regular keys and 5 modifier keys. Only 1 key and 1 modifier can be chorded. Right-handed and left-handed models are available, with USB connectivity.

    -

    The FrogPad2 was recently announced, replacing the original FrogPad. It switches to standard desktop-style keys, and adds some more keys along the top. It supports USB On-the-Go and Bluetooth. I’m not really interested in this model with its regular keys, but it doesn’t appear that the original version is being made any longer. The new models are priced at $200. I believe the old models were $150.

    +

    The FrogPad is meant to be used on a flat surface only. It looks kind of like a third of a laptop keyboard. It’s got 15 regular keys and 5 modifier keys. Only 1 key and 1 modifier can be chorded. Right-handed and left-handed models are available, with USB connectivity.

    +

    The FrogPad2 was recently announced, replacing the original FrogPad. It switches to standard desktop-style keys, and adds some more keys along the top. It supports USB On-the-Go and Bluetooth. I’m not really interested in this model with its regular keys, but it doesn’t appear that the original version is being made any longer. The new models are priced at $200. I believe the old models were $150.

    Chordite

    -

    The Chordite looks the most promising, but it’s only a concept with some DIY prototypes. It’s a hand-held device, with 2 buttons on each of the 4 fingers — one activated by the distal phalanx and the other by the middle phalanx. This initially sounds like it would be difficult to press 2 different buttons with 1 finger, but I think the way they’re positioned would make it actually work really well.

    +

    The Chordite looks the most promising, but it’s only a concept with some DIY prototypes. It’s a hand-held device, with 2 buttons on each of the 4 fingers — one activated by the distal phalanx and the other by the middle phalanx. This initially sounds like it would be difficult to press 2 different buttons with 1 finger, but I think the way they’re positioned would make it actually work really well.

    Septambic Keyer

    -

    The septambic keyer is another DIY concept, hand-built and used by wearable computing folks. It’s fitted to your palm, and you squeeze your fingers toward a fist to activate the buttons. There’s one button for each of the 4 fingers, and 3 for the thumb.

    +

    The septambic keyer is another DIY concept, hand-built and used by wearable computing folks. It’s fitted to your palm, and you squeeze your fingers toward a fist to activate the buttons. There’s one button for each of the 4 fingers, and 3 for the thumb.

    Clove 2

    -

    The Clove 2 is a Bluetooth-enabled glove with 5 buttons — 1 for each finger. It’s another do-it-yourself project.

    +

    The Clove 2 is a Bluetooth-enabled glove with 5 buttons — 1 for each finger. It’s another do-it-yourself project.

    Software Options

    -

    I found an interesting project called ASETNIOP that allows chording on a standard Qwerty keyboard. (Assuming the keyboard supports multi-key roll-over well enough. Most keyboards should work.) It’s got a really nice online interactive tutorial. You basically chord with the 8 home-row keys, plus the spacebar.

    -

    For Android, a program called GKOS for Android uses multi-touch with 1 or 2 button presses. The buttons are different sizes, depending on their frequency. I like this concept, but I don’t think the implementation is quite ready for production.

    -

    I also found an app for iOS called Nintype that is a combination between Swype and a chording keyer.

    +

    I found an interesting project called ASETNIOP that allows chording on a standard Qwerty keyboard. (Assuming the keyboard supports multi-key roll-over well enough. Most keyboards should work.) It’s got a really nice online interactive tutorial. You basically chord with the 8 home-row keys, plus the spacebar.

    +

    For Android, a program called GKOS for Android uses multi-touch with 1 or 2 button presses. The buttons are different sizes, depending on their frequency. I like this concept, but I don’t think the implementation is quite ready for production.

    +

    I also found an app for iOS called Nintype that is a combination between Swype and a chording keyer.

    Conclusion

    I think I’m going to try the Twiddler. If I find the concept to be a good one, hopefully I’ll build myself a Chordite (or have someone build one for me).

    -

    I’m also going to play with implementing some of the ideas from ASETNIOP, using KeyRemap4MacBook.

    +

    I’m also going to play with implementing some of the ideas from ASETNIOP, using KeyRemap4MacBook.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Gadgets4 Comments on Chording Keyers
    @@ -129,52 +129,52 @@

    Conclusion

    @@ -185,21 +185,21 @@

    Conclusion

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ +

    Burying the Lede

    Most of us don’t write very readable shell scripts. There are plenty of things we could do better, but today I want to talk about one in particular — burying the lede.

    -

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    +

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    To begin a story with details of secondary importance to the reader while postponing more essential points or facts.

    Like a good news article, code should tell a story. And the story should start with what’s most important. In the case of code, the most important information is the high-level functionality — a succinct summary of what the program does. In other words, write (and organize) the code top-down, as opposed to bottom-up.

    Unfortunately, shell script doesn’t make this easy. Due to the way shell scripts are interpreted, you can’t call a function until after you’ve defined it. This leads to most of us structuring our code like this:

    @@ -114,13 +114,13 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Burying the Lede + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Burying the Lede
    -

    What’s Your Open Source Resolution?

    +

    What’s Your Open Source Resolution?

    @@ -128,7 +128,7 @@

    St. Louis GNU/Linux Users Group (STLLUG). I’ve been running the group so long that I’ve somewhat stagnated. It’s great to find someone who will bring a fresh energy and new ideas. Thanks, Andrew!

    +

    I was lucky enough this past year to find someone interested in helping to run the St. Louis GNU/Linux Users Group (STLLUG). I’ve been running the group so long that I’ve somewhat stagnated. It’s great to find someone who will bring a fresh energy and new ideas. Thanks, Andrew!

    Mostly freed from the more general administrative tasks (mostly planning meeting topics and speakers), I’m hoping to find the time to work on a few projects. First, I want to overhaul the web site. It needs a new look, as well as an easier way to update it. I’m planning to implement some sort of CMS — possibly WordPress or Octopress, or at the very least, a git repo to manage updates.

    Blog regularly

    I installed WordPress a long time ago, but I haven’t published many posts. I’ve got a few drafts in various stages. So this year I’m going to actually get the blog going, and hopefully post about once a week. I’ll be sharing things I learn on the Internet, as well as some of the things I learn from my experiences with various technologies and techniques.

    @@ -151,20 +151,20 @@

    Publish and maintain several Ruby gems

    Build some apps

    I enjoyed building a quick Rails app during last year’s Rails Rumble, even if it doesn’t turn out to be useful or make any money. I’d like to create a few small apps again this year, either in Rails or Apache Cordova. I’ve got some ideas — we’ll see how if they turn into anything useful or worth selling.

    Podcast more often

    -

    Last year, I started joining the This Agile Life podcast. I enjoy it. I’m hoping to continue with that, and possibly doing some podcasting about Ruby and Rails.

    +

    Last year, I started joining the This Agile Life podcast. I enjoy it. I’m hoping to continue with that, and possibly doing some podcasting about Ruby and Rails.

    Present at a conference

    I’m going to attempt to give a presentation at a conference. I often give presentations at local groups, but haven’t addressed a larger audience. I’ve got a few ideas rattling around, and will see if I can turn them into presentations worthy of a larger conference.

    What’s your Open Source resolution?

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Open SourceLeave a comment on What’s Your Open Source Resolution? @@ -187,52 +187,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -243,21 +243,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
    -

    Burying the Lede

    +

    Burying the Lede

    Most of us don’t write very readable shell scripts. There are plenty of things we could do better, but today I want to talk about one in particular — burying the lede.

    -

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    +

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    To begin a story with details of secondary importance to the reader while postponing more essential points or facts.

    Like a good news article, code should tell a story. And the story should start with what’s most important. In the case of code, the most important information is the high-level functionality — a succinct summary of what the program does. In other words, write (and organize) the code top-down, as opposed to bottom-up.

    Unfortunately, shell script doesn’t make this easy. Due to the way shell scripts are interpreted, you can’t call a function until after you’ve defined it. This leads to most of us structuring our code like this:

    @@ -114,13 +114,13 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Burying the Lede + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Burying the Lede

    @@ -143,52 +143,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -199,21 +199,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ +

    2015 Year in Review

    -

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    +

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    • Job Hunting
    • Conferences
      • @@ -96,14 +96,14 @@

      Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      -

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      +

      I got pretty lucky on this one. My main contract with Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      +

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      Conferences

      -

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      -

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      -

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      +

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      +

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      +

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      Blogging

      -

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      +

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      I’m not so sure about the quality of my blog writing though. I know that practicing writing is supposed to make you better. I know I wrote some really good articles over the past year, but I think I also wrote some articles that weren’t very good. I think sometimes the deadline has caused more harm than good. I’m not really sure what to do about that; perhaps just pushing on is the right answer.

      Programming Language Design

      I’ve taken a lot of notes on the design of my programming language. Any time I learn something interesting about another language, or come up with another idea, I write it down.

      @@ -113,21 +113,21 @@

      Writing an Agile Book

      I’ve got some things to say about Agile, and want to write a book to express those ideas. I’ve made a start — I’ve got the chapters outlines, and have started on a few chapters. But I haven’t made as much progress as I’d like to. I shared what I’ve got with Amos, and he showed some interest in pairing with me on the writing. Hopefully we’ll work on it together in 2016 and publish it.

      Other

      There were a few other accomplishments that weren’t explicitly on my list, but I’d like to call attention to.

      -

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      -

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      -

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      +

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      +

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      +

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      Conclusion

      I’m pretty happy with my accomplishments this year. I made at least some progress on each of the goals I set. I’ve been thinking about my goals for next year; I’ll write that as a separate blog article next week.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging, Brilliant, Languages, Resolutions, RetrospectivesLeave a comment on 2015 Year in Review
    -

    Not Quite Callbacks

    +

    Not Quite Callbacks

    -

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    +

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    The problem is that we used callbacks (actually, a publish/subscribe mechanism) in a situation where they don’t seem to quite fit:

      def show
     interactor.on(:display) { |order| render order }
@@ -179,14 +179,14 @@ 
    Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:
    
+
    I discussed this problem with my friend and colleague, Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:
    
 
      def show
     interactor.get(params[:id]) do |on|
       on.display { |order| render order }
       on.not_found { |order_id| render status: 404 }
     end
   end
    
-
    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.
    
+
    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.
    
 
    Riposte also gives you the option of using the response object directly, instead of passing a block:
    
 
      def show
     on = interactor.get(params[:id])
@@ -198,25 +198,25 @@ 
    
-		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Not Quite Callbacks			
+		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Not Quite Callbacks
    -

    Architectural Thoughts

    +

    Architectural Thoughts

    -

    I’ve started working on my own framework in Ruby in the past couple days. It’s built upon my recent work at understanding Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest 2011 talk, and his article on Clean Architecture, and the resulting hexagonal architecture (AKA ports and adapters).

    -

    Somehow my research in that vein led me to Gary Bernhardt’s Boundaries talk. I’ve read a lot about the talk, and knew about the idea of “functional core / imperative shell”. And I’ve worked with a lot of similar ideas lately. But I believe this is the first time that I actually watched the whole video.

    +

    I’ve started working on my own framework in Ruby in the past couple days. It’s built upon my recent work at understanding Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest 2011 talk, and his article on Clean Architecture, and the resulting hexagonal architecture (AKA ports and adapters).

    +

    Somehow my research in that vein led me to Gary Bernhardt’s Boundaries talk. I’ve read a lot about the talk, and knew about the idea of “functional core / imperative shell”. And I’ve worked with a lot of similar ideas lately. But I believe this is the first time that I actually watched the whole video.

    Even after having read a lot about similar ideas, it was pretty mind-expanding. Gary’s really good at presenting these kinds of ideas in a simple way.

    OOP as usually taught includes encapsulation of data together with behavior, with mutable objects. Functional programming separates data and behavior, with mostly immutable data. From experience, encapsulating data and behavior together seems helpful. But experience also shows that immutability is useful. So it would be good to have both of those together. This is something I’ve been thinking for a few years — how best do we get both?

    Gary calls the combination “FauxO”. Logic and data are still combined, but there’s no mutation. Anywhere OOP would normally have mutation would just generate a new object. There’s no language restriction involved in enforcing immutability — just discipline.

    But without mutability, it’s hard to do IO and maintain state. So Gary’s solution is to encapsulate as much as possible into an immutable (functional or FauxO) core, and around that, use an imperative (traditional OOP) shell. The functional core contains the bulk of the logic, and the imperative shell is a glue layer that handles the real world, including disk, network, and other I/O.

    The result of this is that the shell has fewer paths, but more dependencies. The core contains no dependencies, but encapsulates the different logic paths. So we’re encapsulating dependencies on one side, and business logic on the other side. Or put another way, the way to figure out the separation is by doing as much as you can without mutation, and then encapsulating the mutation separately.

    -

    I love how this naturally breaks things up, so that the core is all testable with unit tests, and the imperative shell is tested with integration tests. And since the shell has few or no logic paths, you get the testing pyramid, with more unit tests and fewer integration tests. The whole thing ends up being quite beautiful. Tests end up being very fast without any extra effort — not even stubbing or mocking. This tells us that things have been decomposed very well — an elegant design.

    +

    I love how this naturally breaks things up, so that the core is all testable with unit tests, and the imperative shell is tested with integration tests. And since the shell has few or no logic paths, you get the testing pyramid, with more unit tests and fewer integration tests. The whole thing ends up being quite beautiful. Tests end up being very fast without any extra effort — not even stubbing or mocking. This tells us that things have been decomposed very well — an elegant design.

    Gary makes the case that immutable objects can be treated as values, and passed across boundaries. Even process boundaries. This is something I’ve noticed as I’ve been working on my own Uncle Bob style hexagonal framework, but nobody in that camp ever mentioned that — they prefer DTOs or something more like hashes. I’m completely against hashes, because of the “stringly-typed” problem. And I don’t see much advantage in a DTO if I’ve got an immutable object; I’d be basically copying the object to an almost identical object. And I’d be losing any laziness possible for derived values within the original immutable object.

    It’s striking to me how Gary’s image of an imperative shell around a functional core, plus Net, Disk, and State outside of the shell mirror’s Uncle Bob’s concentric circles. Uncle Bob has entities in the middle, surrounded by use cases, surrounded by Web, DB, and UI.

    Another advantage that Gary shows is that breaking things up this way allows easy concurrency. In his example, he shows using the actor model — either just using threads and queues, or an actor library (or language feature).

    @@ -225,21 +225,21 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Programming, Ruby, Web DevelopmentLeave a comment on Architectural Thoughts + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Programming, Ruby, Web DevelopmentLeave a comment on Architectural Thoughts

    -

    Hexagonal Rails Controllers

    +

    Hexagonal Rails Controllers

    I’ve had a long love-hate relationship with Rails. I love the MVC framework and how it’s improved our speed of writing web apps. But I’ve never really been completely happy with it. I don’t generally agree with most of its opinions. I prefer models that follow the Data Mapper pattern, not the Active Record pattern. This includes separating the persistence layer from the models’ business logic. I prefer Slim or HAML to ERB. I prefer RSpec to Test::Unit or MiniTest. When Merb hit the scene, I was ready to make the jump, until Merb merged with Rails.

    -

    So inspired by PJ Hagerty’s recent article on alternative Ruby web frameworks, I started thinking about how I’d write a replacement for Rails. I’d definitely keep the basic MVC framework. But I’d also want to implement a more hexagonal architecture.

    +

    So inspired by PJ Hagerty’s recent article on alternative Ruby web frameworks, I started thinking about how I’d write a replacement for Rails. I’d definitely keep the basic MVC framework. But I’d also want to implement a more hexagonal architecture.

    I started sketching out what this would look like, but I ended up starting with a Rails controller and finding the simplest way to make it hexagonal. I really don’t like callbacks, because they make tracing program execution difficult. But I didn’t see any other alternative. I found a simple pub/sub Ruby library called Wisper. It literally has only publish, subscribe, and on methods. (You use on to register single callbacks via blocks, and subscribe to register an object with method names corresponding to the callback names.)

    -

    The trick was figuring out how to break the controller into 2 pieces. What finally helped me was to find the single responsibilities of the 2 pieces. The Rails controller would remain in charge of managing the web interface, but would delegate to the other piece to handle any application-specific business logic. I decided to re-watch Uncle Bob Martin’s “Architecture The Lost Years” talk, which was the first time I was introduced to the ideas of Hexagonal Architecture. (He doesn’t name the architecture in the talk, but later calls it Clean Architecture.) He does a decent job of explaining how to break these 2 pieces apart. He used the term “interactor” in that talk, so I decided to go with that. He said that Jacobsen calls it a Control Object in Object Oriented Software Engineering, but that’s too close to Rails’s “controller”.

    +

    The trick was figuring out how to break the controller into 2 pieces. What finally helped me was to find the single responsibilities of the 2 pieces. The Rails controller would remain in charge of managing the web interface, but would delegate to the other piece to handle any application-specific business logic. I decided to re-watch Uncle Bob Martin’s “Architecture The Lost Years” talk, which was the first time I was introduced to the ideas of Hexagonal Architecture. (He doesn’t name the architecture in the talk, but later calls it Clean Architecture.) He does a decent job of explaining how to break these 2 pieces apart. He used the term “interactor” in that talk, so I decided to go with that. He said that Jacobsen calls it a Control Object in Object Oriented Software Engineering, but that’s too close to Rails’s “controller”.

    So here’s an example of what I ended up with:

    class OrderController < ApplicationController
   def index
@@ -277,27 +277,27 @@ 
    Trailblazer does it that way. And for more complicated business logic, I would do that too, using the Method Object pattern. But like a Rails controller, there’s a lot in common among all the operations. I feel like a separate class for each operation for each would create too many coupled classes.
    
+
    I do have a few problems with this solution though. I’m not a fan of the name “interactor” for the business logic. I thought about calling it OrderOperator, or maybe OrderOperations, because it’s really a collection of operations. Perhaps it would be better to separate each operation into a separate class. Trailblazer does it that way. And for more complicated business logic, I would do that too, using the Method Object pattern. But like a Rails controller, there’s a lot in common among all the operations. I feel like a separate class for each operation for each would create too many coupled classes.
    
 
    I’m also uncomfortable with the fact that the controller is delegating almost everything to the interactor. I guess this is OK, but it feels like there’s too little left when every line starts with interactor. I suppose extracting things some more would help mitigate this concern I’ll likely write a small gem to perform that extraction. I expect that that will allow a typical controller to be written in only a few lines. And maybe the same for the interactor side.
    
 
    With the business logic extracted out of the controller, it was really easy for me to write a command-line version of the app. As Uncle Bob says, “the web is not particularly important to your application.”
    
-
    I’ve put the code for this example on GitHub: https://github.com/boochtek/hexagonal-rails. I’ll likely experiment with it some more over the next few weeks and months.
    
+
    I’ve put the code for this example on GitHub: https://github.com/boochtek/hexagonal-rails. I’ll likely experiment with it some more over the next few weeks and months.
    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Hexagonal Rails Controllers
    -

    Resolutions

    +

    Resolutions

    January kept me pretty busy, so I’m a little late to this. But better late than never. And as an Agile practitioner, I don’t think personal retrospectives should be limited to one time of year.

    Review of 2014

    -

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    +

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    Plans for 2015

    I’d like to keep things rolling from last year, but crank up a few things. My plans are quite ambitious, so I don’t expect to get everything done by any means. But I think by setting the bar high, I’ll end up with a lot I can be proud of.

    Job Hunting

    @@ -305,10 +305,10 @@

    Job Hunting

    Conferences

    I was incredibly nervous leading up to my RubyConf presentation. Part of that was just the common fear of public speaking. For me, that only kicks in at around 100 people, and this audience was around 250. I think another reason was that I chose a really ambitious topic, and I kept finding more that I wanted to talk about, but wasn’t prepared for. But I think I did a pretty good job presenting an advanced topic. And I was so pumped by the sense of accomplishment as soon as I finished. So I’m hoping to do it more. I’ve already submitted a couple proposals, and plan to submit several more.

    Blogging

    -

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    -

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    +

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    +

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    Programming Language Design

    -

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    +

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    I’m also going to spend a lot of time learning a bunch more programming languages, so I have a better understanding of possible features, combinations of features, and their interactions. I’ve already start with Elixir, Clojure, and Racket. I’m hoping to also look at OCaml, Factor, and Haskell. I’ll probably also take a look at the 2 “Seven Languages in Seven Weeks” books.

    Agile Book

    I think people often have trouble getting started with Agile. I started on a book last year, and got down quite a lot of good ideas. But I realized that I’m going to have a hard time organizing all those ideas into something coherent. Still, I’d like to try to get something out there that lets people get started with Agile. My idea is to present a toolbox of practices to get started with and build on that foundation over time with additional practices. Sort of a playbook on how to get started over the first 6 to 12 months and be successful. I want to make some progress on the book, at least enough to decide whether it’s worth the effort to finish it and self-publish it.

    @@ -316,13 +316,13 @@

    Agile Book

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Blogging, Brilliant, Resolutions, SecurityLeave a comment on Resolutions
    -

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    +

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    @@ -338,7 +338,7 @@

    Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    +

    So when I was learning about Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    class User
   include Virtus.model
 end
    @@ -361,31 +361,31 @@

    Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

    +

    The use of this idiom seems to be catching on a bit in the Ruby community. I’ve started using it myself, and will be adding it to my Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

     

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Ruby2 Comments on Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    -

    Brilliant – My Very Own Programming Language

    +

    Brilliant – My Very Own Programming Language

    -

    I’ve decided to design and implement my own programming language, and call it Brilliant.

    +

    I’ve decided to design and implement my own programming language, and call it Brilliant.

    I’ve been interested in programming languages and linguistics almost as long as I’ve been using computers. I’ve long thought that if I ever go back to college, it’s likely that I’ll concentrate on programming languages as a specialty.

    -

    My recent discovery and involvement with the Crystal programming language has gotten me excited about new language ideas. It’s also helped me realize that implementing a language myself is feasible, and that there’s no better time to start than now.

    +

    My recent discovery and involvement with the Crystal programming language has gotten me excited about new language ideas. It’s also helped me realize that implementing a language myself is feasible, and that there’s no better time to start than now.

    Implementation

    For now, the Brilliant implementation doesn’t let you do much more than “Hello World”. But you gotta start somewhere. So this article isn’t really “Introducing Brilliant” so much as the start of a series of articles on its design and implementation.

    I wanted to use a PEG (parsing expression grammar) parser for several reasons. For one, they seem to have gained a lot of popularity in the past few years. Also, PEGs cannot be ambiguous, which can solve a few difficult problems, such as the “dangling else“. Perhaps my favorite feature of PEG grammars is that you don’t need a separate tokenizer (lexer). This provides a nice advantage in that we can use keywords like “class” as variables, as long as they’re not used in a place where the keyword would make sense.

    -

    So knowing that I wanted to use a PEG, I had to find a PEG parser. I kind of wanted to use ANTLR, which has been a leading parser for many years. But the PEG seems to be new to version 4, and I couldn’t find any Ruby bindings for version 4. Treetop seems to be the most popular parser for Ruby, but I found the EBNF format that Rattler uses to be more to my taste. I think the fact that it’s newer also gives it a few advantages, having had a chance to learn some lessons from Treetop.

    -

    I thought about using the Rubinius VM, but decided to go with LLVM, mainly since it has slightly better docs for Ruby, and because it’s what Crystal uses. Also, it’s pretty easy to get it to compile to a binary executable or run in a JIT. In the future, I might consider switching to the Rubinius VM, the Erlang VM, or the Perl 6 VM (Parrot). But for now, I like the idea of being able to compile to a binary and easily interface with C, just like Crystal.

    +

    So knowing that I wanted to use a PEG, I had to find a PEG parser. I kind of wanted to use ANTLR, which has been a leading parser for many years. But the PEG seems to be new to version 4, and I couldn’t find any Ruby bindings for version 4. Treetop seems to be the most popular parser for Ruby, but I found the EBNF format that Rattler uses to be more to my taste. I think the fact that it’s newer also gives it a few advantages, having had a chance to learn some lessons from Treetop.

    +

    I thought about using the Rubinius VM, but decided to go with LLVM, mainly since it has slightly better docs for Ruby, and because it’s what Crystal uses. Also, it’s pretty easy to get it to compile to a binary executable or run in a JIT. In the future, I might consider switching to the Rubinius VM, the Erlang VM, or the Perl 6 VM (Parrot). But for now, I like the idea of being able to compile to a binary and easily interface with C, just like Crystal.

    Goals

    My main goal is to have fun playing around with language ideas.

    I’ve found a really great language in Ruby, so I’ll be using it as a starting point. But Ruby does have its faults. In some ways, I want to answer the question “what would Ruby look like if we designed it today?”.

    @@ -394,7 +394,7 @@

    Goals

    I’m not so much as interested in cutting-edge features, as in features that can be easily used by the average programmer. More importantly, I’m interested in how features interact with each other, so they fit well together to create a whole that’s greater than the sum of the parts.

    Naming

    -

    I wanted to name my programming language “Fermat”. I’ve long been intrigued by Fermat’s Last Theorem, and Fermat’s Little Theorem is important in number theory. Unfortunately, there’s already a computer algebra system with that name.

    +

    I wanted to name my programming language “Fermat”. I’ve long been intrigued by Fermat’s Last Theorem, and Fermat’s Little Theorem is important in number theory. Unfortunately, there’s already a computer algebra system with that name.

    So I decided to find a name in the same vein as “Ruby” and “Crystal”. I looked at the Wikipedia page for “gemstones” for some inspiration. A lot of the names of gemstones are already taken. I considered some obscure gemstones, but saw the word “brilliant” and thought it was decent. It’s not the name of another gemstone, but still evokes some similarity to Ruby and Crystal.

    So that’s the name for now. Perhaps I’ll decide to change it at some point in the future, but I needed a name for the project, as well as a file extension for source code files. I chose “bril” for that. I suppose “br” would be a better choice. Perhaps I’ll change that before the next article in this series.

    Future

    @@ -403,13 +403,13 @@

    Future

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Brilliant, Languages1 Comment on Brilliant – My Very Own Programming Language
    -

    Slow Down!

    +

    Slow Down!

    @@ -422,7 +422,7 @@

    Speed and Code Quality

    So when you try to write code quickly, code quality decreases, leading to a code base that takes more time to make changes to. Conversely, when you slow down, your code quality improves, and it becomes easier to make changes more quickly. So when writing code, slowing down in the short run leads to a speed-up in the long run.

    Speed and Process Improvement

    But writing code isn’t the only place where we try to speed up. On an Agile team, we’re always trying to improve the way we work — especially at the beginning stages of an Agile transformation. So we’re eager to make changes in our processes. But I’d urge you to slow down here as well.

    -

    My colleague Amos and I frequently argue over pair switching. It’s funny, because we agree on everything except for 1 small detail. We both think pair switching is very important, to ensure that team members see more of what’s going on, to bring more ideas to each story, to prevent knowledge silos, and to encourage team ownership. Where we disagree is how long an ideal pairing session should last. I think pairs should switch every 2 hours, and he thinks 1 hour is ideal. I’ve seen teams reach the 1 hour pairing sessions successfully. But usually not without some pain and even often failing at the first attempt.

    +

    My colleague Amos and I frequently argue over pair switching. It’s funny, because we agree on everything except for 1 small detail. We both think pair switching is very important, to ensure that team members see more of what’s going on, to bring more ideas to each story, to prevent knowledge silos, and to encourage team ownership. Where we disagree is how long an ideal pairing session should last. I think pairs should switch every 2 hours, and he thinks 1 hour is ideal. I’ve seen teams reach the 1 hour pairing sessions successfully. But usually not without some pain and even often failing at the first attempt.

    There’s nothing inherently wrong with failing. But if you fail at something, you’re not likely to try again. After all, you should learn from your failures, right?

    So if you want your team to do something, you probably don’t want them to fail at it. If they fail, they won’t want to try a second time. That’s just human nature, and learning from failure. While you might think that they failed because they weren’t ready for the change yet, they’ll most likely think that they failed because this particular change won’t work for their situation. And they probably won’t know what to change when trying again, so they won’t try again.

    I’ve seen this over and over. Back when Linux was up-and-coming, when a consultant pushed a company into using Linux before they were ready for it, and it didn’t work out, that company was cautious about trying again. So instead of being on the leading edge of using Linux, or even the middle of the pack, they ended up more toward the trailing edge. Had they not been pushed, they would have gotten more benefit in the long run.

    @@ -430,19 +430,19 @@

    Speed and Process Improvement

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, ProgrammingLeave a comment on Slow Down!
    -

    Burying the Lede

    +

    Burying the Lede

    Most of us don’t write very readable shell scripts. There are plenty of things we could do better, but today I want to talk about one in particular — burying the lede.

    -

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    +

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    To begin a story with details of secondary importance to the reader while postponing more essential points or facts.

    Like a good news article, code should tell a story. And the story should start with what’s most important. In the case of code, the most important information is the high-level functionality — a succinct summary of what the program does. In other words, write (and organize) the code top-down, as opposed to bottom-up.

    Unfortunately, shell script doesn’t make this easy. Due to the way shell scripts are interpreted, you can’t call a function until after you’ve defined it. This leads to most of us structuring our code like this:

    @@ -468,14 +468,14 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Burying the Lede + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Burying the Lede

    @@ -483,52 +483,52 @@

    Posts navigation

    @@ -539,21 +539,21 @@

    Posts navigation

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ +

    Not Quite Callbacks

    -

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    +

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    The problem is that we used callbacks (actually, a publish/subscribe mechanism) in a situation where they don’t seem to quite fit:

      def show
     interactor.on(:display) { |order| render order }
@@ -95,14 +95,14 @@ 
    Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:
    
+
    I discussed this problem with my friend and colleague, Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:
    
 
      def show
     interactor.get(params[:id]) do |on|
       on.display { |order| render order }
       on.not_found { |order_id| render status: 404 }
     end
   end
    
-
    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.
    
+
    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.
    
 
    Riposte also gives you the option of using the response object directly, instead of passing a block:
    
 
      def show
     on = interactor.get(params[:id])
@@ -114,25 +114,25 @@ 
    
-		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Not Quite Callbacks			
+		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Not Quite Callbacks			
 
 
 
    
 	
    
 		
-		
    Architectural Thoughts
    	
    
+		
    Architectural Thoughts
    	
 
 	
 	
 	
    
-		
    I’ve started working on my own framework in Ruby in the past couple days. It’s built upon my recent work at understanding Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest 2011 talk, and his article on Clean Architecture, and the resulting hexagonal architecture (AKA ports and adapters).
    
-
    Somehow my research in that vein led me to Gary Bernhardt’s Boundaries talk. I’ve read a lot about the talk, and knew about the idea of “functional core / imperative shell”. And I’ve worked with a lot of similar ideas lately. But I believe this is the first time that I actually watched the whole video.
    
+		
    I’ve started working on my own framework in Ruby in the past couple days. It’s built upon my recent work at understanding Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest 2011 talk, and his article on Clean Architecture, and the resulting hexagonal architecture (AKA ports and adapters).
    
+
    Somehow my research in that vein led me to Gary Bernhardt’s Boundaries talk. I’ve read a lot about the talk, and knew about the idea of “functional core / imperative shell”. And I’ve worked with a lot of similar ideas lately. But I believe this is the first time that I actually watched the whole video.
    
 
    Even after having read a lot about similar ideas, it was pretty mind-expanding. Gary’s really good at presenting these kinds of ideas in a simple way.
    
 
    OOP as usually taught includes encapsulation of data together with behavior, with mutable objects. Functional programming separates data and behavior, with mostly immutable data. From experience, encapsulating data and behavior together seems helpful. But experience also shows that immutability is useful. So it would be good to have both of those together. This is something I’ve been thinking for a few years — how best do we get both?
    
 
    Gary calls the combination “FauxO”. Logic and data are still combined, but there’s no mutation. Anywhere OOP would normally have mutation would just generate a new object. There’s no language restriction involved in enforcing immutability — just discipline.
    
 
    But without mutability, it’s hard to do IO and maintain state. So Gary’s solution is to encapsulate as much as possible into an immutable (functional or FauxO) core, and around that, use an imperative (traditional OOP) shell. The functional core contains the bulk of the logic, and the imperative shell is a glue layer that handles the real world, including disk, network, and other I/O.
    
 
    The result of this is that the shell has fewer paths, but more dependencies. The core contains no dependencies, but encapsulates the different logic paths. So we’re encapsulating dependencies on one side, and business logic on the other side. Or put another way, the way to figure out the separation is by doing as much as you can without mutation, and then encapsulating the mutation separately.
    
-
    I love how this naturally breaks things up, so that the core is all testable with unit tests, and the imperative shell is tested with integration tests. And since the shell has few or no logic paths, you get the testing pyramid, with more unit tests and fewer integration tests. The whole thing ends up being quite beautiful. Tests end up being very fast without any extra effort — not even stubbing or mocking. This tells us that things have been decomposed very well — an elegant design.
    
+
    I love how this naturally breaks things up, so that the core is all testable with unit tests, and the imperative shell is tested with integration tests. And since the shell has few or no logic paths, you get the testing pyramid, with more unit tests and fewer integration tests. The whole thing ends up being quite beautiful. Tests end up being very fast without any extra effort — not even stubbing or mocking. This tells us that things have been decomposed very well — an elegant design.
    
 
    Gary makes the case that immutable objects can be treated as values, and passed across boundaries. Even process boundaries. This is something I’ve noticed as I’ve been working on my own Uncle Bob style hexagonal framework, but nobody in that camp ever mentioned that — they prefer DTOs or something more like hashes. I’m completely against hashes, because of the “stringly-typed” problem. And I don’t see much advantage in a DTO if I’ve got an immutable object; I’d be basically copying the object to an almost identical object. And I’d be losing any laziness possible for derived values within the original immutable object.
    
 
    It’s striking to me how Gary’s image of an imperative shell around a functional core, plus Net, Disk, and State outside of the shell mirror’s Uncle Bob’s concentric circles. Uncle Bob has entities in the middle, surrounded by use cases, surrounded by Web, DB, and UI.
    
 
    Another advantage that Gary shows is that breaking things up this way allows easy concurrency. In his example, he shows using the actor model — either just using threads and queues, or an actor library (or language feature).
    
@@ -141,7 +141,7 @@ 
    
-		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Programming, Ruby, Web DevelopmentLeave a comment on Architectural Thoughts			
+		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Programming, Ruby, Web DevelopmentLeave a comment on Architectural Thoughts			
 
    
 
 		
@@ -150,52 +150,52 @@ 
    
 		
    Pages
    		    
 		
    Categories
    		
 
    	
@@ -206,21 +206,21 @@ 
    
-								BoochTek, LLC
-				Proudly powered by WordPress
+								BoochTek, LLC
+				Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
    -

    Hexagonal Rails Controllers

    +

    Hexagonal Rails Controllers

    I’ve had a long love-hate relationship with Rails. I love the MVC framework and how it’s improved our speed of writing web apps. But I’ve never really been completely happy with it. I don’t generally agree with most of its opinions. I prefer models that follow the Data Mapper pattern, not the Active Record pattern. This includes separating the persistence layer from the models’ business logic. I prefer Slim or HAML to ERB. I prefer RSpec to Test::Unit or MiniTest. When Merb hit the scene, I was ready to make the jump, until Merb merged with Rails.

    -

    So inspired by PJ Hagerty’s recent article on alternative Ruby web frameworks, I started thinking about how I’d write a replacement for Rails. I’d definitely keep the basic MVC framework. But I’d also want to implement a more hexagonal architecture.

    +

    So inspired by PJ Hagerty’s recent article on alternative Ruby web frameworks, I started thinking about how I’d write a replacement for Rails. I’d definitely keep the basic MVC framework. But I’d also want to implement a more hexagonal architecture.

    I started sketching out what this would look like, but I ended up starting with a Rails controller and finding the simplest way to make it hexagonal. I really don’t like callbacks, because they make tracing program execution difficult. But I didn’t see any other alternative. I found a simple pub/sub Ruby library called Wisper. It literally has only publish, subscribe, and on methods. (You use on to register single callbacks via blocks, and subscribe to register an object with method names corresponding to the callback names.)

    -

    The trick was figuring out how to break the controller into 2 pieces. What finally helped me was to find the single responsibilities of the 2 pieces. The Rails controller would remain in charge of managing the web interface, but would delegate to the other piece to handle any application-specific business logic. I decided to re-watch Uncle Bob Martin’s “Architecture The Lost Years” talk, which was the first time I was introduced to the ideas of Hexagonal Architecture. (He doesn’t name the architecture in the talk, but later calls it Clean Architecture.) He does a decent job of explaining how to break these 2 pieces apart. He used the term “interactor” in that talk, so I decided to go with that. He said that Jacobsen calls it a Control Object in Object Oriented Software Engineering, but that’s too close to Rails’s “controller”.

    +

    The trick was figuring out how to break the controller into 2 pieces. What finally helped me was to find the single responsibilities of the 2 pieces. The Rails controller would remain in charge of managing the web interface, but would delegate to the other piece to handle any application-specific business logic. I decided to re-watch Uncle Bob Martin’s “Architecture The Lost Years” talk, which was the first time I was introduced to the ideas of Hexagonal Architecture. (He doesn’t name the architecture in the talk, but later calls it Clean Architecture.) He does a decent job of explaining how to break these 2 pieces apart. He used the term “interactor” in that talk, so I decided to go with that. He said that Jacobsen calls it a Control Object in Object Oriented Software Engineering, but that’s too close to Rails’s “controller”.

    So here’s an example of what I ended up with:

    class OrderController < ApplicationController
   def index
@@ -128,25 +128,25 @@ 
    Trailblazer does it that way. And for more complicated business logic, I would do that too, using the Method Object pattern. But like a Rails controller, there’s a lot in common among all the operations. I feel like a separate class for each operation for each would create too many coupled classes.
    
+
    I do have a few problems with this solution though. I’m not a fan of the name “interactor” for the business logic. I thought about calling it OrderOperator, or maybe OrderOperations, because it’s really a collection of operations. Perhaps it would be better to separate each operation into a separate class. Trailblazer does it that way. And for more complicated business logic, I would do that too, using the Method Object pattern. But like a Rails controller, there’s a lot in common among all the operations. I feel like a separate class for each operation for each would create too many coupled classes.
    
 
    I’m also uncomfortable with the fact that the controller is delegating almost everything to the interactor. I guess this is OK, but it feels like there’s too little left when every line starts with interactor. I suppose extracting things some more would help mitigate this concern I’ll likely write a small gem to perform that extraction. I expect that that will allow a typical controller to be written in only a few lines. And maybe the same for the interactor side.
    
 
    With the business logic extracted out of the controller, it was really easy for me to write a command-line version of the app. As Uncle Bob says, “the web is not particularly important to your application.”
    
-
    I’ve put the code for this example on GitHub: https://github.com/boochtek/hexagonal-rails. I’ll likely experiment with it some more over the next few weeks and months.
    
+
    I’ve put the code for this example on GitHub: https://github.com/boochtek/hexagonal-rails. I’ll likely experiment with it some more over the next few weeks and months.
    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Hexagonal Rails Controllers
    -

    Includable ActiveRecord

    +

    Includable ActiveRecord

    -

    I created a Ruby gem recently, called includable-activerecord. It’s pretty small, but I thought I might explain why I created it, and discuss its implementation.

    +

    I created a Ruby gem recently, called includable-activerecord. It’s pretty small, but I thought I might explain why I created it, and discuss its implementation.

    Classical Inheritance

    When you use ActiveRecord, you normally include it in your model like this:

    class User < ActiveRecord::Base
@@ -164,9 +164,9 @@ 
    Classical Inheritance
    
 
    Implementation
    
 
    So I decided to see if I could implement the equivalent of the ActiveRecord::Base class as a module that could be mixed into model classes. I decided to call my mixin module ActiveRecord::Model, because classes that mix it in will behave as ActiveRecord models.
    
 
    It turns out that ActiveRecord::Base is a pretty complex class. It includes and extends a lot of other modules. Luckily, as of ActiveRecord 4.0, that’s all the code it includes.
    
-
    The module only defines a single class method, included. This is one of Ruby’s many hook methods. It gets called when the module in question gets included in another module, and receives that other model as its argument. All we need to have this method do is to include everything that ActiveRecord::Base includes, and extend everything that ActiveRecord::Base extends. Ruby provides a method that’s defined on all classes, called included_modules, which we can use to get the list of everything that’s included in ActiveRecord::Base. Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent list of extended_modules. But a quick search on Stack Overflow found an implementation of extended_modules that we could use.
    
+
    The module only defines a single class method, included. This is one of Ruby’s many hook methods. It gets called when the module in question gets included in another module, and receives that other model as its argument. All we need to have this method do is to include everything that ActiveRecord::Base includes, and extend everything that ActiveRecord::Base extends. Ruby provides a method that’s defined on all classes, called included_modules, which we can use to get the list of everything that’s included in ActiveRecord::Base. Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent list of extended_modules. But a quick search on Stack Overflow found an implementation of extended_modules that we could use.
    
 
    So with a bit of magic (i.e. hooks and meta-programming), we can get the lists of constituent modules from the ActiveRecord::Base class, and include them in our ActiveRecord::Model module.
    
-
    So with all that, we can now include the includable-activerecord gem and mix it in, with all the advantages that provides:
    
+
    So with all that, we can now include the includable-activerecord gem and mix it in, with all the advantages that provides:
    
 
    class User
   include ActiveRecord::Model
   # ...
@@ -175,13 +175,13 @@ 
    Implementation
    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Includable ActiveRecord
    -

    Testing Rails Validators

    +

    Testing Rails Validators

    @@ -218,11 +218,11 @@

    this Stack Overflow answer. Basically, create a minimal model object that contains the field and the validation. Then test that the model behaves like you expect with different values and validations.

    +

    Integration testing can also be a bit of a challenge. I recommend following the example from this Stack Overflow answer. Basically, create a minimal model object that contains the field and the validation. Then test that the model behaves like you expect with different values and validations.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby on Rails, TDDLeave a comment on Testing Rails Validators

    @@ -231,52 +231,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -287,21 +287,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ +

    Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys

    I recently decided to start using Emacs again. I used it extensively from the early 1990s until the early 2000s. I pretty much stopped using it when I had a sysadmin job with no Emacs on the servers, and no ability to install it. With the rising popularity of tmux and tmate for remote pairing, and my dislike for vim’s modes, I decided to try going back to Emacs in the terminal.

    One thing I really want in a text editor is good cursor key support. Shifted cursor keys
    -should select text, and Control+left and right should move by words. (Apple HIG says to use Option+left and right to move by words; most apps on Mac OS X seem to support both.) Things have worked this way on almost every text editor on every OS I’ve used — Amiga, DOS, Windows, NeXT, Mac, Motif, Gnome, KDE. It’s a part of the CUA standard that’s been in common usage on everything since the mid-1980s.

    -

    Enabling cursor keys in Emacs was pretty easy. I’ve decided to use Prelude to make getting started with Emacs easy. Emacs comes with the cursor keys enabled, but Prelude disables them. Undoing Prelude’s change is pretty easy:

    +should select text, and Control+left and right should move by words. (Apple HIG says to use Option+left and right to move by words; most apps on Mac OS X seem to support both.) Things have worked this way on almost every text editor on every OS I’ve used — Amiga, DOS, Windows, NeXT, Mac, Motif, Gnome, KDE. It’s a part of the CUA standard that’s been in common usage on everything since the mid-1980s.

    +

    Enabling cursor keys in Emacs was pretty easy. I’ve decided to use Prelude to make getting started with Emacs easy. Emacs comes with the cursor keys enabled, but Prelude disables them. Undoing Prelude’s change is pretty easy:

    (setq prelude-guru nil)

    Trying to make shifted cursor keys work is where the trouble began. They work in the GUI version of Emacs, but not from the terminal. It turns out that the Mac Terminal doesn’t distinguish between cursor keys and shifted cursor keys in its default configuration. So I had to figure out how to configure key bindings in Terminal.

    That’s easy enough — they’re in the preferences. But what should I set them to? This took a lot of research. Terminal emulation and ANSI code sequences are obscure, complex, and inconsistent. I eventually found the info I needed. For starters, Shift+Right, Shift+Left, Shift+Home, and Shift+End are defined in the terminfo. The rest I was able to piece together from various sources around the Internet.

    -

    I’m also trying to script my Mac configuration. So instead of manually adding all the keybindings in the Terminal preferences pane, I decided to write a script. Mac OS X does a decent job of allowing you to change preferences from the command line. For example, to always show the tab bar:

    +

    I’m also trying to script my Mac configuration. So instead of manually adding all the keybindings in the Terminal preferences pane, I decided to write a script. Mac OS X does a decent job of allowing you to change preferences from the command line. For example, to always show the tab bar:

    defaults write -app Terminal ShowTabBar 1
    -

    Easy enough, except for a couple problems. First, I had to figure out the obscure syntax used in the preferences for key codes. I was able to piece these together with some more Internet research. But the really big problem is that the keyboard bindings are 2 levels deep within a “dictionary” (hash map). And the defaults command doesn’t handle that. There are some obscure utilities that handle nested preferences, but they don’t work well with the preferences caching in Mac OS X 10.9 — a problem I ran into while testing.

    +

    Easy enough, except for a couple problems. First, I had to figure out the obscure syntax used in the preferences for key codes. I was able to piece these together with some more Internet research. But the really big problem is that the keyboard bindings are 2 levels deep within a “dictionary” (hash map). And the defaults command doesn’t handle that. There are some obscure utilities that handle nested preferences, but they don’t work well with the preferences caching in Mac OS X 10.9 — a problem I ran into while testing.

    So now I’m writing a utility in Python that does what the defaults command does, but that will handle nested dictionaries.

    There’s a term for this process of having to solve one issue before you can solve another, and the issues get several layers deep. It’s called yak shaving.

    Here’s another good example:

    -
    Father from Malcolm in the middle having to fix one thing before fixing another, ad infinitum.
    Yak shaving – home repairs
    +
    Father from Malcolm in the middle having to fix one thing before fixing another, ad infinitum.
    Yak shaving – home repairs

    I’m sure this will be the first of many posts about me yak shaving.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys
    -

    Includable ActiveRecord

    +

    Includable ActiveRecord

    -

    I created a Ruby gem recently, called includable-activerecord. It’s pretty small, but I thought I might explain why I created it, and discuss its implementation.

    +

    I created a Ruby gem recently, called includable-activerecord. It’s pretty small, but I thought I might explain why I created it, and discuss its implementation.

    Classical Inheritance

    When you use ActiveRecord, you normally include it in your model like this:

    class User < ActiveRecord::Base
@@ -134,9 +134,9 @@ 
    Classical Inheritance
    
 
    Implementation
    
 
    So I decided to see if I could implement the equivalent of the ActiveRecord::Base class as a module that could be mixed into model classes. I decided to call my mixin module ActiveRecord::Model, because classes that mix it in will behave as ActiveRecord models.
    
 
    It turns out that ActiveRecord::Base is a pretty complex class. It includes and extends a lot of other modules. Luckily, as of ActiveRecord 4.0, that’s all the code it includes.
    
-
    The module only defines a single class method, included. This is one of Ruby’s many hook methods. It gets called when the module in question gets included in another module, and receives that other model as its argument. All we need to have this method do is to include everything that ActiveRecord::Base includes, and extend everything that ActiveRecord::Base extends. Ruby provides a method that’s defined on all classes, called included_modules, which we can use to get the list of everything that’s included in ActiveRecord::Base. Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent list of extended_modules. But a quick search on Stack Overflow found an implementation of extended_modules that we could use.
    
+
    The module only defines a single class method, included. This is one of Ruby’s many hook methods. It gets called when the module in question gets included in another module, and receives that other model as its argument. All we need to have this method do is to include everything that ActiveRecord::Base includes, and extend everything that ActiveRecord::Base extends. Ruby provides a method that’s defined on all classes, called included_modules, which we can use to get the list of everything that’s included in ActiveRecord::Base. Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent list of extended_modules. But a quick search on Stack Overflow found an implementation of extended_modules that we could use.
    
 
    So with a bit of magic (i.e. hooks and meta-programming), we can get the lists of constituent modules from the ActiveRecord::Base class, and include them in our ActiveRecord::Model module.
    
-
    So with all that, we can now include the includable-activerecord gem and mix it in, with all the advantages that provides:
    
+
    So with all that, we can now include the includable-activerecord gem and mix it in, with all the advantages that provides:
    
 
    class User
   include ActiveRecord::Model
   # ...
@@ -145,13 +145,13 @@ 
    Implementation
    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Includable ActiveRecord
    -

    Testing Rails Validators

    +

    Testing Rails Validators

    @@ -188,17 +188,17 @@

    this Stack Overflow answer. Basically, create a minimal model object that contains the field and the validation. Then test that the model behaves like you expect with different values and validations.

    +

    Integration testing can also be a bit of a challenge. I recommend following the example from this Stack Overflow answer. Basically, create a minimal model object that contains the field and the validation. Then test that the model behaves like you expect with different values and validations.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby on Rails, TDDLeave a comment on Testing Rails Validators

    -

    Write Comments For Yourself

    +

    Write Comments For Yourself

    -

    Amos and I got in a heated discussion recently on whether we should write a single line comment to better explain some code. (The code in question was Amos’s very elegant solution to testing whether a job got sent to Resque.)

    +

    Amos and I got in a heated discussion recently on whether we should write a single line comment to better explain some code. (The code in question was Amos’s very elegant solution to testing whether a job got sent to Resque.)

    Amos doesn’t believe in writing comments much at all. He thinks that if you’re writing a comment, it means that you’re doing something wrong, and that you probably need to write the code more clearly.

    I agree with that, to a point. First off, it’s not necessary to write perfect code. If you can change a class or method name to better describe what you’re doing (and more importantly, why you’re doing it) then you should definitely do so. But it’s not always worth refactoring until you get every “why” answered. More importantly, I don’t think it’s even possible to capture everything in the code that is worth capturing. For example, why did you choose this implementation, as opposed to another that might be more obvious or common?

    After our argument, I came up with a good rule of thumb (or “pattern”):

    @@ -434,13 +434,13 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories ProgrammingLeave a comment on Write Comments For Yourself + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories ProgrammingLeave a comment on Write Comments For Yourself

    @@ -449,52 +449,52 @@

    Posts navigation

    @@ -505,21 +505,21 @@

    Posts navigation

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
    -

    2015 Year in Review

    +

    2015 Year in Review

    -

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    +

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    • Job Hunting
    • Conferences
      • @@ -96,14 +96,14 @@

      Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      -

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      +

      I got pretty lucky on this one. My main contract with Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      +

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      Conferences

      -

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      -

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      -

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      +

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      +

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      +

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      Blogging

      -

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      +

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      I’m not so sure about the quality of my blog writing though. I know that practicing writing is supposed to make you better. I know I wrote some really good articles over the past year, but I think I also wrote some articles that weren’t very good. I think sometimes the deadline has caused more harm than good. I’m not really sure what to do about that; perhaps just pushing on is the right answer.

      Programming Language Design

      I’ve taken a lot of notes on the design of my programming language. Any time I learn something interesting about another language, or come up with another idea, I write it down.

      @@ -113,26 +113,26 @@

      Writing an Agile Book

      I’ve got some things to say about Agile, and want to write a book to express those ideas. I’ve made a start — I’ve got the chapters outlines, and have started on a few chapters. But I haven’t made as much progress as I’d like to. I shared what I’ve got with Amos, and he showed some interest in pairing with me on the writing. Hopefully we’ll work on it together in 2016 and publish it.

      Other

      There were a few other accomplishments that weren’t explicitly on my list, but I’d like to call attention to.

      -

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      -

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      -

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      +

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      +

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      +

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      Conclusion

      I’m pretty happy with my accomplishments this year. I made at least some progress on each of the goals I set. I’ve been thinking about my goals for next year; I’ll write that as a separate blog article next week.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging, Brilliant, Languages, Resolutions, RetrospectivesLeave a comment on 2015 Year in Review
    -

    Not Quite Callbacks

    +

    Not Quite Callbacks

    -

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    +

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    The problem is that we used callbacks (actually, a publish/subscribe mechanism) in a situation where they don’t seem to quite fit:

      def show
     interactor.on(:display) { |order| render order }
@@ -140,14 +140,14 @@ 
    Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:
    
+
    I discussed this problem with my friend and colleague, Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:
    
 
      def show
     interactor.get(params[:id]) do |on|
       on.display { |order| render order }
       on.not_found { |order_id| render status: 404 }
     end
   end
    
-
    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.
    
+
    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.
    
 
    Riposte also gives you the option of using the response object directly, instead of passing a block:
    
 
      def show
     on = interactor.get(params[:id])
@@ -159,25 +159,25 @@ 
    
-		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Not Quite Callbacks			
+		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Not Quite Callbacks
    -

    Architectural Thoughts

    +

    Architectural Thoughts

    -

    I’ve started working on my own framework in Ruby in the past couple days. It’s built upon my recent work at understanding Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest 2011 talk, and his article on Clean Architecture, and the resulting hexagonal architecture (AKA ports and adapters).

    -

    Somehow my research in that vein led me to Gary Bernhardt’s Boundaries talk. I’ve read a lot about the talk, and knew about the idea of “functional core / imperative shell”. And I’ve worked with a lot of similar ideas lately. But I believe this is the first time that I actually watched the whole video.

    +

    I’ve started working on my own framework in Ruby in the past couple days. It’s built upon my recent work at understanding Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest 2011 talk, and his article on Clean Architecture, and the resulting hexagonal architecture (AKA ports and adapters).

    +

    Somehow my research in that vein led me to Gary Bernhardt’s Boundaries talk. I’ve read a lot about the talk, and knew about the idea of “functional core / imperative shell”. And I’ve worked with a lot of similar ideas lately. But I believe this is the first time that I actually watched the whole video.

    Even after having read a lot about similar ideas, it was pretty mind-expanding. Gary’s really good at presenting these kinds of ideas in a simple way.

    OOP as usually taught includes encapsulation of data together with behavior, with mutable objects. Functional programming separates data and behavior, with mostly immutable data. From experience, encapsulating data and behavior together seems helpful. But experience also shows that immutability is useful. So it would be good to have both of those together. This is something I’ve been thinking for a few years — how best do we get both?

    Gary calls the combination “FauxO”. Logic and data are still combined, but there’s no mutation. Anywhere OOP would normally have mutation would just generate a new object. There’s no language restriction involved in enforcing immutability — just discipline.

    But without mutability, it’s hard to do IO and maintain state. So Gary’s solution is to encapsulate as much as possible into an immutable (functional or FauxO) core, and around that, use an imperative (traditional OOP) shell. The functional core contains the bulk of the logic, and the imperative shell is a glue layer that handles the real world, including disk, network, and other I/O.

    The result of this is that the shell has fewer paths, but more dependencies. The core contains no dependencies, but encapsulates the different logic paths. So we’re encapsulating dependencies on one side, and business logic on the other side. Or put another way, the way to figure out the separation is by doing as much as you can without mutation, and then encapsulating the mutation separately.

    -

    I love how this naturally breaks things up, so that the core is all testable with unit tests, and the imperative shell is tested with integration tests. And since the shell has few or no logic paths, you get the testing pyramid, with more unit tests and fewer integration tests. The whole thing ends up being quite beautiful. Tests end up being very fast without any extra effort — not even stubbing or mocking. This tells us that things have been decomposed very well — an elegant design.

    +

    I love how this naturally breaks things up, so that the core is all testable with unit tests, and the imperative shell is tested with integration tests. And since the shell has few or no logic paths, you get the testing pyramid, with more unit tests and fewer integration tests. The whole thing ends up being quite beautiful. Tests end up being very fast without any extra effort — not even stubbing or mocking. This tells us that things have been decomposed very well — an elegant design.

    Gary makes the case that immutable objects can be treated as values, and passed across boundaries. Even process boundaries. This is something I’ve noticed as I’ve been working on my own Uncle Bob style hexagonal framework, but nobody in that camp ever mentioned that — they prefer DTOs or something more like hashes. I’m completely against hashes, because of the “stringly-typed” problem. And I don’t see much advantage in a DTO if I’ve got an immutable object; I’d be basically copying the object to an almost identical object. And I’d be losing any laziness possible for derived values within the original immutable object.

    It’s striking to me how Gary’s image of an imperative shell around a functional core, plus Net, Disk, and State outside of the shell mirror’s Uncle Bob’s concentric circles. Uncle Bob has entities in the middle, surrounded by use cases, surrounded by Web, DB, and UI.

    Another advantage that Gary shows is that breaking things up this way allows easy concurrency. In his example, he shows using the actor model — either just using threads and queues, or an actor library (or language feature).

    @@ -186,21 +186,21 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Programming, Ruby, Web DevelopmentLeave a comment on Architectural Thoughts + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Programming, Ruby, Web DevelopmentLeave a comment on Architectural Thoughts

    -

    Hexagonal Rails Controllers

    +

    Hexagonal Rails Controllers

    I’ve had a long love-hate relationship with Rails. I love the MVC framework and how it’s improved our speed of writing web apps. But I’ve never really been completely happy with it. I don’t generally agree with most of its opinions. I prefer models that follow the Data Mapper pattern, not the Active Record pattern. This includes separating the persistence layer from the models’ business logic. I prefer Slim or HAML to ERB. I prefer RSpec to Test::Unit or MiniTest. When Merb hit the scene, I was ready to make the jump, until Merb merged with Rails.

    -

    So inspired by PJ Hagerty’s recent article on alternative Ruby web frameworks, I started thinking about how I’d write a replacement for Rails. I’d definitely keep the basic MVC framework. But I’d also want to implement a more hexagonal architecture.

    +

    So inspired by PJ Hagerty’s recent article on alternative Ruby web frameworks, I started thinking about how I’d write a replacement for Rails. I’d definitely keep the basic MVC framework. But I’d also want to implement a more hexagonal architecture.

    I started sketching out what this would look like, but I ended up starting with a Rails controller and finding the simplest way to make it hexagonal. I really don’t like callbacks, because they make tracing program execution difficult. But I didn’t see any other alternative. I found a simple pub/sub Ruby library called Wisper. It literally has only publish, subscribe, and on methods. (You use on to register single callbacks via blocks, and subscribe to register an object with method names corresponding to the callback names.)

    -

    The trick was figuring out how to break the controller into 2 pieces. What finally helped me was to find the single responsibilities of the 2 pieces. The Rails controller would remain in charge of managing the web interface, but would delegate to the other piece to handle any application-specific business logic. I decided to re-watch Uncle Bob Martin’s “Architecture The Lost Years” talk, which was the first time I was introduced to the ideas of Hexagonal Architecture. (He doesn’t name the architecture in the talk, but later calls it Clean Architecture.) He does a decent job of explaining how to break these 2 pieces apart. He used the term “interactor” in that talk, so I decided to go with that. He said that Jacobsen calls it a Control Object in Object Oriented Software Engineering, but that’s too close to Rails’s “controller”.

    +

    The trick was figuring out how to break the controller into 2 pieces. What finally helped me was to find the single responsibilities of the 2 pieces. The Rails controller would remain in charge of managing the web interface, but would delegate to the other piece to handle any application-specific business logic. I decided to re-watch Uncle Bob Martin’s “Architecture The Lost Years” talk, which was the first time I was introduced to the ideas of Hexagonal Architecture. (He doesn’t name the architecture in the talk, but later calls it Clean Architecture.) He does a decent job of explaining how to break these 2 pieces apart. He used the term “interactor” in that talk, so I decided to go with that. He said that Jacobsen calls it a Control Object in Object Oriented Software Engineering, but that’s too close to Rails’s “controller”.

    So here’s an example of what I ended up with:

    class OrderController < ApplicationController
   def index
@@ -238,27 +238,27 @@ 
    Trailblazer does it that way. And for more complicated business logic, I would do that too, using the Method Object pattern. But like a Rails controller, there’s a lot in common among all the operations. I feel like a separate class for each operation for each would create too many coupled classes.
    
+
    I do have a few problems with this solution though. I’m not a fan of the name “interactor” for the business logic. I thought about calling it OrderOperator, or maybe OrderOperations, because it’s really a collection of operations. Perhaps it would be better to separate each operation into a separate class. Trailblazer does it that way. And for more complicated business logic, I would do that too, using the Method Object pattern. But like a Rails controller, there’s a lot in common among all the operations. I feel like a separate class for each operation for each would create too many coupled classes.
    
 
    I’m also uncomfortable with the fact that the controller is delegating almost everything to the interactor. I guess this is OK, but it feels like there’s too little left when every line starts with interactor. I suppose extracting things some more would help mitigate this concern I’ll likely write a small gem to perform that extraction. I expect that that will allow a typical controller to be written in only a few lines. And maybe the same for the interactor side.
    
 
    With the business logic extracted out of the controller, it was really easy for me to write a command-line version of the app. As Uncle Bob says, “the web is not particularly important to your application.”
    
-
    I’ve put the code for this example on GitHub: https://github.com/boochtek/hexagonal-rails. I’ll likely experiment with it some more over the next few weeks and months.
    
+
    I’ve put the code for this example on GitHub: https://github.com/boochtek/hexagonal-rails. I’ll likely experiment with it some more over the next few weeks and months.
    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Hexagonal Rails Controllers
    -

    Resolutions

    +

    Resolutions

    January kept me pretty busy, so I’m a little late to this. But better late than never. And as an Agile practitioner, I don’t think personal retrospectives should be limited to one time of year.

    Review of 2014

    -

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    +

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    Plans for 2015

    I’d like to keep things rolling from last year, but crank up a few things. My plans are quite ambitious, so I don’t expect to get everything done by any means. But I think by setting the bar high, I’ll end up with a lot I can be proud of.

    Job Hunting

    @@ -266,10 +266,10 @@

    Job Hunting

    Conferences

    I was incredibly nervous leading up to my RubyConf presentation. Part of that was just the common fear of public speaking. For me, that only kicks in at around 100 people, and this audience was around 250. I think another reason was that I chose a really ambitious topic, and I kept finding more that I wanted to talk about, but wasn’t prepared for. But I think I did a pretty good job presenting an advanced topic. And I was so pumped by the sense of accomplishment as soon as I finished. So I’m hoping to do it more. I’ve already submitted a couple proposals, and plan to submit several more.

    Blogging

    -

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    -

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    +

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    +

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    Programming Language Design

    -

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    +

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    I’m also going to spend a lot of time learning a bunch more programming languages, so I have a better understanding of possible features, combinations of features, and their interactions. I’ve already start with Elixir, Clojure, and Racket. I’m hoping to also look at OCaml, Factor, and Haskell. I’ll probably also take a look at the 2 “Seven Languages in Seven Weeks” books.

    Agile Book

    I think people often have trouble getting started with Agile. I started on a book last year, and got down quite a lot of good ideas. But I realized that I’m going to have a hard time organizing all those ideas into something coherent. Still, I’d like to try to get something out there that lets people get started with Agile. My idea is to present a toolbox of practices to get started with and build on that foundation over time with additional practices. Sort of a playbook on how to get started over the first 6 to 12 months and be successful. I want to make some progress on the book, at least enough to decide whether it’s worth the effort to finish it and self-publish it.

    @@ -277,13 +277,13 @@

    Agile Book

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Blogging, Brilliant, Resolutions, SecurityLeave a comment on Resolutions
    -

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    +

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    @@ -299,7 +299,7 @@

    Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    +

    So when I was learning about Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    class User
   include Virtus.model
 end
    @@ -322,31 +322,31 @@

    Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

    +

    The use of this idiom seems to be catching on a bit in the Ruby community. I’ve started using it myself, and will be adding it to my Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

     

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Ruby2 Comments on Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    -

    Brilliant – My Very Own Programming Language

    +

    Brilliant – My Very Own Programming Language

    -

    I’ve decided to design and implement my own programming language, and call it Brilliant.

    +

    I’ve decided to design and implement my own programming language, and call it Brilliant.

    I’ve been interested in programming languages and linguistics almost as long as I’ve been using computers. I’ve long thought that if I ever go back to college, it’s likely that I’ll concentrate on programming languages as a specialty.

    -

    My recent discovery and involvement with the Crystal programming language has gotten me excited about new language ideas. It’s also helped me realize that implementing a language myself is feasible, and that there’s no better time to start than now.

    +

    My recent discovery and involvement with the Crystal programming language has gotten me excited about new language ideas. It’s also helped me realize that implementing a language myself is feasible, and that there’s no better time to start than now.

    Implementation

    For now, the Brilliant implementation doesn’t let you do much more than “Hello World”. But you gotta start somewhere. So this article isn’t really “Introducing Brilliant” so much as the start of a series of articles on its design and implementation.

    I wanted to use a PEG (parsing expression grammar) parser for several reasons. For one, they seem to have gained a lot of popularity in the past few years. Also, PEGs cannot be ambiguous, which can solve a few difficult problems, such as the “dangling else“. Perhaps my favorite feature of PEG grammars is that you don’t need a separate tokenizer (lexer). This provides a nice advantage in that we can use keywords like “class” as variables, as long as they’re not used in a place where the keyword would make sense.

    -

    So knowing that I wanted to use a PEG, I had to find a PEG parser. I kind of wanted to use ANTLR, which has been a leading parser for many years. But the PEG seems to be new to version 4, and I couldn’t find any Ruby bindings for version 4. Treetop seems to be the most popular parser for Ruby, but I found the EBNF format that Rattler uses to be more to my taste. I think the fact that it’s newer also gives it a few advantages, having had a chance to learn some lessons from Treetop.

    -

    I thought about using the Rubinius VM, but decided to go with LLVM, mainly since it has slightly better docs for Ruby, and because it’s what Crystal uses. Also, it’s pretty easy to get it to compile to a binary executable or run in a JIT. In the future, I might consider switching to the Rubinius VM, the Erlang VM, or the Perl 6 VM (Parrot). But for now, I like the idea of being able to compile to a binary and easily interface with C, just like Crystal.

    +

    So knowing that I wanted to use a PEG, I had to find a PEG parser. I kind of wanted to use ANTLR, which has been a leading parser for many years. But the PEG seems to be new to version 4, and I couldn’t find any Ruby bindings for version 4. Treetop seems to be the most popular parser for Ruby, but I found the EBNF format that Rattler uses to be more to my taste. I think the fact that it’s newer also gives it a few advantages, having had a chance to learn some lessons from Treetop.

    +

    I thought about using the Rubinius VM, but decided to go with LLVM, mainly since it has slightly better docs for Ruby, and because it’s what Crystal uses. Also, it’s pretty easy to get it to compile to a binary executable or run in a JIT. In the future, I might consider switching to the Rubinius VM, the Erlang VM, or the Perl 6 VM (Parrot). But for now, I like the idea of being able to compile to a binary and easily interface with C, just like Crystal.

    Goals

    My main goal is to have fun playing around with language ideas.

    I’ve found a really great language in Ruby, so I’ll be using it as a starting point. But Ruby does have its faults. In some ways, I want to answer the question “what would Ruby look like if we designed it today?”.

    @@ -355,7 +355,7 @@

    Goals

    I’m not so much as interested in cutting-edge features, as in features that can be easily used by the average programmer. More importantly, I’m interested in how features interact with each other, so they fit well together to create a whole that’s greater than the sum of the parts.

    Naming

    -

    I wanted to name my programming language “Fermat”. I’ve long been intrigued by Fermat’s Last Theorem, and Fermat’s Little Theorem is important in number theory. Unfortunately, there’s already a computer algebra system with that name.

    +

    I wanted to name my programming language “Fermat”. I’ve long been intrigued by Fermat’s Last Theorem, and Fermat’s Little Theorem is important in number theory. Unfortunately, there’s already a computer algebra system with that name.

    So I decided to find a name in the same vein as “Ruby” and “Crystal”. I looked at the Wikipedia page for “gemstones” for some inspiration. A lot of the names of gemstones are already taken. I considered some obscure gemstones, but saw the word “brilliant” and thought it was decent. It’s not the name of another gemstone, but still evokes some similarity to Ruby and Crystal.

    So that’s the name for now. Perhaps I’ll decide to change it at some point in the future, but I needed a name for the project, as well as a file extension for source code files. I chose “bril” for that. I suppose “br” would be a better choice. Perhaps I’ll change that before the next article in this series.

    Future

    @@ -364,19 +364,19 @@

    Future

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Brilliant, Languages1 Comment on Brilliant – My Very Own Programming Language
    -

    Burying the Lede

    +

    Burying the Lede

    Most of us don’t write very readable shell scripts. There are plenty of things we could do better, but today I want to talk about one in particular — burying the lede.

    -

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    +

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    To begin a story with details of secondary importance to the reader while postponing more essential points or facts.

    Like a good news article, code should tell a story. And the story should start with what’s most important. In the case of code, the most important information is the high-level functionality — a succinct summary of what the program does. In other words, write (and organize) the code top-down, as opposed to bottom-up.

    Unfortunately, shell script doesn’t make this easy. Due to the way shell scripts are interpreted, you can’t call a function until after you’ve defined it. This leads to most of us structuring our code like this:

    @@ -402,47 +402,47 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Burying the Lede + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Burying the Lede

    -

    Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys

    +

    Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys

    I recently decided to start using Emacs again. I used it extensively from the early 1990s until the early 2000s. I pretty much stopped using it when I had a sysadmin job with no Emacs on the servers, and no ability to install it. With the rising popularity of tmux and tmate for remote pairing, and my dislike for vim’s modes, I decided to try going back to Emacs in the terminal.

    One thing I really want in a text editor is good cursor key support. Shifted cursor keys
    -should select text, and Control+left and right should move by words. (Apple HIG says to use Option+left and right to move by words; most apps on Mac OS X seem to support both.) Things have worked this way on almost every text editor on every OS I’ve used — Amiga, DOS, Windows, NeXT, Mac, Motif, Gnome, KDE. It’s a part of the CUA standard that’s been in common usage on everything since the mid-1980s.

    -

    Enabling cursor keys in Emacs was pretty easy. I’ve decided to use Prelude to make getting started with Emacs easy. Emacs comes with the cursor keys enabled, but Prelude disables them. Undoing Prelude’s change is pretty easy:

    +should select text, and Control+left and right should move by words. (Apple HIG says to use Option+left and right to move by words; most apps on Mac OS X seem to support both.) Things have worked this way on almost every text editor on every OS I’ve used — Amiga, DOS, Windows, NeXT, Mac, Motif, Gnome, KDE. It’s a part of the CUA standard that’s been in common usage on everything since the mid-1980s.

    +

    Enabling cursor keys in Emacs was pretty easy. I’ve decided to use Prelude to make getting started with Emacs easy. Emacs comes with the cursor keys enabled, but Prelude disables them. Undoing Prelude’s change is pretty easy:

    (setq prelude-guru nil)

    Trying to make shifted cursor keys work is where the trouble began. They work in the GUI version of Emacs, but not from the terminal. It turns out that the Mac Terminal doesn’t distinguish between cursor keys and shifted cursor keys in its default configuration. So I had to figure out how to configure key bindings in Terminal.

    That’s easy enough — they’re in the preferences. But what should I set them to? This took a lot of research. Terminal emulation and ANSI code sequences are obscure, complex, and inconsistent. I eventually found the info I needed. For starters, Shift+Right, Shift+Left, Shift+Home, and Shift+End are defined in the terminfo. The rest I was able to piece together from various sources around the Internet.

    -

    I’m also trying to script my Mac configuration. So instead of manually adding all the keybindings in the Terminal preferences pane, I decided to write a script. Mac OS X does a decent job of allowing you to change preferences from the command line. For example, to always show the tab bar:

    +

    I’m also trying to script my Mac configuration. So instead of manually adding all the keybindings in the Terminal preferences pane, I decided to write a script. Mac OS X does a decent job of allowing you to change preferences from the command line. For example, to always show the tab bar:

    defaults write -app Terminal ShowTabBar 1
    -

    Easy enough, except for a couple problems. First, I had to figure out the obscure syntax used in the preferences for key codes. I was able to piece these together with some more Internet research. But the really big problem is that the keyboard bindings are 2 levels deep within a “dictionary” (hash map). And the defaults command doesn’t handle that. There are some obscure utilities that handle nested preferences, but they don’t work well with the preferences caching in Mac OS X 10.9 — a problem I ran into while testing.

    +

    Easy enough, except for a couple problems. First, I had to figure out the obscure syntax used in the preferences for key codes. I was able to piece these together with some more Internet research. But the really big problem is that the keyboard bindings are 2 levels deep within a “dictionary” (hash map). And the defaults command doesn’t handle that. There are some obscure utilities that handle nested preferences, but they don’t work well with the preferences caching in Mac OS X 10.9 — a problem I ran into while testing.

    So now I’m writing a utility in Python that does what the defaults command does, but that will handle nested dictionaries.

    There’s a term for this process of having to solve one issue before you can solve another, and the issues get several layers deep. It’s called yak shaving.

    Here’s another good example:

    -
    Father from Malcolm in the middle having to fix one thing before fixing another, ad infinitum.
    Yak shaving – home repairs
    +
    Father from Malcolm in the middle having to fix one thing before fixing another, ad infinitum.
    Yak shaving – home repairs

    I’m sure this will be the first of many posts about me yak shaving.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys
    -

    Includable ActiveRecord

    +

    Includable ActiveRecord

    -

    I created a Ruby gem recently, called includable-activerecord. It’s pretty small, but I thought I might explain why I created it, and discuss its implementation.

    +

    I created a Ruby gem recently, called includable-activerecord. It’s pretty small, but I thought I might explain why I created it, and discuss its implementation.

    Classical Inheritance

    When you use ActiveRecord, you normally include it in your model like this:

    class User < ActiveRecord::Base
@@ -460,9 +460,9 @@ 
    Classical Inheritance
    
 
    Implementation
    
 
    So I decided to see if I could implement the equivalent of the ActiveRecord::Base class as a module that could be mixed into model classes. I decided to call my mixin module ActiveRecord::Model, because classes that mix it in will behave as ActiveRecord models.
    
 
    It turns out that ActiveRecord::Base is a pretty complex class. It includes and extends a lot of other modules. Luckily, as of ActiveRecord 4.0, that’s all the code it includes.
    
-
    The module only defines a single class method, included. This is one of Ruby’s many hook methods. It gets called when the module in question gets included in another module, and receives that other model as its argument. All we need to have this method do is to include everything that ActiveRecord::Base includes, and extend everything that ActiveRecord::Base extends. Ruby provides a method that’s defined on all classes, called included_modules, which we can use to get the list of everything that’s included in ActiveRecord::Base. Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent list of extended_modules. But a quick search on Stack Overflow found an implementation of extended_modules that we could use.
    
+
    The module only defines a single class method, included. This is one of Ruby’s many hook methods. It gets called when the module in question gets included in another module, and receives that other model as its argument. All we need to have this method do is to include everything that ActiveRecord::Base includes, and extend everything that ActiveRecord::Base extends. Ruby provides a method that’s defined on all classes, called included_modules, which we can use to get the list of everything that’s included in ActiveRecord::Base. Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent list of extended_modules. But a quick search on Stack Overflow found an implementation of extended_modules that we could use.
    
 
    So with a bit of magic (i.e. hooks and meta-programming), we can get the lists of constituent modules from the ActiveRecord::Base class, and include them in our ActiveRecord::Model module.
    
-
    So with all that, we can now include the includable-activerecord gem and mix it in, with all the advantages that provides:
    
+
    So with all that, we can now include the includable-activerecord gem and mix it in, with all the advantages that provides:
    
 
    class User
   include ActiveRecord::Model
   # ...
@@ -471,14 +471,14 @@ 
    Implementation
    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Includable ActiveRecord
    @@ -486,52 +486,52 @@

    Posts navigation

    @@ -542,21 +542,21 @@

    Posts navigation

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
    -

    2015 Year in Review

    +

    2015 Year in Review

    -

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    +

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    • Job Hunting
    • Conferences
      • @@ -96,14 +96,14 @@

      Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      -

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      +

      I got pretty lucky on this one. My main contract with Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      +

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      Conferences

      -

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      -

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      -

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      +

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      +

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      +

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      Blogging

      -

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      +

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      I’m not so sure about the quality of my blog writing though. I know that practicing writing is supposed to make you better. I know I wrote some really good articles over the past year, but I think I also wrote some articles that weren’t very good. I think sometimes the deadline has caused more harm than good. I’m not really sure what to do about that; perhaps just pushing on is the right answer.

      Programming Language Design

      I’ve taken a lot of notes on the design of my programming language. Any time I learn something interesting about another language, or come up with another idea, I write it down.

      @@ -113,28 +113,28 @@

      Writing an Agile Book

      I’ve got some things to say about Agile, and want to write a book to express those ideas. I’ve made a start — I’ve got the chapters outlines, and have started on a few chapters. But I haven’t made as much progress as I’d like to. I shared what I’ve got with Amos, and he showed some interest in pairing with me on the writing. Hopefully we’ll work on it together in 2016 and publish it.

      Other

      There were a few other accomplishments that weren’t explicitly on my list, but I’d like to call attention to.

      -

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      -

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      -

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      +

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      +

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      +

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      Conclusion

      I’m pretty happy with my accomplishments this year. I made at least some progress on each of the goals I set. I’ve been thinking about my goals for next year; I’ll write that as a separate blog article next week.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging, Brilliant, Languages, Resolutions, RetrospectivesLeave a comment on 2015 Year in Review
    -

    Resolutions

    +

    Resolutions

    January kept me pretty busy, so I’m a little late to this. But better late than never. And as an Agile practitioner, I don’t think personal retrospectives should be limited to one time of year.

    Review of 2014

    -

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    +

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    Plans for 2015

    I’d like to keep things rolling from last year, but crank up a few things. My plans are quite ambitious, so I don’t expect to get everything done by any means. But I think by setting the bar high, I’ll end up with a lot I can be proud of.

    Job Hunting

    @@ -142,10 +142,10 @@

    Job Hunting

    Conferences

    I was incredibly nervous leading up to my RubyConf presentation. Part of that was just the common fear of public speaking. For me, that only kicks in at around 100 people, and this audience was around 250. I think another reason was that I chose a really ambitious topic, and I kept finding more that I wanted to talk about, but wasn’t prepared for. But I think I did a pretty good job presenting an advanced topic. And I was so pumped by the sense of accomplishment as soon as I finished. So I’m hoping to do it more. I’ve already submitted a couple proposals, and plan to submit several more.

    Blogging

    -

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    -

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    +

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    +

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    Programming Language Design

    -

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    +

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    I’m also going to spend a lot of time learning a bunch more programming languages, so I have a better understanding of possible features, combinations of features, and their interactions. I’ve already start with Elixir, Clojure, and Racket. I’m hoping to also look at OCaml, Factor, and Haskell. I’ll probably also take a look at the 2 “Seven Languages in Seven Weeks” books.

    Agile Book

    I think people often have trouble getting started with Agile. I started on a book last year, and got down quite a lot of good ideas. But I realized that I’m going to have a hard time organizing all those ideas into something coherent. Still, I’d like to try to get something out there that lets people get started with Agile. My idea is to present a toolbox of practices to get started with and build on that foundation over time with additional practices. Sort of a playbook on how to get started over the first 6 to 12 months and be successful. I want to make some progress on the book, at least enough to decide whether it’s worth the effort to finish it and self-publish it.

    @@ -153,25 +153,25 @@

    Agile Book

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Blogging, Brilliant, Resolutions, SecurityLeave a comment on Resolutions
    -

    Brilliant – My Very Own Programming Language

    +

    Brilliant – My Very Own Programming Language

    -

    I’ve decided to design and implement my own programming language, and call it Brilliant.

    +

    I’ve decided to design and implement my own programming language, and call it Brilliant.

    I’ve been interested in programming languages and linguistics almost as long as I’ve been using computers. I’ve long thought that if I ever go back to college, it’s likely that I’ll concentrate on programming languages as a specialty.

    -

    My recent discovery and involvement with the Crystal programming language has gotten me excited about new language ideas. It’s also helped me realize that implementing a language myself is feasible, and that there’s no better time to start than now.

    +

    My recent discovery and involvement with the Crystal programming language has gotten me excited about new language ideas. It’s also helped me realize that implementing a language myself is feasible, and that there’s no better time to start than now.

    Implementation

    For now, the Brilliant implementation doesn’t let you do much more than “Hello World”. But you gotta start somewhere. So this article isn’t really “Introducing Brilliant” so much as the start of a series of articles on its design and implementation.

    I wanted to use a PEG (parsing expression grammar) parser for several reasons. For one, they seem to have gained a lot of popularity in the past few years. Also, PEGs cannot be ambiguous, which can solve a few difficult problems, such as the “dangling else“. Perhaps my favorite feature of PEG grammars is that you don’t need a separate tokenizer (lexer). This provides a nice advantage in that we can use keywords like “class” as variables, as long as they’re not used in a place where the keyword would make sense.

    -

    So knowing that I wanted to use a PEG, I had to find a PEG parser. I kind of wanted to use ANTLR, which has been a leading parser for many years. But the PEG seems to be new to version 4, and I couldn’t find any Ruby bindings for version 4. Treetop seems to be the most popular parser for Ruby, but I found the EBNF format that Rattler uses to be more to my taste. I think the fact that it’s newer also gives it a few advantages, having had a chance to learn some lessons from Treetop.

    -

    I thought about using the Rubinius VM, but decided to go with LLVM, mainly since it has slightly better docs for Ruby, and because it’s what Crystal uses. Also, it’s pretty easy to get it to compile to a binary executable or run in a JIT. In the future, I might consider switching to the Rubinius VM, the Erlang VM, or the Perl 6 VM (Parrot). But for now, I like the idea of being able to compile to a binary and easily interface with C, just like Crystal.

    +

    So knowing that I wanted to use a PEG, I had to find a PEG parser. I kind of wanted to use ANTLR, which has been a leading parser for many years. But the PEG seems to be new to version 4, and I couldn’t find any Ruby bindings for version 4. Treetop seems to be the most popular parser for Ruby, but I found the EBNF format that Rattler uses to be more to my taste. I think the fact that it’s newer also gives it a few advantages, having had a chance to learn some lessons from Treetop.

    +

    I thought about using the Rubinius VM, but decided to go with LLVM, mainly since it has slightly better docs for Ruby, and because it’s what Crystal uses. Also, it’s pretty easy to get it to compile to a binary executable or run in a JIT. In the future, I might consider switching to the Rubinius VM, the Erlang VM, or the Perl 6 VM (Parrot). But for now, I like the idea of being able to compile to a binary and easily interface with C, just like Crystal.

    Goals

    My main goal is to have fun playing around with language ideas.

    I’ve found a really great language in Ruby, so I’ll be using it as a starting point. But Ruby does have its faults. In some ways, I want to answer the question “what would Ruby look like if we designed it today?”.

    @@ -180,7 +180,7 @@

    Goals

    I’m not so much as interested in cutting-edge features, as in features that can be easily used by the average programmer. More importantly, I’m interested in how features interact with each other, so they fit well together to create a whole that’s greater than the sum of the parts.

    Naming

    -

    I wanted to name my programming language “Fermat”. I’ve long been intrigued by Fermat’s Last Theorem, and Fermat’s Little Theorem is important in number theory. Unfortunately, there’s already a computer algebra system with that name.

    +

    I wanted to name my programming language “Fermat”. I’ve long been intrigued by Fermat’s Last Theorem, and Fermat’s Little Theorem is important in number theory. Unfortunately, there’s already a computer algebra system with that name.

    So I decided to find a name in the same vein as “Ruby” and “Crystal”. I looked at the Wikipedia page for “gemstones” for some inspiration. A lot of the names of gemstones are already taken. I considered some obscure gemstones, but saw the word “brilliant” and thought it was decent. It’s not the name of another gemstone, but still evokes some similarity to Ruby and Crystal.

    So that’s the name for now. Perhaps I’ll decide to change it at some point in the future, but I needed a name for the project, as well as a file extension for source code files. I chose “bril” for that. I suppose “br” would be a better choice. Perhaps I’ll change that before the next article in this series.

    Future

    @@ -189,7 +189,7 @@

    Future

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Brilliant, Languages1 Comment on Brilliant – My Very Own Programming Language
    @@ -198,52 +198,52 @@

    Future

    @@ -254,21 +254,21 @@

    Future

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ @@ -311,52 +311,52 @@

    Posts navigation

    @@ -367,21 +367,21 @@

    Posts navigation

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ @@ -260,52 +260,52 @@

    Where Ruby Rocks

    @@ -316,21 +316,21 @@

    Where Ruby Rocks

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
    -

    Not Quite Callbacks

    +

    Not Quite Callbacks

    -

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    +

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    The problem is that we used callbacks (actually, a publish/subscribe mechanism) in a situation where they don’t seem to quite fit:

      def show
     interactor.on(:display) { |order| render order }
@@ -95,14 +95,14 @@ 
    Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:
    
+
    I discussed this problem with my friend and colleague, Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:
    
 
      def show
     interactor.get(params[:id]) do |on|
       on.display { |order| render order }
       on.not_found { |order_id| render status: 404 }
     end
   end
    
-
    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.
    
+
    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.
    
 
    Riposte also gives you the option of using the response object directly, instead of passing a block:
    
 
      def show
     on = interactor.get(params[:id])
@@ -114,25 +114,25 @@ 
    
-		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Not Quite Callbacks			
+		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Not Quite Callbacks
    -

    Architectural Thoughts

    +

    Architectural Thoughts

    -

    I’ve started working on my own framework in Ruby in the past couple days. It’s built upon my recent work at understanding Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest 2011 talk, and his article on Clean Architecture, and the resulting hexagonal architecture (AKA ports and adapters).

    -

    Somehow my research in that vein led me to Gary Bernhardt’s Boundaries talk. I’ve read a lot about the talk, and knew about the idea of “functional core / imperative shell”. And I’ve worked with a lot of similar ideas lately. But I believe this is the first time that I actually watched the whole video.

    +

    I’ve started working on my own framework in Ruby in the past couple days. It’s built upon my recent work at understanding Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest 2011 talk, and his article on Clean Architecture, and the resulting hexagonal architecture (AKA ports and adapters).

    +

    Somehow my research in that vein led me to Gary Bernhardt’s Boundaries talk. I’ve read a lot about the talk, and knew about the idea of “functional core / imperative shell”. And I’ve worked with a lot of similar ideas lately. But I believe this is the first time that I actually watched the whole video.

    Even after having read a lot about similar ideas, it was pretty mind-expanding. Gary’s really good at presenting these kinds of ideas in a simple way.

    OOP as usually taught includes encapsulation of data together with behavior, with mutable objects. Functional programming separates data and behavior, with mostly immutable data. From experience, encapsulating data and behavior together seems helpful. But experience also shows that immutability is useful. So it would be good to have both of those together. This is something I’ve been thinking for a few years — how best do we get both?

    Gary calls the combination “FauxO”. Logic and data are still combined, but there’s no mutation. Anywhere OOP would normally have mutation would just generate a new object. There’s no language restriction involved in enforcing immutability — just discipline.

    But without mutability, it’s hard to do IO and maintain state. So Gary’s solution is to encapsulate as much as possible into an immutable (functional or FauxO) core, and around that, use an imperative (traditional OOP) shell. The functional core contains the bulk of the logic, and the imperative shell is a glue layer that handles the real world, including disk, network, and other I/O.

    The result of this is that the shell has fewer paths, but more dependencies. The core contains no dependencies, but encapsulates the different logic paths. So we’re encapsulating dependencies on one side, and business logic on the other side. Or put another way, the way to figure out the separation is by doing as much as you can without mutation, and then encapsulating the mutation separately.

    -

    I love how this naturally breaks things up, so that the core is all testable with unit tests, and the imperative shell is tested with integration tests. And since the shell has few or no logic paths, you get the testing pyramid, with more unit tests and fewer integration tests. The whole thing ends up being quite beautiful. Tests end up being very fast without any extra effort — not even stubbing or mocking. This tells us that things have been decomposed very well — an elegant design.

    +

    I love how this naturally breaks things up, so that the core is all testable with unit tests, and the imperative shell is tested with integration tests. And since the shell has few or no logic paths, you get the testing pyramid, with more unit tests and fewer integration tests. The whole thing ends up being quite beautiful. Tests end up being very fast without any extra effort — not even stubbing or mocking. This tells us that things have been decomposed very well — an elegant design.

    Gary makes the case that immutable objects can be treated as values, and passed across boundaries. Even process boundaries. This is something I’ve noticed as I’ve been working on my own Uncle Bob style hexagonal framework, but nobody in that camp ever mentioned that — they prefer DTOs or something more like hashes. I’m completely against hashes, because of the “stringly-typed” problem. And I don’t see much advantage in a DTO if I’ve got an immutable object; I’d be basically copying the object to an almost identical object. And I’d be losing any laziness possible for derived values within the original immutable object.

    It’s striking to me how Gary’s image of an imperative shell around a functional core, plus Net, Disk, and State outside of the shell mirror’s Uncle Bob’s concentric circles. Uncle Bob has entities in the middle, surrounded by use cases, surrounded by Web, DB, and UI.

    Another advantage that Gary shows is that breaking things up this way allows easy concurrency. In his example, he shows using the actor model — either just using threads and queues, or an actor library (or language feature).

    @@ -141,21 +141,21 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Programming, Ruby, Web DevelopmentLeave a comment on Architectural Thoughts + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Programming, Ruby, Web DevelopmentLeave a comment on Architectural Thoughts

    -

    Hexagonal Rails Controllers

    +

    Hexagonal Rails Controllers

    I’ve had a long love-hate relationship with Rails. I love the MVC framework and how it’s improved our speed of writing web apps. But I’ve never really been completely happy with it. I don’t generally agree with most of its opinions. I prefer models that follow the Data Mapper pattern, not the Active Record pattern. This includes separating the persistence layer from the models’ business logic. I prefer Slim or HAML to ERB. I prefer RSpec to Test::Unit or MiniTest. When Merb hit the scene, I was ready to make the jump, until Merb merged with Rails.

    -

    So inspired by PJ Hagerty’s recent article on alternative Ruby web frameworks, I started thinking about how I’d write a replacement for Rails. I’d definitely keep the basic MVC framework. But I’d also want to implement a more hexagonal architecture.

    +

    So inspired by PJ Hagerty’s recent article on alternative Ruby web frameworks, I started thinking about how I’d write a replacement for Rails. I’d definitely keep the basic MVC framework. But I’d also want to implement a more hexagonal architecture.

    I started sketching out what this would look like, but I ended up starting with a Rails controller and finding the simplest way to make it hexagonal. I really don’t like callbacks, because they make tracing program execution difficult. But I didn’t see any other alternative. I found a simple pub/sub Ruby library called Wisper. It literally has only publish, subscribe, and on methods. (You use on to register single callbacks via blocks, and subscribe to register an object with method names corresponding to the callback names.)

    -

    The trick was figuring out how to break the controller into 2 pieces. What finally helped me was to find the single responsibilities of the 2 pieces. The Rails controller would remain in charge of managing the web interface, but would delegate to the other piece to handle any application-specific business logic. I decided to re-watch Uncle Bob Martin’s “Architecture The Lost Years” talk, which was the first time I was introduced to the ideas of Hexagonal Architecture. (He doesn’t name the architecture in the talk, but later calls it Clean Architecture.) He does a decent job of explaining how to break these 2 pieces apart. He used the term “interactor” in that talk, so I decided to go with that. He said that Jacobsen calls it a Control Object in Object Oriented Software Engineering, but that’s too close to Rails’s “controller”.

    +

    The trick was figuring out how to break the controller into 2 pieces. What finally helped me was to find the single responsibilities of the 2 pieces. The Rails controller would remain in charge of managing the web interface, but would delegate to the other piece to handle any application-specific business logic. I decided to re-watch Uncle Bob Martin’s “Architecture The Lost Years” talk, which was the first time I was introduced to the ideas of Hexagonal Architecture. (He doesn’t name the architecture in the talk, but later calls it Clean Architecture.) He does a decent job of explaining how to break these 2 pieces apart. He used the term “interactor” in that talk, so I decided to go with that. He said that Jacobsen calls it a Control Object in Object Oriented Software Engineering, but that’s too close to Rails’s “controller”.

    So here’s an example of what I ended up with:

    class OrderController < ApplicationController
   def index
@@ -193,20 +193,20 @@ 
    Trailblazer does it that way. And for more complicated business logic, I would do that too, using the Method Object pattern. But like a Rails controller, there’s a lot in common among all the operations. I feel like a separate class for each operation for each would create too many coupled classes.
    
+
    I do have a few problems with this solution though. I’m not a fan of the name “interactor” for the business logic. I thought about calling it OrderOperator, or maybe OrderOperations, because it’s really a collection of operations. Perhaps it would be better to separate each operation into a separate class. Trailblazer does it that way. And for more complicated business logic, I would do that too, using the Method Object pattern. But like a Rails controller, there’s a lot in common among all the operations. I feel like a separate class for each operation for each would create too many coupled classes.
    
 
    I’m also uncomfortable with the fact that the controller is delegating almost everything to the interactor. I guess this is OK, but it feels like there’s too little left when every line starts with interactor. I suppose extracting things some more would help mitigate this concern I’ll likely write a small gem to perform that extraction. I expect that that will allow a typical controller to be written in only a few lines. And maybe the same for the interactor side.
    
 
    With the business logic extracted out of the controller, it was really easy for me to write a command-line version of the app. As Uncle Bob says, “the web is not particularly important to your application.”
    
-
    I’ve put the code for this example on GitHub: https://github.com/boochtek/hexagonal-rails. I’ll likely experiment with it some more over the next few weeks and months.
    
+
    I’ve put the code for this example on GitHub: https://github.com/boochtek/hexagonal-rails. I’ll likely experiment with it some more over the next few weeks and months.
    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Hexagonal Rails Controllers
    -

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    +

    Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    @@ -222,7 +222,7 @@

    Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    +

    So when I was learning about Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

    class User
   include Virtus.model
 end
    @@ -245,24 +245,24 @@

    Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

    +

    The use of this idiom seems to be catching on a bit in the Ruby community. I’ve started using it myself, and will be adding it to my Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

     

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Ruby2 Comments on Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

    -

    Includable ActiveRecord

    +

    Includable ActiveRecord

    -

    I created a Ruby gem recently, called includable-activerecord. It’s pretty small, but I thought I might explain why I created it, and discuss its implementation.

    +

    I created a Ruby gem recently, called includable-activerecord. It’s pretty small, but I thought I might explain why I created it, and discuss its implementation.

    Classical Inheritance

    When you use ActiveRecord, you normally include it in your model like this:

    class User < ActiveRecord::Base
@@ -280,9 +280,9 @@ 
    Classical Inheritance
    
 
    Implementation
    
 
    So I decided to see if I could implement the equivalent of the ActiveRecord::Base class as a module that could be mixed into model classes. I decided to call my mixin module ActiveRecord::Model, because classes that mix it in will behave as ActiveRecord models.
    
 
    It turns out that ActiveRecord::Base is a pretty complex class. It includes and extends a lot of other modules. Luckily, as of ActiveRecord 4.0, that’s all the code it includes.
    
-
    The module only defines a single class method, included. This is one of Ruby’s many hook methods. It gets called when the module in question gets included in another module, and receives that other model as its argument. All we need to have this method do is to include everything that ActiveRecord::Base includes, and extend everything that ActiveRecord::Base extends. Ruby provides a method that’s defined on all classes, called included_modules, which we can use to get the list of everything that’s included in ActiveRecord::Base. Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent list of extended_modules. But a quick search on Stack Overflow found an implementation of extended_modules that we could use.
    
+
    The module only defines a single class method, included. This is one of Ruby’s many hook methods. It gets called when the module in question gets included in another module, and receives that other model as its argument. All we need to have this method do is to include everything that ActiveRecord::Base includes, and extend everything that ActiveRecord::Base extends. Ruby provides a method that’s defined on all classes, called included_modules, which we can use to get the list of everything that’s included in ActiveRecord::Base. Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent list of extended_modules. But a quick search on Stack Overflow found an implementation of extended_modules that we could use.
    
 
    So with a bit of magic (i.e. hooks and meta-programming), we can get the lists of constituent modules from the ActiveRecord::Base class, and include them in our ActiveRecord::Model module.
    
-
    So with all that, we can now include the includable-activerecord gem and mix it in, with all the advantages that provides:
    
+
    So with all that, we can now include the includable-activerecord gem and mix it in, with all the advantages that provides:
    
 
    class User
   include ActiveRecord::Model
   # ...
@@ -291,13 +291,13 @@ 
    Implementation
    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Includable ActiveRecord
    @@ -520,52 +520,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -576,21 +576,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
    -

    Burying the Lede

    +

    Burying the Lede

    Most of us don’t write very readable shell scripts. There are plenty of things we could do better, but today I want to talk about one in particular — burying the lede.

    -

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    +

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    To begin a story with details of secondary importance to the reader while postponing more essential points or facts.

    Like a good news article, code should tell a story. And the story should start with what’s most important. In the case of code, the most important information is the high-level functionality — a succinct summary of what the program does. In other words, write (and organize) the code top-down, as opposed to bottom-up.

    Unfortunately, shell script doesn’t make this easy. Due to the way shell scripts are interpreted, you can’t call a function until after you’ve defined it. This leads to most of us structuring our code like this:

    @@ -114,36 +114,36 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Burying the Lede + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Burying the Lede

    -

    Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys

    +

    Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys

    I recently decided to start using Emacs again. I used it extensively from the early 1990s until the early 2000s. I pretty much stopped using it when I had a sysadmin job with no Emacs on the servers, and no ability to install it. With the rising popularity of tmux and tmate for remote pairing, and my dislike for vim’s modes, I decided to try going back to Emacs in the terminal.

    One thing I really want in a text editor is good cursor key support. Shifted cursor keys
    -should select text, and Control+left and right should move by words. (Apple HIG says to use Option+left and right to move by words; most apps on Mac OS X seem to support both.) Things have worked this way on almost every text editor on every OS I’ve used — Amiga, DOS, Windows, NeXT, Mac, Motif, Gnome, KDE. It’s a part of the CUA standard that’s been in common usage on everything since the mid-1980s.

    -

    Enabling cursor keys in Emacs was pretty easy. I’ve decided to use Prelude to make getting started with Emacs easy. Emacs comes with the cursor keys enabled, but Prelude disables them. Undoing Prelude’s change is pretty easy:

    +should select text, and Control+left and right should move by words. (Apple HIG says to use Option+left and right to move by words; most apps on Mac OS X seem to support both.) Things have worked this way on almost every text editor on every OS I’ve used — Amiga, DOS, Windows, NeXT, Mac, Motif, Gnome, KDE. It’s a part of the CUA standard that’s been in common usage on everything since the mid-1980s.

    +

    Enabling cursor keys in Emacs was pretty easy. I’ve decided to use Prelude to make getting started with Emacs easy. Emacs comes with the cursor keys enabled, but Prelude disables them. Undoing Prelude’s change is pretty easy:

    (setq prelude-guru nil)

    Trying to make shifted cursor keys work is where the trouble began. They work in the GUI version of Emacs, but not from the terminal. It turns out that the Mac Terminal doesn’t distinguish between cursor keys and shifted cursor keys in its default configuration. So I had to figure out how to configure key bindings in Terminal.

    That’s easy enough — they’re in the preferences. But what should I set them to? This took a lot of research. Terminal emulation and ANSI code sequences are obscure, complex, and inconsistent. I eventually found the info I needed. For starters, Shift+Right, Shift+Left, Shift+Home, and Shift+End are defined in the terminfo. The rest I was able to piece together from various sources around the Internet.

    -

    I’m also trying to script my Mac configuration. So instead of manually adding all the keybindings in the Terminal preferences pane, I decided to write a script. Mac OS X does a decent job of allowing you to change preferences from the command line. For example, to always show the tab bar:

    +

    I’m also trying to script my Mac configuration. So instead of manually adding all the keybindings in the Terminal preferences pane, I decided to write a script. Mac OS X does a decent job of allowing you to change preferences from the command line. For example, to always show the tab bar:

    defaults write -app Terminal ShowTabBar 1
    -

    Easy enough, except for a couple problems. First, I had to figure out the obscure syntax used in the preferences for key codes. I was able to piece these together with some more Internet research. But the really big problem is that the keyboard bindings are 2 levels deep within a “dictionary” (hash map). And the defaults command doesn’t handle that. There are some obscure utilities that handle nested preferences, but they don’t work well with the preferences caching in Mac OS X 10.9 — a problem I ran into while testing.

    +

    Easy enough, except for a couple problems. First, I had to figure out the obscure syntax used in the preferences for key codes. I was able to piece these together with some more Internet research. But the really big problem is that the keyboard bindings are 2 levels deep within a “dictionary” (hash map). And the defaults command doesn’t handle that. There are some obscure utilities that handle nested preferences, but they don’t work well with the preferences caching in Mac OS X 10.9 — a problem I ran into while testing.

    So now I’m writing a utility in Python that does what the defaults command does, but that will handle nested dictionaries.

    There’s a term for this process of having to solve one issue before you can solve another, and the issues get several layers deep. It’s called yak shaving.

    Here’s another good example:

    -
    Father from Malcolm in the middle having to fix one thing before fixing another, ad infinitum.
    Yak shaving – home repairs
    +
    Father from Malcolm in the middle having to fix one thing before fixing another, ad infinitum.
    Yak shaving – home repairs

    I’m sure this will be the first of many posts about me yak shaving.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys
    @@ -152,52 +152,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -208,21 +208,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ +

    Resolutions for 2016

    I’ve written up a list of career-related resolutions the past few years. I’ve been pretty successful meeting those goals, so I’m going to continue the tradition.

    Coding

    -

    I want to increase the Open Source code I write this year. That’s basically everything I write that’s not directly related to work.

    -

    I took over maintenance of Virtus late last year, but haven’t done a good job at finding the time for that. That’s probably more responding to issues on GitHub and merging pull requests. But eventually, I’ll likely add some features and do some refactoring.

    +

    I want to increase the Open Source code I write this year. That’s basically everything I write that’s not directly related to work.

    +

    I took over maintenance of Virtus late last year, but haven’t done a good job at finding the time for that. That’s probably more responding to issues on GitHub and merging pull requests. But eventually, I’ll likely add some features and do some refactoring.

    My goal is to work on 6 apps and libraries this year. That’s a pretty aggressive goal, but I want to focus on both learning new things and building some simple but useful things. Think MVP — focus on getting a lot of bang for not too much effort.

    I want to work on a new Rails app, to familiarize myself with Rails 5. I want to get some experience with some more modern gems. I also want to see if I can use some new techniques with a Rails app, especially things that might help us get closer to a hexagonal architecture. I’m also hoping to work with some different web frameworks — maybe Lotus, Rodakase, Trailblazer, or Phoenix. Or maybe one of the Crystal web frameworks.

    I also want to work on a couple Elm apps. I started the STL Elm group as an excuse to learn the language. I’d like to work on a Twitter client, that might eventually turn into a more general reading app. Beyond Twitter, it would keep track of things I want to read. The other Elm app I’d like to write is a game, based on the old Space Taxi game I loved to play on the Commodore 64.

    -

    I wrote a micro-ORM last year called Ruby Preserves. I’ve started converting that from working with raw SQL to sitting atop the awesome Sequel gem. The simplicity is still there so far, and basing it on Sequel has so far gone easier than I expected. But I haven’t figured out how to do relationships (JOINs) yet; that will be the real test.

    +

    I wrote a micro-ORM last year called Ruby Preserves. I’ve started converting that from working with raw SQL to sitting atop the awesome Sequel gem. The simplicity is still there so far, and basing it on Sequel has so far gone easier than I expected. But I haven’t figured out how to do relationships (JOINs) yet; that will be the real test.

    Conferences

    I’m pretty happy with my 2015 conference experience. I want to keep my conference level about the same. I don’t really want to commit to more talks than I gave last year. Conference presentations take a lot of time and energy to write and practice.

    I’m planning to go to RailsConf, RubyConf, and Strange Loop. I’m hoping to give a talk at each of those, if I can. But I’ll probably attend all of them even if I’m not speaking. I’m also submitting a talk to Agile 2016. I’m unlikely to go to any other conferences, and even more unlikely to give more than 4 conference talks.

    @@ -102,25 +102,25 @@

    Writing

    I really want to finish my Effective Agile book this year. I’m going to try to pull Amos in to pair with me on it occasionally, to move it forward. If I’m able to get it done, I’d also like to maybe write a book on Elm.

    I actually want to do less blogging this year. Well, sort of. I want to put coding and book writing ahead of blogging. If that means less blogging, I’m okay with that. So my goal for blogging is more like every other week. And when I do write a blog article, I’d rather it be related to some code I’m working on, something that I could use in my book, or some more in-depth thoughts about programming language design.

    Job Hunting

    -

    The contract I recently started at CenturyLink Cloud is open-ended, so I’ll likely be there for the entire year. I’m enjoying it so far; it’s a challenge, but I think I can make a significant impact. However, I’m really interested in moving to San Francisco in 2017. So I’m going to work on preparing for that in several ways.

    -

    I’m going to resurrect my LinkedIn account. I’ve neglected it for a few years now. I’ll make sure everything is up to date, and make some connections I’ve been putting off. I also want to reclaim my Stack Exchange and Hacker News accounts.

    -

    I’m going to pay a an expert to help me revamp my résumé. I think it’s pretty decent, but it could use some freshening up. I want it to stand out. I want to do a better job of explaining what I really do — which is to join a team to help them improve their processes and their technical skills.

    +

    The contract I recently started at CenturyLink Cloud is open-ended, so I’ll likely be there for the entire year. I’m enjoying it so far; it’s a challenge, but I think I can make a significant impact. However, I’m really interested in moving to San Francisco in 2017. So I’m going to work on preparing for that in several ways.

    +

    I’m going to resurrect my LinkedIn account. I’ve neglected it for a few years now. I’ll make sure everything is up to date, and make some connections I’ve been putting off. I also want to reclaim my Stack Exchange and Hacker News accounts.

    +

    I’m going to pay a an expert to help me revamp my résumé. I think it’s pretty decent, but it could use some freshening up. I want it to stand out. I want to do a better job of explaining what I really do — which is to join a team to help them improve their processes and their technical skills.

    I’ll also need to clean up all my web sites, so they look nice when people come to take a look at them. This includes my personal site, consulting business site, wiki, and blogs. I should also upgrade my server to the latest version of Debian, and use Ansible and some other tools to provision it using the principles of Infrastructure as Code.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories ResolutionsLeave a comment on Resolutions for 2016
    -

    2015 Year in Review

    +

    2015 Year in Review

    -

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    +

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    • Job Hunting
    • Conferences
      • @@ -129,14 +129,14 @@

      Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      -

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      +

      I got pretty lucky on this one. My main contract with Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      +

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      Conferences

      -

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      -

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      -

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      +

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      +

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      +

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      Blogging

      -

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      +

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      I’m not so sure about the quality of my blog writing though. I know that practicing writing is supposed to make you better. I know I wrote some really good articles over the past year, but I think I also wrote some articles that weren’t very good. I think sometimes the deadline has caused more harm than good. I’m not really sure what to do about that; perhaps just pushing on is the right answer.

      Programming Language Design

      I’ve taken a lot of notes on the design of my programming language. Any time I learn something interesting about another language, or come up with another idea, I write it down.

      @@ -146,28 +146,28 @@

      Writing an Agile Book

      I’ve got some things to say about Agile, and want to write a book to express those ideas. I’ve made a start — I’ve got the chapters outlines, and have started on a few chapters. But I haven’t made as much progress as I’d like to. I shared what I’ve got with Amos, and he showed some interest in pairing with me on the writing. Hopefully we’ll work on it together in 2016 and publish it.

      Other

      There were a few other accomplishments that weren’t explicitly on my list, but I’d like to call attention to.

      -

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      -

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      -

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      +

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      +

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      +

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      Conclusion

      I’m pretty happy with my accomplishments this year. I made at least some progress on each of the goals I set. I’ve been thinking about my goals for next year; I’ll write that as a separate blog article next week.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging, Brilliant, Languages, Resolutions, RetrospectivesLeave a comment on 2015 Year in Review
    -

    Resolutions

    +

    Resolutions

    January kept me pretty busy, so I’m a little late to this. But better late than never. And as an Agile practitioner, I don’t think personal retrospectives should be limited to one time of year.

    Review of 2014

    -

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    +

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    Plans for 2015

    I’d like to keep things rolling from last year, but crank up a few things. My plans are quite ambitious, so I don’t expect to get everything done by any means. But I think by setting the bar high, I’ll end up with a lot I can be proud of.

    Job Hunting

    @@ -175,10 +175,10 @@

    Job Hunting

    Conferences

    I was incredibly nervous leading up to my RubyConf presentation. Part of that was just the common fear of public speaking. For me, that only kicks in at around 100 people, and this audience was around 250. I think another reason was that I chose a really ambitious topic, and I kept finding more that I wanted to talk about, but wasn’t prepared for. But I think I did a pretty good job presenting an advanced topic. And I was so pumped by the sense of accomplishment as soon as I finished. So I’m hoping to do it more. I’ve already submitted a couple proposals, and plan to submit several more.

    Blogging

    -

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    -

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    +

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    +

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    Programming Language Design

    -

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    +

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    I’m also going to spend a lot of time learning a bunch more programming languages, so I have a better understanding of possible features, combinations of features, and their interactions. I’ve already start with Elixir, Clojure, and Racket. I’m hoping to also look at OCaml, Factor, and Haskell. I’ll probably also take a look at the 2 “Seven Languages in Seven Weeks” books.

    Agile Book

    I think people often have trouble getting started with Agile. I started on a book last year, and got down quite a lot of good ideas. But I realized that I’m going to have a hard time organizing all those ideas into something coherent. Still, I’d like to try to get something out there that lets people get started with Agile. My idea is to present a toolbox of practices to get started with and build on that foundation over time with additional practices. Sort of a playbook on how to get started over the first 6 to 12 months and be successful. I want to make some progress on the book, at least enough to decide whether it’s worth the effort to finish it and self-publish it.

    @@ -186,7 +186,7 @@

    Agile Book

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Blogging, Brilliant, Resolutions, SecurityLeave a comment on Resolutions
    @@ -195,52 +195,52 @@

    Agile Book

    @@ -251,21 +251,21 @@

    Agile Book

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
    -

    Potential F5 Vulnerability

    +

    Potential F5 Vulnerability

    @@ -95,27 +95,27 @@

    CVE-2002-0392), fixed by vendors long ago. After a while, we realized that if we hit the servers directly, we did not get the indication of a vulnerability. If we hit the site through the F5 VIP, we saw the immediate termination of the connection. The issue is with handling of HTTP chunked encoding. Nginx had a similar issue in 2013 (CVE-2013-2028).

    +

    At first, we thought this was caused by Apache or Tomcat, or possibly the application code. But the reported vulnerability was an Apache CVE from 2002 (CVE-2002-0392), fixed by vendors long ago. After a while, we realized that if we hit the servers directly, we did not get the indication of a vulnerability. If we hit the site through the F5 VIP, we saw the immediate termination of the connection. The issue is with handling of HTTP chunked encoding. Nginx had a similar issue in 2013 (CVE-2013-2028).

    So we turned our attention to the F5 load balancers. We were able to confirm that other sites using F5 load balancers were exhibiting the same behavior. We also confirmed that WebInspect run against the servers directly did not show the issue (even as a false positive). We reported the issue to F5, and they are looking into it.

    I’m disclosing this publicly now for a few reasons. First, I’m not a security researcher, and almost nobody follows my blog — especially people looking for security issues that could be exploited. Second, I’ve not developed a payload, so I have no idea whether this is exploitable. But at this point, it’s merely a potential vulnerability. I’m not sure I’ll even spend the time to research and create a payload to prove the vulnerability. If I do, I’ll be more careful with the disclosure.

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories SecurityLeave a comment on Potential F5 Vulnerability

    -

    Resolutions

    +

    Resolutions

    January kept me pretty busy, so I’m a little late to this. But better late than never. And as an Agile practitioner, I don’t think personal retrospectives should be limited to one time of year.

    Review of 2014

    -

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    +

    Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

    Plans for 2015

    I’d like to keep things rolling from last year, but crank up a few things. My plans are quite ambitious, so I don’t expect to get everything done by any means. But I think by setting the bar high, I’ll end up with a lot I can be proud of.

    Job Hunting

    @@ -123,10 +123,10 @@

    Job Hunting

    Conferences

    I was incredibly nervous leading up to my RubyConf presentation. Part of that was just the common fear of public speaking. For me, that only kicks in at around 100 people, and this audience was around 250. I think another reason was that I chose a really ambitious topic, and I kept finding more that I wanted to talk about, but wasn’t prepared for. But I think I did a pretty good job presenting an advanced topic. And I was so pumped by the sense of accomplishment as soon as I finished. So I’m hoping to do it more. I’ve already submitted a couple proposals, and plan to submit several more.

    Blogging

    -

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    -

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    +

    I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

    +

    I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

    Programming Language Design

    -

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    +

    Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

    I’m also going to spend a lot of time learning a bunch more programming languages, so I have a better understanding of possible features, combinations of features, and their interactions. I’ve already start with Elixir, Clojure, and Racket. I’m hoping to also look at OCaml, Factor, and Haskell. I’ll probably also take a look at the 2 “Seven Languages in Seven Weeks” books.

    Agile Book

    I think people often have trouble getting started with Agile. I started on a book last year, and got down quite a lot of good ideas. But I realized that I’m going to have a hard time organizing all those ideas into something coherent. Still, I’d like to try to get something out there that lets people get started with Agile. My idea is to present a toolbox of practices to get started with and build on that foundation over time with additional practices. Sort of a playbook on how to get started over the first 6 to 12 months and be successful. I want to make some progress on the book, at least enough to decide whether it’s worth the effort to finish it and self-publish it.

    @@ -134,45 +134,45 @@

    Agile Book

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Blogging, Brilliant, Resolutions, SecurityLeave a comment on Resolutions
    -

    Empathy

    +

    Empathy

    I facilitated our team retrospective this morning. I felt like we made a little forward progress, but not as much as I would have liked. But it really brought one thing to the forefront of my thoughts today — empathy gained through communication.

    We have a pretty large team by Agile standards — we had 20 people in our retro: 16 developers, 3 QA folks, and 1 manager. Out of those, only about 5 or 6 speak up regularly. I recently sent out a survey to the team, trying to get feedback on how we could improve our retros. A couple of the questions tried to get a feel for why people aren’t speaking up more. Only about half the people responded, and the answers didn’t really answer my question as well as I had hoped.

    -

    So on Amos‘s suggestion, we did the Safety Check exercise. We got a good set of answers to why people don’t feel safe. About half of the answers were about the fear of looking stupid in front of other people. About half of those mentioned the manager — they’re worried they might get in trouble for what they say. We talked some about fear and how it’s more often than not misplaced. And that the worst consequences are usually not as bad as you might think. But then we got to the crux of the problem — there’s not enough trust amongst the team, and especially between the team members and the manager.

    +

    So on Amos‘s suggestion, we did the Safety Check exercise. We got a good set of answers to why people don’t feel safe. About half of the answers were about the fear of looking stupid in front of other people. About half of those mentioned the manager — they’re worried they might get in trouble for what they say. We talked some about fear and how it’s more often than not misplaced. And that the worst consequences are usually not as bad as you might think. But then we got to the crux of the problem — there’s not enough trust amongst the team, and especially between the team members and the manager.

    About half of our team is new (within the past 6 months) — including the manager. While the developers have made some good progress building trust amongst each other, we haven’t had as much time with the manager to build trust between him and the rest of the team. So the lack of trust isn’t at all surprising.

    Honestly, I already knew we had trust issues, and wanted to address them, but needed a way to lead the team to that same realization. With this exercise driving out the issue, we were then able to have a conversation about trust. The conversation was pretty good. We got more voices to contribute than probably any other topic we’d previously covered. (I was disappointed that the manager kept quiet though. I later found that he was trying to mitigate people’s fears by keeping quiet, but I urged him to contribute more in the future.)

    But one point really stood out in my mind — a point of view that I hadn’t previously thought much about. Lauren, one of our QA analysts, pointed out that most human communication is non-verbal. We give tons of cues via body language, facial expressions, eye contact, tone of voice, even posture. I don’t recall if Lauren said it explicitly, but she pointed out that these cues build empathy between the speakers. She encouraged us to use more voice chat and video chat, as opposed to IRC text chat, because it would create more empathy between the people communicating, which would lead to more trust.

    I spent most of the rest of the day talking to people on the phone or via Google Hangouts voice. And every single time, I consciously noticed that I was gaining empathy for the person I was speaking with. I assume (and hope) that that’s working both ways. I suppose that it’s always been happening, but I never really noticed it.

    -

    I’ve heard a lot of talk about empathy among Agile practitioners lately. It’s been mentioned on the Ruby Rogues podcast, and Angela Harms has been preaching it for years. I already understood how important it is. But until today, I didn’t really feel it happening.

    +

    I’ve heard a lot of talk about empathy among Agile practitioners lately. It’s been mentioned on the Ruby Rogues podcast, and Angela Harms has been preaching it for years. I already understood how important it is. But until today, I didn’t really feel it happening.

    So if you’re looking to build trust with someone, spend some time talking with them. Preferably in person, but if that’s not possible, seriously consider video or voice modes of communication, instead of sending an email or an instant message.

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, SecurityLeave a comment on Empathy
    -

    What I Want in a Blog Engine

    +

    What I Want in a Blog Engine

    -

    I’m considering moving away from WordPress, for a couple reasons:

    +

    I’m considering moving away from WordPress, for a couple reasons:

    • Security. There have been several vulnerabilities over the past few years, and I’ve never really had a high level of confidence that it’s secure. In addition, I now find the whole PHP model — every web app running as a single user, instead of leveraging UNIX permissions — to be broken.
      • -
    • Speed. I started to realize a couple years ago that a blog engine should generate static pages. The static pages should be updated whenever new content is added. There’s really no reason to re-generate the page every time someone wants to read it. At the very least, Server-Side Includes (SSI) or Edge-Side Includes (ESI) should be used.
      • +
    • Speed. I started to realize a couple years ago that a blog engine should generate static pages. The static pages should be updated whenever new content is added. There’s really no reason to re-generate the page every time someone wants to read it. At the very least, Server-Side Includes (SSI) or Edge-Side Includes (ESI) should be used.

    Now that I’m starting to actually blog consistently, it makes sense to change. But before I move to something different, I want to be sure that I find all the features that I need. This post is my thought process about what I want.

    Requirements

    @@ -180,11 +180,11 @@

    Requirements

  • Self hosted. I like to run my own servers. Partly so I can keep full control, and partly because I enjoy doing some system admin stuff (as long as it doesn’t take too much time).
  • Generation of static pages. Almost everything should be a static page by the time a user requests a page. Obviously, submitting comments would hit a dynamic page, and comment approval would likely be done through a dynamic part of the site. But publishing a blog post or comments should generate static files to be served by Apache or nginx.
  • Categories (or maybe tags). I want readers to be able to find other things that I’ve written that might interest them. A list of categories in a sidebar would help them find what interests them.
    • -
  • Site map. Especially an XML sitemap, so Google can index better. I also like the idea of readers being able to see everything in one place.
    • +
  • Site map. Especially an XML sitemap, so Google can index better. I also like the idea of readers being able to see everything in one place.
  • Archives. This is another way of letting readers see everything I’ve written, organized by publication date.
  • RSS and/or Atom. I want readers to be able to subscribe to my blog.
  • Media. I don’t think I necessarily need a media manager, just a simple way to add pictures to blog posts.
    • -
  • Comments. I want to allow comments, but I don’t want to use anything like Disqus. I want the comments to be in my own database, so they won’t disappear. I also dislike requiring JavaScript just to see comments. And I’ve worked at places where Disqus wouldn’t work, due to web proxy servers. Comments should be moderated by the site admin, editor, or author. Readers should not have to log in to post a comment, but it would be nice to allow users to log into Twitter or some other social network to provide their info.
    • +
  • Comments. I want to allow comments, but I don’t want to use anything like Disqus. I want the comments to be in my own database, so they won’t disappear. I also dislike requiring JavaScript just to see comments. And I’ve worked at places where Disqus wouldn’t work, due to web proxy servers. Comments should be moderated by the site admin, editor, or author. Readers should not have to log in to post a comment, but it would be nice to allow users to log into Twitter or some other social network to provide their info.
  • Pingbacks and Tweetbacks. I’d like to be able to see who’s referring to my articles.

    • Nice to Have

    @@ -208,16 +208,16 @@

    Nice to Have

  • Posting my tweets in a sidebar area. I’d be OK with this being done in client-side JavaScript. I’d also be OK with periodic polling of my Twitter feed, and updating the static content when appropriate.

    • Candidates

    -

    I’ve been playing with Jekyll lately, using it to generate a simple static site that can be updated easily. It’s pretty nice, and pretty easy to use. Something based on Jekyll would work well. The trickiest part will be figuring out how to manage comments. Or maybe I’ll just have to learn to live more minimally.

    -

    Octopress is the obvious candidate. It fits most of my needs and wants. Most likely I’ll write my own commenting engine and add it to my Octopress template.

    -

    The only other candidate that I’ve found is Ghost. It’s written in JavaScript and runs on Node. I don’t find Node to be that compelling, but the templates look great, and it’s designed for coding blogs.

    -

    I’ll probably take a quick look at Droplets, too. It’s written in PHP, but seems to fit my other requirements.

    +

    I’ve been playing with Jekyll lately, using it to generate a simple static site that can be updated easily. It’s pretty nice, and pretty easy to use. Something based on Jekyll would work well. The trickiest part will be figuring out how to manage comments. Or maybe I’ll just have to learn to live more minimally.

    +

    Octopress is the obvious candidate. It fits most of my needs and wants. Most likely I’ll write my own commenting engine and add it to my Octopress template.

    +

    The only other candidate that I’ve found is Ghost. It’s written in JavaScript and runs on Node. I don’t find Node to be that compelling, but the templates look great, and it’s designed for coding blogs.

    +

    I’ll probably take a quick look at Droplets, too. It’s written in PHP, but seems to fit my other requirements.

    Unfortunately, that seems to be all there is in this space. Maybe I need to investigate more. Or maybe Octopress just has the static blog generation marked cornered. Either way, I’ll probably change my blogging software in the next month or two. Wish me luck!

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging, Security, System AdminLeave a comment on What I Want in a Blog Engine
    @@ -226,52 +226,52 @@

    Candidates

    @@ -282,21 +282,21 @@

    Candidates

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ +

    Burying the Lede

    Most of us don’t write very readable shell scripts. There are plenty of things we could do better, but today I want to talk about one in particular — burying the lede.

    -

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    +

    The term “burying the lede” comes from the field of journalism. Here’s the Wiktionary definition:

    To begin a story with details of secondary importance to the reader while postponing more essential points or facts.

    Like a good news article, code should tell a story. And the story should start with what’s most important. In the case of code, the most important information is the high-level functionality — a succinct summary of what the program does. In other words, write (and organize) the code top-down, as opposed to bottom-up.

    Unfortunately, shell script doesn’t make this easy. Due to the way shell scripts are interpreted, you can’t call a function until after you’ve defined it. This leads to most of us structuring our code like this:

    @@ -114,50 +114,50 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Burying the Lede + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories GNU/Linux, Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Burying the Lede
    -

    Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys

    +

    Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys

    I recently decided to start using Emacs again. I used it extensively from the early 1990s until the early 2000s. I pretty much stopped using it when I had a sysadmin job with no Emacs on the servers, and no ability to install it. With the rising popularity of tmux and tmate for remote pairing, and my dislike for vim’s modes, I decided to try going back to Emacs in the terminal.

    One thing I really want in a text editor is good cursor key support. Shifted cursor keys
    -should select text, and Control+left and right should move by words. (Apple HIG says to use Option+left and right to move by words; most apps on Mac OS X seem to support both.) Things have worked this way on almost every text editor on every OS I’ve used — Amiga, DOS, Windows, NeXT, Mac, Motif, Gnome, KDE. It’s a part of the CUA standard that’s been in common usage on everything since the mid-1980s.

    -

    Enabling cursor keys in Emacs was pretty easy. I’ve decided to use Prelude to make getting started with Emacs easy. Emacs comes with the cursor keys enabled, but Prelude disables them. Undoing Prelude’s change is pretty easy:

    +should select text, and Control+left and right should move by words. (Apple HIG says to use Option+left and right to move by words; most apps on Mac OS X seem to support both.) Things have worked this way on almost every text editor on every OS I’ve used — Amiga, DOS, Windows, NeXT, Mac, Motif, Gnome, KDE. It’s a part of the CUA standard that’s been in common usage on everything since the mid-1980s.

    +

    Enabling cursor keys in Emacs was pretty easy. I’ve decided to use Prelude to make getting started with Emacs easy. Emacs comes with the cursor keys enabled, but Prelude disables them. Undoing Prelude’s change is pretty easy:

    (setq prelude-guru nil)

    Trying to make shifted cursor keys work is where the trouble began. They work in the GUI version of Emacs, but not from the terminal. It turns out that the Mac Terminal doesn’t distinguish between cursor keys and shifted cursor keys in its default configuration. So I had to figure out how to configure key bindings in Terminal.

    That’s easy enough — they’re in the preferences. But what should I set them to? This took a lot of research. Terminal emulation and ANSI code sequences are obscure, complex, and inconsistent. I eventually found the info I needed. For starters, Shift+Right, Shift+Left, Shift+Home, and Shift+End are defined in the terminfo. The rest I was able to piece together from various sources around the Internet.

    -

    I’m also trying to script my Mac configuration. So instead of manually adding all the keybindings in the Terminal preferences pane, I decided to write a script. Mac OS X does a decent job of allowing you to change preferences from the command line. For example, to always show the tab bar:

    +

    I’m also trying to script my Mac configuration. So instead of manually adding all the keybindings in the Terminal preferences pane, I decided to write a script. Mac OS X does a decent job of allowing you to change preferences from the command line. For example, to always show the tab bar:

    defaults write -app Terminal ShowTabBar 1
    -

    Easy enough, except for a couple problems. First, I had to figure out the obscure syntax used in the preferences for key codes. I was able to piece these together with some more Internet research. But the really big problem is that the keyboard bindings are 2 levels deep within a “dictionary” (hash map). And the defaults command doesn’t handle that. There are some obscure utilities that handle nested preferences, but they don’t work well with the preferences caching in Mac OS X 10.9 — a problem I ran into while testing.

    +

    Easy enough, except for a couple problems. First, I had to figure out the obscure syntax used in the preferences for key codes. I was able to piece these together with some more Internet research. But the really big problem is that the keyboard bindings are 2 levels deep within a “dictionary” (hash map). And the defaults command doesn’t handle that. There are some obscure utilities that handle nested preferences, but they don’t work well with the preferences caching in Mac OS X 10.9 — a problem I ran into while testing.

    So now I’m writing a utility in Python that does what the defaults command does, but that will handle nested dictionaries.

    There’s a term for this process of having to solve one issue before you can solve another, and the issues get several layers deep. It’s called yak shaving.

    Here’s another good example:

    -
    Father from Malcolm in the middle having to fix one thing before fixing another, ad infinitum.
    Yak shaving – home repairs
    +
    Father from Malcolm in the middle having to fix one thing before fixing another, ad infinitum.
    Yak shaving – home repairs

    I’m sure this will be the first of many posts about me yak shaving.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Shell, System AdminLeave a comment on Yak Shaving #1: Cursor Keys
    -

    What I Want in a Blog Engine

    +

    What I Want in a Blog Engine

    -

    I’m considering moving away from WordPress, for a couple reasons:

    +

    I’m considering moving away from WordPress, for a couple reasons:

    • Security. There have been several vulnerabilities over the past few years, and I’ve never really had a high level of confidence that it’s secure. In addition, I now find the whole PHP model — every web app running as a single user, instead of leveraging UNIX permissions — to be broken.
      • -
    • Speed. I started to realize a couple years ago that a blog engine should generate static pages. The static pages should be updated whenever new content is added. There’s really no reason to re-generate the page every time someone wants to read it. At the very least, Server-Side Includes (SSI) or Edge-Side Includes (ESI) should be used.
      • +
    • Speed. I started to realize a couple years ago that a blog engine should generate static pages. The static pages should be updated whenever new content is added. There’s really no reason to re-generate the page every time someone wants to read it. At the very least, Server-Side Includes (SSI) or Edge-Side Includes (ESI) should be used.

    Now that I’m starting to actually blog consistently, it makes sense to change. But before I move to something different, I want to be sure that I find all the features that I need. This post is my thought process about what I want.

    Requirements

    @@ -165,11 +165,11 @@

    Requirements

  • Self hosted. I like to run my own servers. Partly so I can keep full control, and partly because I enjoy doing some system admin stuff (as long as it doesn’t take too much time).
  • Generation of static pages. Almost everything should be a static page by the time a user requests a page. Obviously, submitting comments would hit a dynamic page, and comment approval would likely be done through a dynamic part of the site. But publishing a blog post or comments should generate static files to be served by Apache or nginx.
  • Categories (or maybe tags). I want readers to be able to find other things that I’ve written that might interest them. A list of categories in a sidebar would help them find what interests them.
    • -
  • Site map. Especially an XML sitemap, so Google can index better. I also like the idea of readers being able to see everything in one place.
    • +
  • Site map. Especially an XML sitemap, so Google can index better. I also like the idea of readers being able to see everything in one place.
  • Archives. This is another way of letting readers see everything I’ve written, organized by publication date.
  • RSS and/or Atom. I want readers to be able to subscribe to my blog.
  • Media. I don’t think I necessarily need a media manager, just a simple way to add pictures to blog posts.
    • -
  • Comments. I want to allow comments, but I don’t want to use anything like Disqus. I want the comments to be in my own database, so they won’t disappear. I also dislike requiring JavaScript just to see comments. And I’ve worked at places where Disqus wouldn’t work, due to web proxy servers. Comments should be moderated by the site admin, editor, or author. Readers should not have to log in to post a comment, but it would be nice to allow users to log into Twitter or some other social network to provide their info.
    • +
  • Comments. I want to allow comments, but I don’t want to use anything like Disqus. I want the comments to be in my own database, so they won’t disappear. I also dislike requiring JavaScript just to see comments. And I’ve worked at places where Disqus wouldn’t work, due to web proxy servers. Comments should be moderated by the site admin, editor, or author. Readers should not have to log in to post a comment, but it would be nice to allow users to log into Twitter or some other social network to provide their info.
  • Pingbacks and Tweetbacks. I’d like to be able to see who’s referring to my articles.

    • Nice to Have

    @@ -193,22 +193,22 @@

    Nice to Have

  • Posting my tweets in a sidebar area. I’d be OK with this being done in client-side JavaScript. I’d also be OK with periodic polling of my Twitter feed, and updating the static content when appropriate.

    • Candidates

    -

    I’ve been playing with Jekyll lately, using it to generate a simple static site that can be updated easily. It’s pretty nice, and pretty easy to use. Something based on Jekyll would work well. The trickiest part will be figuring out how to manage comments. Or maybe I’ll just have to learn to live more minimally.

    -

    Octopress is the obvious candidate. It fits most of my needs and wants. Most likely I’ll write my own commenting engine and add it to my Octopress template.

    -

    The only other candidate that I’ve found is Ghost. It’s written in JavaScript and runs on Node. I don’t find Node to be that compelling, but the templates look great, and it’s designed for coding blogs.

    -

    I’ll probably take a quick look at Droplets, too. It’s written in PHP, but seems to fit my other requirements.

    +

    I’ve been playing with Jekyll lately, using it to generate a simple static site that can be updated easily. It’s pretty nice, and pretty easy to use. Something based on Jekyll would work well. The trickiest part will be figuring out how to manage comments. Or maybe I’ll just have to learn to live more minimally.

    +

    Octopress is the obvious candidate. It fits most of my needs and wants. Most likely I’ll write my own commenting engine and add it to my Octopress template.

    +

    The only other candidate that I’ve found is Ghost. It’s written in JavaScript and runs on Node. I don’t find Node to be that compelling, but the templates look great, and it’s designed for coding blogs.

    +

    I’ll probably take a quick look at Droplets, too. It’s written in PHP, but seems to fit my other requirements.

    Unfortunately, that seems to be all there is in this space. Maybe I need to investigate more. Or maybe Octopress just has the static blog generation marked cornered. Either way, I’ll probably change my blogging software in the next month or two. Wish me luck!

     

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging, Security, System AdminLeave a comment on What I Want in a Blog Engine
    @@ -231,52 +231,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -287,21 +287,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress

    - + - - + + @@ -43,8 +43,8 @@ - - + + @@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ +

    My First Open Space

    @@ -103,25 +103,25 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories UncategorizedLeave a comment on My First Open Space + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories UncategorizedLeave a comment on My First Open Space
    -

    Resolutions for 2016

    +

    Resolutions for 2016

    I’ve written up a list of career-related resolutions the past few years. I’ve been pretty successful meeting those goals, so I’m going to continue the tradition.

    Coding

    -

    I want to increase the Open Source code I write this year. That’s basically everything I write that’s not directly related to work.

    -

    I took over maintenance of Virtus late last year, but haven’t done a good job at finding the time for that. That’s probably more responding to issues on GitHub and merging pull requests. But eventually, I’ll likely add some features and do some refactoring.

    +

    I want to increase the Open Source code I write this year. That’s basically everything I write that’s not directly related to work.

    +

    I took over maintenance of Virtus late last year, but haven’t done a good job at finding the time for that. That’s probably more responding to issues on GitHub and merging pull requests. But eventually, I’ll likely add some features and do some refactoring.

    My goal is to work on 6 apps and libraries this year. That’s a pretty aggressive goal, but I want to focus on both learning new things and building some simple but useful things. Think MVP — focus on getting a lot of bang for not too much effort.

    I want to work on a new Rails app, to familiarize myself with Rails 5. I want to get some experience with some more modern gems. I also want to see if I can use some new techniques with a Rails app, especially things that might help us get closer to a hexagonal architecture. I’m also hoping to work with some different web frameworks — maybe Lotus, Rodakase, Trailblazer, or Phoenix. Or maybe one of the Crystal web frameworks.

    I also want to work on a couple Elm apps. I started the STL Elm group as an excuse to learn the language. I’d like to work on a Twitter client, that might eventually turn into a more general reading app. Beyond Twitter, it would keep track of things I want to read. The other Elm app I’d like to write is a game, based on the old Space Taxi game I loved to play on the Commodore 64.

    -

    I wrote a micro-ORM last year called Ruby Preserves. I’ve started converting that from working with raw SQL to sitting atop the awesome Sequel gem. The simplicity is still there so far, and basing it on Sequel has so far gone easier than I expected. But I haven’t figured out how to do relationships (JOINs) yet; that will be the real test.

    +

    I wrote a micro-ORM last year called Ruby Preserves. I’ve started converting that from working with raw SQL to sitting atop the awesome Sequel gem. The simplicity is still there so far, and basing it on Sequel has so far gone easier than I expected. But I haven’t figured out how to do relationships (JOINs) yet; that will be the real test.

    Conferences

    I’m pretty happy with my 2015 conference experience. I want to keep my conference level about the same. I don’t really want to commit to more talks than I gave last year. Conference presentations take a lot of time and energy to write and practice.

    I’m planning to go to RailsConf, RubyConf, and Strange Loop. I’m hoping to give a talk at each of those, if I can. But I’ll probably attend all of them even if I’m not speaking. I’m also submitting a talk to Agile 2016. I’m unlikely to go to any other conferences, and even more unlikely to give more than 4 conference talks.

    @@ -129,14 +129,14 @@

    Writing

    I really want to finish my Effective Agile book this year. I’m going to try to pull Amos in to pair with me on it occasionally, to move it forward. If I’m able to get it done, I’d also like to maybe write a book on Elm.

    I actually want to do less blogging this year. Well, sort of. I want to put coding and book writing ahead of blogging. If that means less blogging, I’m okay with that. So my goal for blogging is more like every other week. And when I do write a blog article, I’d rather it be related to some code I’m working on, something that I could use in my book, or some more in-depth thoughts about programming language design.

    Job Hunting

    -

    The contract I recently started at CenturyLink Cloud is open-ended, so I’ll likely be there for the entire year. I’m enjoying it so far; it’s a challenge, but I think I can make a significant impact. However, I’m really interested in moving to San Francisco in 2017. So I’m going to work on preparing for that in several ways.

    -

    I’m going to resurrect my LinkedIn account. I’ve neglected it for a few years now. I’ll make sure everything is up to date, and make some connections I’ve been putting off. I also want to reclaim my Stack Exchange and Hacker News accounts.

    -

    I’m going to pay a an expert to help me revamp my résumé. I think it’s pretty decent, but it could use some freshening up. I want it to stand out. I want to do a better job of explaining what I really do — which is to join a team to help them improve their processes and their technical skills.

    +

    The contract I recently started at CenturyLink Cloud is open-ended, so I’ll likely be there for the entire year. I’m enjoying it so far; it’s a challenge, but I think I can make a significant impact. However, I’m really interested in moving to San Francisco in 2017. So I’m going to work on preparing for that in several ways.

    +

    I’m going to resurrect my LinkedIn account. I’ve neglected it for a few years now. I’ll make sure everything is up to date, and make some connections I’ve been putting off. I also want to reclaim my Stack Exchange and Hacker News accounts.

    +

    I’m going to pay a an expert to help me revamp my résumé. I think it’s pretty decent, but it could use some freshening up. I want it to stand out. I want to do a better job of explaining what I really do — which is to join a team to help them improve their processes and their technical skills.

    I’ll also need to clean up all my web sites, so they look nice when people come to take a look at them. This includes my personal site, consulting business site, wiki, and blogs. I should also upgrade my server to the latest version of Debian, and use Ansible and some other tools to provision it using the principles of Infrastructure as Code.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Resolutions, UncategorizedLeave a comment on Resolutions for 2016
    @@ -145,52 +145,52 @@

    Job Hunting

    @@ -201,21 +201,21 @@

    Job Hunting

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress
    - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ +

    Website Checklist

    @@ -406,18 +406,18 @@

    Maintenance

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Web DevelopmentLeave a comment on Website Checklist
    -

    Not Quite Callbacks

    +

    Not Quite Callbacks

    -

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    +

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    The problem is that we used callbacks (actually, a publish/subscribe mechanism) in a situation where they don’t seem to quite fit:

      def show
     interactor.on(:display) { |order| render order }
@@ -425,14 +425,14 @@ 
    Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:
    
+
    I discussed this problem with my friend and colleague, Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:
    
 
      def show
     interactor.get(params[:id]) do |on|
       on.display { |order| render order }
       on.not_found { |order_id| render status: 404 }
     end
   end
    
-
    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.
    
+
    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.
    
 
    Riposte also gives you the option of using the response object directly, instead of passing a block:
    
 
      def show
     on = interactor.get(params[:id])
@@ -444,25 +444,25 @@ 
    
-		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Not Quite Callbacks			
+		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Not Quite Callbacks
    -

    Architectural Thoughts

    +

    Architectural Thoughts

    -

    I’ve started working on my own framework in Ruby in the past couple days. It’s built upon my recent work at understanding Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest 2011 talk, and his article on Clean Architecture, and the resulting hexagonal architecture (AKA ports and adapters).

    -

    Somehow my research in that vein led me to Gary Bernhardt’s Boundaries talk. I’ve read a lot about the talk, and knew about the idea of “functional core / imperative shell”. And I’ve worked with a lot of similar ideas lately. But I believe this is the first time that I actually watched the whole video.

    +

    I’ve started working on my own framework in Ruby in the past couple days. It’s built upon my recent work at understanding Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest 2011 talk, and his article on Clean Architecture, and the resulting hexagonal architecture (AKA ports and adapters).

    +

    Somehow my research in that vein led me to Gary Bernhardt’s Boundaries talk. I’ve read a lot about the talk, and knew about the idea of “functional core / imperative shell”. And I’ve worked with a lot of similar ideas lately. But I believe this is the first time that I actually watched the whole video.

    Even after having read a lot about similar ideas, it was pretty mind-expanding. Gary’s really good at presenting these kinds of ideas in a simple way.

    OOP as usually taught includes encapsulation of data together with behavior, with mutable objects. Functional programming separates data and behavior, with mostly immutable data. From experience, encapsulating data and behavior together seems helpful. But experience also shows that immutability is useful. So it would be good to have both of those together. This is something I’ve been thinking for a few years — how best do we get both?

    Gary calls the combination “FauxO”. Logic and data are still combined, but there’s no mutation. Anywhere OOP would normally have mutation would just generate a new object. There’s no language restriction involved in enforcing immutability — just discipline.

    But without mutability, it’s hard to do IO and maintain state. So Gary’s solution is to encapsulate as much as possible into an immutable (functional or FauxO) core, and around that, use an imperative (traditional OOP) shell. The functional core contains the bulk of the logic, and the imperative shell is a glue layer that handles the real world, including disk, network, and other I/O.

    The result of this is that the shell has fewer paths, but more dependencies. The core contains no dependencies, but encapsulates the different logic paths. So we’re encapsulating dependencies on one side, and business logic on the other side. Or put another way, the way to figure out the separation is by doing as much as you can without mutation, and then encapsulating the mutation separately.

    -

    I love how this naturally breaks things up, so that the core is all testable with unit tests, and the imperative shell is tested with integration tests. And since the shell has few or no logic paths, you get the testing pyramid, with more unit tests and fewer integration tests. The whole thing ends up being quite beautiful. Tests end up being very fast without any extra effort — not even stubbing or mocking. This tells us that things have been decomposed very well — an elegant design.

    +

    I love how this naturally breaks things up, so that the core is all testable with unit tests, and the imperative shell is tested with integration tests. And since the shell has few or no logic paths, you get the testing pyramid, with more unit tests and fewer integration tests. The whole thing ends up being quite beautiful. Tests end up being very fast without any extra effort — not even stubbing or mocking. This tells us that things have been decomposed very well — an elegant design.

    Gary makes the case that immutable objects can be treated as values, and passed across boundaries. Even process boundaries. This is something I’ve noticed as I’ve been working on my own Uncle Bob style hexagonal framework, but nobody in that camp ever mentioned that — they prefer DTOs or something more like hashes. I’m completely against hashes, because of the “stringly-typed” problem. And I don’t see much advantage in a DTO if I’ve got an immutable object; I’d be basically copying the object to an almost identical object. And I’d be losing any laziness possible for derived values within the original immutable object.

    It’s striking to me how Gary’s image of an imperative shell around a functional core, plus Net, Disk, and State outside of the shell mirror’s Uncle Bob’s concentric circles. Uncle Bob has entities in the middle, surrounded by use cases, surrounded by Web, DB, and UI.

    Another advantage that Gary shows is that breaking things up this way allows easy concurrency. In his example, he shows using the actor model — either just using threads and queues, or an actor library (or language feature).

    @@ -471,21 +471,21 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Programming, Ruby, Web DevelopmentLeave a comment on Architectural Thoughts + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Programming, Ruby, Web DevelopmentLeave a comment on Architectural Thoughts

    -

    Hexagonal Rails Controllers

    +

    Hexagonal Rails Controllers

    I’ve had a long love-hate relationship with Rails. I love the MVC framework and how it’s improved our speed of writing web apps. But I’ve never really been completely happy with it. I don’t generally agree with most of its opinions. I prefer models that follow the Data Mapper pattern, not the Active Record pattern. This includes separating the persistence layer from the models’ business logic. I prefer Slim or HAML to ERB. I prefer RSpec to Test::Unit or MiniTest. When Merb hit the scene, I was ready to make the jump, until Merb merged with Rails.

    -

    So inspired by PJ Hagerty’s recent article on alternative Ruby web frameworks, I started thinking about how I’d write a replacement for Rails. I’d definitely keep the basic MVC framework. But I’d also want to implement a more hexagonal architecture.

    +

    So inspired by PJ Hagerty’s recent article on alternative Ruby web frameworks, I started thinking about how I’d write a replacement for Rails. I’d definitely keep the basic MVC framework. But I’d also want to implement a more hexagonal architecture.

    I started sketching out what this would look like, but I ended up starting with a Rails controller and finding the simplest way to make it hexagonal. I really don’t like callbacks, because they make tracing program execution difficult. But I didn’t see any other alternative. I found a simple pub/sub Ruby library called Wisper. It literally has only publish, subscribe, and on methods. (You use on to register single callbacks via blocks, and subscribe to register an object with method names corresponding to the callback names.)

    -

    The trick was figuring out how to break the controller into 2 pieces. What finally helped me was to find the single responsibilities of the 2 pieces. The Rails controller would remain in charge of managing the web interface, but would delegate to the other piece to handle any application-specific business logic. I decided to re-watch Uncle Bob Martin’s “Architecture The Lost Years” talk, which was the first time I was introduced to the ideas of Hexagonal Architecture. (He doesn’t name the architecture in the talk, but later calls it Clean Architecture.) He does a decent job of explaining how to break these 2 pieces apart. He used the term “interactor” in that talk, so I decided to go with that. He said that Jacobsen calls it a Control Object in Object Oriented Software Engineering, but that’s too close to Rails’s “controller”.

    +

    The trick was figuring out how to break the controller into 2 pieces. What finally helped me was to find the single responsibilities of the 2 pieces. The Rails controller would remain in charge of managing the web interface, but would delegate to the other piece to handle any application-specific business logic. I decided to re-watch Uncle Bob Martin’s “Architecture The Lost Years” talk, which was the first time I was introduced to the ideas of Hexagonal Architecture. (He doesn’t name the architecture in the talk, but later calls it Clean Architecture.) He does a decent job of explaining how to break these 2 pieces apart. He used the term “interactor” in that talk, so I decided to go with that. He said that Jacobsen calls it a Control Object in Object Oriented Software Engineering, but that’s too close to Rails’s “controller”.

    So here’s an example of what I ended up with:

    class OrderController < ApplicationController
   def index
@@ -523,30 +523,30 @@ 
    Trailblazer does it that way. And for more complicated business logic, I would do that too, using the Method Object pattern. But like a Rails controller, there’s a lot in common among all the operations. I feel like a separate class for each operation for each would create too many coupled classes.
    
+
    I do have a few problems with this solution though. I’m not a fan of the name “interactor” for the business logic. I thought about calling it OrderOperator, or maybe OrderOperations, because it’s really a collection of operations. Perhaps it would be better to separate each operation into a separate class. Trailblazer does it that way. And for more complicated business logic, I would do that too, using the Method Object pattern. But like a Rails controller, there’s a lot in common among all the operations. I feel like a separate class for each operation for each would create too many coupled classes.
    
 
    I’m also uncomfortable with the fact that the controller is delegating almost everything to the interactor. I guess this is OK, but it feels like there’s too little left when every line starts with interactor. I suppose extracting things some more would help mitigate this concern I’ll likely write a small gem to perform that extraction. I expect that that will allow a typical controller to be written in only a few lines. And maybe the same for the interactor side.
    
 
    With the business logic extracted out of the controller, it was really easy for me to write a command-line version of the app. As Uncle Bob says, “the web is not particularly important to your application.”
    
-
    I’ve put the code for this example on GitHub: https://github.com/boochtek/hexagonal-rails. I’ll likely experiment with it some more over the next few weeks and months.
    
+
    I’ve put the code for this example on GitHub: https://github.com/boochtek/hexagonal-rails. I’ll likely experiment with it some more over the next few weeks and months.
    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Hexagonal Rails Controllers
    -

    TDD Is Alive And Well

    +

    TDD Is Alive And Well

    -

    I went to RailsConf this year, and the very first talk was a keynote by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), the creator of Ruby on Rails. The TL;DR of his talk was “TDD rarely has value”. He followed up with a blog post the next day, titled “TDD is dead. Long live testing.“, and 2 more posts. I think this line of thought is terribly misguided, and causing more harm than good. This article is my response.

    +

    I went to RailsConf this year, and the very first talk was a keynote by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), the creator of Ruby on Rails. The TL;DR of his talk was “TDD rarely has value”. He followed up with a blog post the next day, titled “TDD is dead. Long live testing.“, and 2 more posts. I think this line of thought is terribly misguided, and causing more harm than good. This article is my response.

    First, I would like to address the good points of the talk. He said that programming is pseudoscience, and that people want to tell us that there’s a secret to being a better programmer. But what it really takes is working hard — reading a lot of code, writing a lot of code, and rewriting a lot of code. He’s right. And I also agree with him that you should forget about patterns for a while when learning to code. Beginners try to throw patterns at a problem instead of letting the patterns emerge where they’re supposed to.

    I don’t completely agree that programming is a pseudoscience. In some ways it is, but I think it’s more of a craft. It’s a craft, because there’s a lot of science involved, but there’s also an art to doing it well. And like any craft, you’re always working to get better. So to respond to DHH’s stance that “software is more like poetry than physics”, I think it falls
    somewhere in between.

    With regard to the software engineering practices we use, there really isn’t much science available, mostly because it’s a soft science. That is, it’s really hard to isolate a single variable when comparing code between projects. And nobody has the time or money to write the same code so many times that the differences would be statistically significant.

    -

    So we don’t have much science on TDD. But we do have some. Here’s a collection of several: StudiesOfTestDrivenDevelopment. And here’s one that explicitly looks are the difference between test-first and test-last: Does Test-Driven Development Really Improve Software Design Quality? What do these tell us? They tell us that TDD costs us about 10-30% in short-term productivity; reduces bugs by 30-90%, and decreases code complexity by about 30%. As Code Complete tells us (in section 20.5, with studies to back it up), improving quality reduces development costs. So, like most Agile practices, this is a case where spending a bit more time in the short term leads to time savings in the long term.

    +

    So we don’t have much science on TDD. But we do have some. Here’s a collection of several: StudiesOfTestDrivenDevelopment. And here’s one that explicitly looks are the difference between test-first and test-last: Does Test-Driven Development Really Improve Software Design Quality? What do these tell us? They tell us that TDD costs us about 10-30% in short-term productivity; reduces bugs by 30-90%, and decreases code complexity by about 30%. As Code Complete tells us (in section 20.5, with studies to back it up), improving quality reduces development costs. So, like most Agile practices, this is a case where spending a bit more time in the short term leads to time savings in the long term.

    The more important lesson in the talk was that you have to do what works best for you and your situation. If TDD doesn’t give better results, then either find out how to make it give better results, or stop using it. As we often say in the Agile world, Agile doesn’t mean that you can stop using your brain. While I think TDD is appropriate in most situations, there are cases where it’s not worth the additional up-front cost. If the most important thing for your project is time-to-market, then not testing might be the right decision for you.

    To me, TDD provides a bunch of benefits. First and foremost, TDD is a design discipline. It ensures that I think about how my code will be used before I think about how to implement it. This is very powerful in ensuring that the code is well-written from the perspective of other code using it.

    Tested code provides confidence to be able to make changes without breaking things. If we write tests after the code, we’re less likely to write them. Tests written after the code also tend to test the implementation instead of the desired functionality. What we really want is tests written as a specification. With tests as a specification, we can come back later and understand why code was written. Without tests, or with poor tests, we can’t understand why the code is there; if we want to rewrite it, we don’t have the confidence that we’re not missing something. Writing tests first also ensures that we only write the code that is needed to implement the required functionality.

    @@ -554,28 +554,28 @@

    Monogamous TDD by Uncle Bob Martin -
  • When TDD doesn’t work by Uncle Bob Martin
    • -
  • RIP TDD by Kent Beck
    • -
  • How testability can help by Tom Stuart
    • -
  • This Agile Life Episode 47 (including myself)
    • +
  • Monogamous TDD by Uncle Bob Martin
    • +
  • When TDD doesn’t work by Uncle Bob Martin
    • +
  • RIP TDD by Kent Beck
    • +
  • How testability can help by Tom Stuart
    • +
  • This Agile Life Episode 47 (including myself)

    •  

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Ruby on Rails, TDD2 Comments on TDD Is Alive And Well
    -

    Includable ActiveRecord

    +

    Includable ActiveRecord

    -

    I created a Ruby gem recently, called includable-activerecord. It’s pretty small, but I thought I might explain why I created it, and discuss its implementation.

    +

    I created a Ruby gem recently, called includable-activerecord. It’s pretty small, but I thought I might explain why I created it, and discuss its implementation.

    Classical Inheritance

    When you use ActiveRecord, you normally include it in your model like this:

    class User < ActiveRecord::Base
@@ -593,9 +593,9 @@ 
    Classical Inheritance
    
 
    Implementation
    
 
    So I decided to see if I could implement the equivalent of the ActiveRecord::Base class as a module that could be mixed into model classes. I decided to call my mixin module ActiveRecord::Model, because classes that mix it in will behave as ActiveRecord models.
    
 
    It turns out that ActiveRecord::Base is a pretty complex class. It includes and extends a lot of other modules. Luckily, as of ActiveRecord 4.0, that’s all the code it includes.
    
-
    The module only defines a single class method, included. This is one of Ruby’s many hook methods. It gets called when the module in question gets included in another module, and receives that other model as its argument. All we need to have this method do is to include everything that ActiveRecord::Base includes, and extend everything that ActiveRecord::Base extends. Ruby provides a method that’s defined on all classes, called included_modules, which we can use to get the list of everything that’s included in ActiveRecord::Base. Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent list of extended_modules. But a quick search on Stack Overflow found an implementation of extended_modules that we could use.
    
+
    The module only defines a single class method, included. This is one of Ruby’s many hook methods. It gets called when the module in question gets included in another module, and receives that other model as its argument. All we need to have this method do is to include everything that ActiveRecord::Base includes, and extend everything that ActiveRecord::Base extends. Ruby provides a method that’s defined on all classes, called included_modules, which we can use to get the list of everything that’s included in ActiveRecord::Base. Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent list of extended_modules. But a quick search on Stack Overflow found an implementation of extended_modules that we could use.
    
 
    So with a bit of magic (i.e. hooks and meta-programming), we can get the lists of constituent modules from the ActiveRecord::Base class, and include them in our ActiveRecord::Model module.
    
-
    So with all that, we can now include the includable-activerecord gem and mix it in, with all the advantages that provides:
    
+
    So with all that, we can now include the includable-activerecord gem and mix it in, with all the advantages that provides:
    
 
    class User
   include ActiveRecord::Model
   # ...
@@ -604,13 +604,13 @@ 
    Implementation
    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Includable ActiveRecord
    -

    Testing Rails Validators

    +

    Testing Rails Validators

    @@ -647,11 +647,11 @@

    this Stack Overflow answer. Basically, create a minimal model object that contains the field and the validation. Then test that the model behaves like you expect with different values and validations.

    +

    Integration testing can also be a bit of a challenge. I recommend following the example from this Stack Overflow answer. Basically, create a minimal model object that contains the field and the validation. Then test that the model behaves like you expect with different values and validations.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby on Rails, TDDLeave a comment on Testing Rails Validators

    @@ -660,52 +660,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -716,21 +716,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ - - + + @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ +

    Not Quite Callbacks

    -

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    +

    I’ve been working on application architectures based on Uncle Bob’s Ruby Midwest talk, following the hexagonal architectural pattern. I posted an article a couple months ago showing a way that works fairly well in Rails, and some accompanying Rails example code. But there was one thing I wasn’t quite happy with.

    The problem is that we used callbacks (actually, a publish/subscribe mechanism) in a situation where they don’t seem to quite fit:

      def show
     interactor.on(:display) { |order| render order }
@@ -95,14 +95,14 @@ 
    Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:
    
+
    I discussed this problem with my friend and colleague, Amos King. We came up with a better solution, which puts things back in the right order:
    
 
      def show
     interactor.get(params[:id]) do |on|
       on.display { |order| render order }
       on.not_found { |order_id| render status: 404 }
     end
   end
    
-
    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.
    
+
    He even wrote a small library to do this, which he called Riposte. I’m not sure what to call this pattern, but it seems to work pretty well in this situation. I suppose that they’re still technically callbacks, because they’re passed in in the block that’s passed in to the call to interactor.get(). But due to the magic of Ruby blocks, we get to put them in the order they should be.
    
 
    Riposte also gives you the option of using the response object directly, instead of passing a block:
    
 
      def show
     on = interactor.get(params[:id])
@@ -114,21 +114,21 @@ 
    
-		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Not Quite Callbacks			
+		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Architecture, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Not Quite Callbacks			
 
 
 
    
 	
    
 		
-		
    Hexagonal Rails Controllers
    	
    
+		
    Hexagonal Rails Controllers
    	
 
 	
 	
 	
    
 		
    I’ve had a long love-hate relationship with Rails. I love the MVC framework and how it’s improved our speed of writing web apps. But I’ve never really been completely happy with it. I don’t generally agree with most of its opinions. I prefer models that follow the Data Mapper pattern, not the Active Record pattern. This includes separating the persistence layer from the models’ business logic. I prefer Slim or HAML to ERB. I prefer RSpec to Test::Unit or MiniTest. When Merb hit the scene, I was ready to make the jump, until Merb merged with Rails.
    
-
    So inspired by PJ Hagerty’s recent article on alternative Ruby web frameworks, I started thinking about how I’d write a replacement for Rails. I’d definitely keep the basic MVC framework. But I’d also want to implement a more hexagonal architecture.
    
+
    So inspired by PJ Hagerty’s recent article on alternative Ruby web frameworks, I started thinking about how I’d write a replacement for Rails. I’d definitely keep the basic MVC framework. But I’d also want to implement a more hexagonal architecture.
    
 
    I started sketching out what this would look like, but I ended up starting with a Rails controller and finding the simplest way to make it hexagonal. I really don’t like callbacks, because they make tracing program execution difficult. But I didn’t see any other alternative. I found a simple pub/sub Ruby library called Wisper. It literally has only publish, subscribe, and on methods. (You use on to register single callbacks via blocks, and subscribe to register an object with method names corresponding to the callback names.)
    
-
    The trick was figuring out how to break the controller into 2 pieces. What finally helped me was to find the single responsibilities of the 2 pieces. The Rails controller would remain in charge of managing the web interface, but would delegate to the other piece to handle any application-specific business logic. I decided to re-watch Uncle Bob Martin’s “Architecture The Lost Years” talk, which was the first time I was introduced to the ideas of Hexagonal Architecture. (He doesn’t name the architecture in the talk, but later calls it Clean Architecture.) He does a decent job of explaining how to break these 2 pieces apart. He used the term “interactor” in that talk, so I decided to go with that. He said that Jacobsen calls it a Control Object in Object Oriented Software Engineering, but that’s too close to Rails’s “controller”.
    
+
    The trick was figuring out how to break the controller into 2 pieces. What finally helped me was to find the single responsibilities of the 2 pieces. The Rails controller would remain in charge of managing the web interface, but would delegate to the other piece to handle any application-specific business logic. I decided to re-watch Uncle Bob Martin’s “Architecture The Lost Years” talk, which was the first time I was introduced to the ideas of Hexagonal Architecture. (He doesn’t name the architecture in the talk, but later calls it Clean Architecture.) He does a decent job of explaining how to break these 2 pieces apart. He used the term “interactor” in that talk, so I decided to go with that. He said that Jacobsen calls it a Control Object in Object Oriented Software Engineering, but that’s too close to Rails’s “controller”.
    
 
    So here’s an example of what I ended up with:
    
 
    class OrderController < ApplicationController
   def index
@@ -166,30 +166,30 @@ 
    Trailblazer does it that way. And for more complicated business logic, I would do that too, using the Method Object pattern. But like a Rails controller, there’s a lot in common among all the operations. I feel like a separate class for each operation for each would create too many coupled classes.
    
+
    I do have a few problems with this solution though. I’m not a fan of the name “interactor” for the business logic. I thought about calling it OrderOperator, or maybe OrderOperations, because it’s really a collection of operations. Perhaps it would be better to separate each operation into a separate class. Trailblazer does it that way. And for more complicated business logic, I would do that too, using the Method Object pattern. But like a Rails controller, there’s a lot in common among all the operations. I feel like a separate class for each operation for each would create too many coupled classes.
    
 
    I’m also uncomfortable with the fact that the controller is delegating almost everything to the interactor. I guess this is OK, but it feels like there’s too little left when every line starts with interactor. I suppose extracting things some more would help mitigate this concern I’ll likely write a small gem to perform that extraction. I expect that that will allow a typical controller to be written in only a few lines. And maybe the same for the interactor side.
    
 
    With the business logic extracted out of the controller, it was really easy for me to write a command-line version of the app. As Uncle Bob says, “the web is not particularly important to your application.”
    
-
    I’ve put the code for this example on GitHub: https://github.com/boochtek/hexagonal-rails. I’ll likely experiment with it some more over the next few weeks and months.
    
+
    I’ve put the code for this example on GitHub: https://github.com/boochtek/hexagonal-rails. I’ll likely experiment with it some more over the next few weeks and months.
    
 	
    
 
 	
+		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Hexagonal Rails Controllers			
 
    
 
 
    
 	
    
 		
-		
    TDD Is Alive And Well
    	
    
+		
    TDD Is Alive And Well
    	
 
 	
 	
 	
    
-		
    I went to RailsConf this year, and the very first talk was a keynote by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), the creator of Ruby on Rails. The TL;DR of his talk was “TDD rarely has value”. He followed up with a blog post the next day, titled “TDD is dead. Long live testing.“, and 2 more posts. I think this line of thought is terribly misguided, and causing more harm than good. This article is my response.
    
+		
    I went to RailsConf this year, and the very first talk was a keynote by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), the creator of Ruby on Rails. The TL;DR of his talk was “TDD rarely has value”. He followed up with a blog post the next day, titled “TDD is dead. Long live testing.“, and 2 more posts. I think this line of thought is terribly misguided, and causing more harm than good. This article is my response.
    
 
    First, I would like to address the good points of the talk. He said that programming is pseudoscience, and that people want to tell us that there’s a secret to being a better programmer. But what it really takes is working hard — reading a lot of code, writing a lot of code, and rewriting a lot of code. He’s right. And I also agree with him that you should forget about patterns for a while when learning to code. Beginners try to throw patterns at a problem instead of letting the patterns emerge where they’re supposed to.
    
 
    I don’t completely agree that programming is a pseudoscience. In some ways it is, but I think it’s more of a craft. It’s a craft, because there’s a lot of science involved, but there’s also an art to doing it well. And like any craft, you’re always working to get better. So to respond to DHH’s stance that “software is more like poetry than physics”, I think it falls
    
 somewhere in between.
    
 
    With regard to the software engineering practices we use, there really isn’t much science available, mostly because it’s a soft science. That is, it’s really hard to isolate a single variable when comparing code between projects. And nobody has the time or money to write the same code so many times that the differences would be statistically significant.
    
-
    So we don’t have much science on TDD. But we do have some. Here’s a collection of several: StudiesOfTestDrivenDevelopment. And here’s one that explicitly looks are the difference between test-first and test-last: Does Test-Driven Development Really Improve Software Design Quality? What do these tell us? They tell us that TDD costs us about 10-30% in short-term productivity; reduces bugs by 30-90%, and decreases code complexity by about 30%. As Code Complete tells us (in section 20.5, with studies to back it up), improving quality reduces development costs. So, like most Agile practices, this is a case where spending a bit more time in the short term leads to time savings in the long term.
    
+
    So we don’t have much science on TDD. But we do have some. Here’s a collection of several: StudiesOfTestDrivenDevelopment. And here’s one that explicitly looks are the difference between test-first and test-last: Does Test-Driven Development Really Improve Software Design Quality? What do these tell us? They tell us that TDD costs us about 10-30% in short-term productivity; reduces bugs by 30-90%, and decreases code complexity by about 30%. As Code Complete tells us (in section 20.5, with studies to back it up), improving quality reduces development costs. So, like most Agile practices, this is a case where spending a bit more time in the short term leads to time savings in the long term.
    
 
    The more important lesson in the talk was that you have to do what works best for you and your situation. If TDD doesn’t give better results, then either find out how to make it give better results, or stop using it. As we often say in the Agile world, Agile doesn’t mean that you can stop using your brain. While I think TDD is appropriate in most situations, there are cases where it’s not worth the additional up-front cost. If the most important thing for your project is time-to-market, then not testing might be the right decision for you.
    
 
    To me, TDD provides a bunch of benefits. First and foremost, TDD is a design discipline. It ensures that I think about how my code will be used before I think about how to implement it. This is very powerful in ensuring that the code is well-written from the perspective of other code using it.
    
 
    Tested code provides confidence to be able to make changes without breaking things. If we write tests after the code, we’re less likely to write them. Tests written after the code also tend to test the implementation instead of the desired functionality. What we really want is tests written as a specification. With tests as a specification, we can come back later and understand why code was written. Without tests, or with poor tests, we can’t understand why the code is there; if we want to rewrite it, we don’t have the confidence that we’re not missing something. Writing tests first also ensures that we only write the code that is needed to implement the required functionality.
    
@@ -197,28 +197,28 @@ 
    Monogamous TDD by Uncle Bob Martin
-
  • When TDD doesn’t work by Uncle Bob Martin
    • 
-
  • RIP TDD by Kent Beck
    • 
-
  • How testability can help by Tom Stuart
    • 
-
  • This Agile Life Episode 47 (including myself)
    • 
+
  • Monogamous TDD by Uncle Bob Martin
    • 
+
  • When TDD doesn’t work by Uncle Bob Martin
    • 
+
  • RIP TDD by Kent Beck
    • 
+
  • How testability can help by Tom Stuart
    • 
+
  • This Agile Life Episode 47 (including myself)
    • 
 
 
     
    
 	
    
 
 	
+		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Ruby on Rails, TDD2 Comments on TDD Is Alive And Well			
 
    
 
 
    
 	
    
 		
-		
    Includable ActiveRecord
    	
    
+		
    Includable ActiveRecord
    	
 
 	
 	
 	
    
-		
    I created a Ruby gem recently, called includable-activerecord. It’s pretty small, but I thought I might explain why I created it, and discuss its implementation.
    
+		
    I created a Ruby gem recently, called includable-activerecord. It’s pretty small, but I thought I might explain why I created it, and discuss its implementation.
    
 
    Classical Inheritance
    
 
    When you use ActiveRecord, you normally include it in your model like this:
    
 
    class User < ActiveRecord::Base
@@ -236,9 +236,9 @@ 
    Classical Inheritance
    
 
    Implementation
    
 
    So I decided to see if I could implement the equivalent of the ActiveRecord::Base class as a module that could be mixed into model classes. I decided to call my mixin module ActiveRecord::Model, because classes that mix it in will behave as ActiveRecord models.
    
 
    It turns out that ActiveRecord::Base is a pretty complex class. It includes and extends a lot of other modules. Luckily, as of ActiveRecord 4.0, that’s all the code it includes.
    
-
    The module only defines a single class method, included. This is one of Ruby’s many hook methods. It gets called when the module in question gets included in another module, and receives that other model as its argument. All we need to have this method do is to include everything that ActiveRecord::Base includes, and extend everything that ActiveRecord::Base extends. Ruby provides a method that’s defined on all classes, called included_modules, which we can use to get the list of everything that’s included in ActiveRecord::Base. Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent list of extended_modules. But a quick search on Stack Overflow found an implementation of extended_modules that we could use.
    
+
    The module only defines a single class method, included. This is one of Ruby’s many hook methods. It gets called when the module in question gets included in another module, and receives that other model as its argument. All we need to have this method do is to include everything that ActiveRecord::Base includes, and extend everything that ActiveRecord::Base extends. Ruby provides a method that’s defined on all classes, called included_modules, which we can use to get the list of everything that’s included in ActiveRecord::Base. Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent list of extended_modules. But a quick search on Stack Overflow found an implementation of extended_modules that we could use.
    
 
    So with a bit of magic (i.e. hooks and meta-programming), we can get the lists of constituent modules from the ActiveRecord::Base class, and include them in our ActiveRecord::Model module.
    
-
    So with all that, we can now include the includable-activerecord gem and mix it in, with all the advantages that provides:
    
+
    So with all that, we can now include the includable-activerecord gem and mix it in, with all the advantages that provides:
    
 
    class User
   include ActiveRecord::Model
   # ...
@@ -247,13 +247,13 @@ 
    Implementation
    
 	
    
 
 	
+		Author  Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby, Ruby on RailsLeave a comment on Includable ActiveRecord			
 
    
 
 
    
 	
    
 		
-		
    Testing Rails Validators
    	
    
+		
    Testing Rails Validators
    	
 
 	
 	
@@ -290,11 +290,11 @@ 
    this Stack Overflow answer. Basically, create a minimal model object that contains the field and the validation. Then test that the model behaves like you expect with different values and validations.
    
+
    Integration testing can also be a bit of a challenge. I recommend following the example from this Stack Overflow answer. Basically, create a minimal model object that contains the field and the validation. Then test that the model behaves like you expect with different values and validations.
    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories OOP, Ruby on Rails, TDDLeave a comment on Testing Rails Validators @@ -303,52 +303,52 @@

    Pages

    Categories

    @@ -359,21 +359,21 @@

    - BoochTek, LLC - Proudly powered by WordPress + BoochTek, LLC + Proudly powered by WordPress - + - - + + @@ -46,8 +46,8 @@ - - + + @@ -63,7 +63,7 @@
    -

    BoochTek, LLC

    +

    BoochTek, LLC

    Web Development, Ruby on Rails, Open Source

    @@ -82,7 +82,7 @@

    -

    You Don’t Have to Be Right

    +

    You Don’t Have to Be Right

    @@ -97,13 +97,13 @@

    - Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Empathy3 Comments on You Don’t Have to Be Right + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Empathy3 Comments on You Don’t Have to Be Right
    -

    Resolutions for 2016

    +

    Resolutions for 2016

    I’ve written up a list of career-related resolutions the past few years. I’ve been pretty successful meeting those goals, so I’m going to continue the tradition.

    Coding

    -

    I want to increase the Open Source code I write this year. That’s basically everything I write that’s not directly related to work.

    -

    I took over maintenance of Virtus late last year, but haven’t done a good job at finding the time for that. That’s probably more responding to issues on GitHub and merging pull requests. But eventually, I’ll likely add some features and do some refactoring.

    +

    I want to increase the Open Source code I write this year. That’s basically everything I write that’s not directly related to work.

    +

    I took over maintenance of Virtus late last year, but haven’t done a good job at finding the time for that. That’s probably more responding to issues on GitHub and merging pull requests. But eventually, I’ll likely add some features and do some refactoring.

    My goal is to work on 6 apps and libraries this year. That’s a pretty aggressive goal, but I want to focus on both learning new things and building some simple but useful things. Think MVP — focus on getting a lot of bang for not too much effort.

    I want to work on a new Rails app, to familiarize myself with Rails 5. I want to get some experience with some more modern gems. I also want to see if I can use some new techniques with a Rails app, especially things that might help us get closer to a hexagonal architecture. I’m also hoping to work with some different web frameworks — maybe Lotus, Rodakase, Trailblazer, or Phoenix. Or maybe one of the Crystal web frameworks.

    I also want to work on a couple Elm apps. I started the STL Elm group as an excuse to learn the language. I’d like to work on a Twitter client, that might eventually turn into a more general reading app. Beyond Twitter, it would keep track of things I want to read. The other Elm app I’d like to write is a game, based on the old Space Taxi game I loved to play on the Commodore 64.

    -

    I wrote a micro-ORM last year called Ruby Preserves. I’ve started converting that from working with raw SQL to sitting atop the awesome Sequel gem. The simplicity is still there so far, and basing it on Sequel has so far gone easier than I expected. But I haven’t figured out how to do relationships (JOINs) yet; that will be the real test.

    +

    I wrote a micro-ORM last year called Ruby Preserves. I’ve started converting that from working with raw SQL to sitting atop the awesome Sequel gem. The simplicity is still there so far, and basing it on Sequel has so far gone easier than I expected. But I haven’t figured out how to do relationships (JOINs) yet; that will be the real test.

    Conferences

    I’m pretty happy with my 2015 conference experience. I want to keep my conference level about the same. I don’t really want to commit to more talks than I gave last year. Conference presentations take a lot of time and energy to write and practice.

    I’m planning to go to RailsConf, RubyConf, and Strange Loop. I’m hoping to give a talk at each of those, if I can. But I’ll probably attend all of them even if I’m not speaking. I’m also submitting a talk to Agile 2016. I’m unlikely to go to any other conferences, and even more unlikely to give more than 4 conference talks.

    @@ -152,20 +152,20 @@

    Writing

    I really want to finish my Effective Agile book this year. I’m going to try to pull Amos in to pair with me on it occasionally, to move it forward. If I’m able to get it done, I’d also like to maybe write a book on Elm.

    I actually want to do less blogging this year. Well, sort of. I want to put coding and book writing ahead of blogging. If that means less blogging, I’m okay with that. So my goal for blogging is more like every other week. And when I do write a blog article, I’d rather it be related to some code I’m working on, something that I could use in my book, or some more in-depth thoughts about programming language design.

    Job Hunting

    -

    The contract I recently started at CenturyLink Cloud is open-ended, so I’ll likely be there for the entire year. I’m enjoying it so far; it’s a challenge, but I think I can make a significant impact. However, I’m really interested in moving to San Francisco in 2017. So I’m going to work on preparing for that in several ways.

    -

    I’m going to resurrect my LinkedIn account. I’ve neglected it for a few years now. I’ll make sure everything is up to date, and make some connections I’ve been putting off. I also want to reclaim my Stack Exchange and Hacker News accounts.

    -

    I’m going to pay a an expert to help me revamp my résumé. I think it’s pretty decent, but it could use some freshening up. I want it to stand out. I want to do a better job of explaining what I really do — which is to join a team to help them improve their processes and their technical skills.

    +

    The contract I recently started at CenturyLink Cloud is open-ended, so I’ll likely be there for the entire year. I’m enjoying it so far; it’s a challenge, but I think I can make a significant impact. However, I’m really interested in moving to San Francisco in 2017. So I’m going to work on preparing for that in several ways.

    +

    I’m going to resurrect my LinkedIn account. I’ve neglected it for a few years now. I’ll make sure everything is up to date, and make some connections I’ve been putting off. I also want to reclaim my Stack Exchange and Hacker News accounts.

    +

    I’m going to pay a an expert to help me revamp my résumé. I think it’s pretty decent, but it could use some freshening up. I want it to stand out. I want to do a better job of explaining what I really do — which is to join a team to help them improve their processes and their technical skills.

    I’ll also need to clean up all my web sites, so they look nice when people come to take a look at them. This includes my personal site, consulting business site, wiki, and blogs. I should also upgrade my server to the latest version of Debian, and use Ansible and some other tools to provision it using the principles of Infrastructure as Code.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories ResolutionsLeave a comment on Resolutions for 2016
    -

    2015 Year in Review

    +

    2015 Year in Review

    -

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    +

    It’s that time of year again — time for a retrospective on how I did on my goals for the year. I had 5 main goals for 2015:

    • Job Hunting
    • Conferences
      • @@ -206,14 +206,14 @@

      Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      -

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      +

      I got pretty lucky on this one. My main contract with Mercy got extended several times. Amos and I must have been doing a good job of keeping the customer happy. We even made it through a couple rounds of layoffs. I’m wrapping up the gig at Mercy now. I’m working one day a week there, as the project winds down.

      +

      I also started a new gig this month at CenturyLink. I’m working on a cloud development team. Our current project involves selling WordPress as a service. The manager had been courting me for most of the year. I’m excited about my new role; I’ll be writing about it in a blog post soon.

      Conferences

      -

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      -

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      -

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      +

      I set a goal in 2014 to give my first conference talk. I accomplished that, giving an ambitious talk at RubyConf. I enjoyed having done that, and vowed to do more conference speaking.

      +

      I gave 3 conference talks in 2015. I gave a workshop on HTTP at RailsConf. I talked about immutable infrastructure at Madison+ Ruby. At RubyConf, I gave a talk on a micro-ORM I wrote. I also gave a lightning talk about Agile estimation (#noestimates).

      +

      I was an alternate speaker at Windy City Rails, but did not give my talk on Alternatives to ActiveRecord. I also went to Strange Loop, mainly to see several friends and acquaintances speak.

      Blogging

      -

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      +

      I wrote 24 blog articles this year. That’s about one every other week. What really kept me going was participating in a writing pact. When the pact was going, I had a 75% blogging rate. That’s pretty good.

      I’m not so sure about the quality of my blog writing though. I know that practicing writing is supposed to make you better. I know I wrote some really good articles over the past year, but I think I also wrote some articles that weren’t very good. I think sometimes the deadline has caused more harm than good. I’m not really sure what to do about that; perhaps just pushing on is the right answer.

      Programming Language Design

      I’ve taken a lot of notes on the design of my programming language. Any time I learn something interesting about another language, or come up with another idea, I write it down.

      @@ -223,42 +223,42 @@

      Writing an Agile Book

      I’ve got some things to say about Agile, and want to write a book to express those ideas. I’ve made a start — I’ve got the chapters outlines, and have started on a few chapters. But I haven’t made as much progress as I’d like to. I shared what I’ve got with Amos, and he showed some interest in pairing with me on the writing. Hopefully we’ll work on it together in 2016 and publish it.

      Other

      There were a few other accomplishments that weren’t explicitly on my list, but I’d like to call attention to.

      -

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      -

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      -

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      +

      I’ve continued participating on the This Agile Life podcast. I was in 12 of the 33 episodes that were recorded in 2015. I hope to participate in more in 2016. We’re considering scheduling a standard recording night each week, which might help us record more regularly.

      +

      I recently took over as maintainer of Virtus, a library to declare attributes for Ruby model classes. I haven’t done a lot yet, since I’ve been busy with travel, vacation, and holidays. But I hope to catch up with all the pending pull requests and issues in the next month or so.

      +

      The accomplishment I’m most proud of is mentoring for the Roy Clay Sr. Tech Impact program. This is a program begun as a result of the Ferguson protest movement. We’re helping teach kids (from 14 to 25) web design and development. My personal goal was to give these kids an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. But it turned out that some of them have actually started a business building web sites for small companies. I’m so proud of the progress they’ve made in such a short time; it’s a challenging program.

      Conclusion

      I’m pretty happy with my accomplishments this year. I made at least some progress on each of the goals I set. I’ve been thinking about my goals for next year; I’ll write that as a separate blog article next week.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Blogging, Brilliant, Languages, Resolutions, RetrospectivesLeave a comment on 2015 Year in Review
    -

    Face Your Fears

    +

    Face Your Fears

    I’ve always been someone who faces my fears.

    -

    I have a moderate case of arachnophobia. I don’t run away when I see a spider, but it creeps my out when one is crawling on me. When I was in college, I decided to buy a tarantula to attempt to get over my irrational fear of spiders. I thought I’d be able to get more comfortable with the tarantula over time, eventually to the point of letting it crawl on my arm. It didn’t work. Although I did find that my fear of tarantulas is rational — I got a terrible case of hives just from touching the urticating hairs that fell off into its water sponge.

    -

    Last week, I was on vacation in Mexico. One of the excursions we took involved jumping in the water a lot. I’m not a strong swimmer — mostly because I have a hard time closing my nose; I hold my nose when I jump in. We zip-lined into the water a lot. At one point, there was a cliff to dive into the water from. It was about 15 feet above the water. It didn’t look so far down before jumping. But it felt like a really long way down the first time I jumped from it. It was pretty scary for me. So I did it a second time. There wasn’t any peer pressure to jump a second time. I literally jumped a second time specifically because I was scared.

    +

    I have a moderate case of arachnophobia. I don’t run away when I see a spider, but it creeps my out when one is crawling on me. When I was in college, I decided to buy a tarantula to attempt to get over my irrational fear of spiders. I thought I’d be able to get more comfortable with the tarantula over time, eventually to the point of letting it crawl on my arm. It didn’t work. Although I did find that my fear of tarantulas is rational — I got a terrible case of hives just from touching the urticating hairs that fell off into its water sponge.

    +

    Last week, I was on vacation in Mexico. One of the excursions we took involved jumping in the water a lot. I’m not a strong swimmer — mostly because I have a hard time closing my nose; I hold my nose when I jump in. We zip-lined into the water a lot. At one point, there was a cliff to dive into the water from. It was about 15 feet above the water. It didn’t look so far down before jumping. But it felt like a really long way down the first time I jumped from it. It was pretty scary for me. So I did it a second time. There wasn’t any peer pressure to jump a second time. I literally jumped a second time specifically because I was scared.

    Fear is a weird thing. Fear is there to protect us. But it’s there to protect us from the dangers of the African savannah. Most of the things our fears protect us from don’t exist in our everyday modern lives. So maybe we should work to gain a better understanding of how our fears work, to figure out when to pay attention to them and when to ignore them.

    -

    Fortunately, our brain has a good mechanism to help us do this. Our brains basically have 2 main processing systems. The first one is for quick reactions. This one involves things that are nearly reflexes. Fear is in this system. The second system is our analytical reasoning system. This system takes longer to process, but is able to take on more information.

    +

    Fortunately, our brain has a good mechanism to help us do this. Our brains basically have 2 main processing systems. The first one is for quick reactions. This one involves things that are nearly reflexes. Fear is in this system. The second system is our analytical reasoning system. This system takes longer to process, but is able to take on more information.

    Whenever the situation allows us time for both systems to work, we need to listen to them both. We need to listen to our fears, because they’re there for a reason. But that reason might not pertain to our situation. So we need to realize that, and let the slow analytical system determine if we should ignore our fears.

    If we don’t allow both systems to work, we’re not taking full advantage of our brains; we’re not taking full advantage of the situations that life is presenting to us.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories AgileLeave a comment on Face Your Fears

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, RetrospectivesLeave a comment on Happiness Retrospective @@ -376,52 +376,52 @@

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    - + - - + + @@ -46,18 +46,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -68,7 +68,7 @@

    I’m considering buying a chording keyer. A keyer is a 1-handed text input device. Chording means that you can hit more than 1 key at a time. I’ve been interested in these for a long time actually. They’ve been popular in the wearable computing (“cyborg”) field, but never caught on anywhere else. I’ve always thought that 1-handed chording keyer would be a great input device to use with a cell phone. It’d be even better with a heads-up display like the Google Glass.

    There are quite a few chording keyers available. It doesn’t appear that any will meet exactly what I’m really looking for, but I might take the leap anyway. It should be a hand-held device. I really want a Bluetooth device, so I can use it with a computer, phone, or tablet. Below are the ones I’m considering.

    Twiddler

    -

    The Twiddler has been around quite a while, as probably the main commercially available keyer for wearable computing. There was a time that it was unavailable, but there’s a new version available from HandyKey now. It’s $200 ($220 Canadian), and comes in only USB.

    +

    The Twiddler has been around quite a while, as probably the main commercially available keyer for wearable computing. There was a time that it was unavailable, but there’s a new version available from HandyKey now. It’s $200 ($220 Canadian), and comes in only USB.

    The Twiddler looks like a small TV remote. The current version (2.1) has 4 thumb keys, a thumb joystick (for mouse), and 12 small finger keys. It has good community support, including an alternate chord layout.

    In10did Decatxt

    -

    In10did has been trying to bring out a few variations of their devices. The Decatxt looks like a pack of cigarettes, with 8 keys on the front and 2 thumb keys. It can be used with 1 or 2 hands. All letters can be typed with 1 finger or 1 thumb and 1 finger.

    +

    In10did has been trying to bring out a few variations of their devices. The Decatxt looks like a pack of cigarettes, with 8 keys on the front and 2 thumb keys. It can be used with 1 or 2 hands. All letters can be typed with 1 finger or 1 thumb and 1 finger.

    The Decatxt has USB and Bluetooth models, but I’m unable to find pricing or a way to buy one. It looks like there have been no updates for over a year, so I’m concerned that this is going to be vaporware.

    CyKey

    -

    The CyKey is based on the Microwriter, which goes back to the early 1980s. The Microwriter was a desktop-based device, but it looks like the CyKey might be able to be used as a hand-held device. It has 9 buttons on the face, arranged in 3 groups of 3 buttons.

    +

    The CyKey is based on the Microwriter, which goes back to the early 1980s. The Microwriter was a desktop-based device, but it looks like the CyKey might be able to be used as a hand-held device. It has 9 buttons on the face, arranged in 3 groups of 3 buttons.

    The CyKey is $125 (£75) and works over InfraRed connected to USB. A Bluetooth model is supposedly in the works.

    EkaPad

    -

    The EkaPad is like a cross between the Decatxt and the Twiddler. It has 12 buttons on the face, but no thumb keys. It’s got a nice well-thought-out design that looks quite ergonomic.

    +

    The EkaPad is like a cross between the Decatxt and the Twiddler. It has 12 buttons on the face, but no thumb keys. It’s got a nice well-thought-out design that looks quite ergonomic.

    The EkaPad is $150, available in USB only. A desktop holder is available to hold it upright, or it can be used hand-held.

    FrogPad

    -

    The FrogPad is meant to be used on a flat surface only. It looks kind of like a third of a laptop keyboard. It’s got 15 regular keys and 5 modifier keys. Only 1 key and 1 modifier can be chorded. Right-handed and left-handed models are available, with USB connectivity.

    -

    The FrogPad2 was recently announced, replacing the original FrogPad. It switches to standard desktop-style keys, and adds some more keys along the top. It supports USB On-the-Go and Bluetooth. I’m not really interested in this model with its regular keys, but it doesn’t appear that the original version is being made any longer. The new models are priced at $200. I believe the old models were $150.

    +

    The FrogPad is meant to be used on a flat surface only. It looks kind of like a third of a laptop keyboard. It’s got 15 regular keys and 5 modifier keys. Only 1 key and 1 modifier can be chorded. Right-handed and left-handed models are available, with USB connectivity.

    +

    The FrogPad2 was recently announced, replacing the original FrogPad. It switches to standard desktop-style keys, and adds some more keys along the top. It supports USB On-the-Go and Bluetooth. I’m not really interested in this model with its regular keys, but it doesn’t appear that the original version is being made any longer. The new models are priced at $200. I believe the old models were $150.

    Chordite

    -

    The Chordite looks the most promising, but it’s only a concept with some DIY prototypes. It’s a hand-held device, with 2 buttons on each of the 4 fingers — one activated by the distal phalanx and the other by the middle phalanx. This initially sounds like it would be difficult to press 2 different buttons with 1 finger, but I think the way they’re positioned would make it actually work really well.

    +

    The Chordite looks the most promising, but it’s only a concept with some DIY prototypes. It’s a hand-held device, with 2 buttons on each of the 4 fingers — one activated by the distal phalanx and the other by the middle phalanx. This initially sounds like it would be difficult to press 2 different buttons with 1 finger, but I think the way they’re positioned would make it actually work really well.

    Septambic Keyer

    -

    The septambic keyer is another DIY concept, hand-built and used by wearable computing folks. It’s fitted to your palm, and you squeeze your fingers toward a fist to activate the buttons. There’s one button for each of the 4 fingers, and 3 for the thumb.

    +

    The septambic keyer is another DIY concept, hand-built and used by wearable computing folks. It’s fitted to your palm, and you squeeze your fingers toward a fist to activate the buttons. There’s one button for each of the 4 fingers, and 3 for the thumb.

    Clove 2

    -

    The Clove 2 is a Bluetooth-enabled glove with 5 buttons — 1 for each finger. It’s another do-it-yourself project.

    +

    The Clove 2 is a Bluetooth-enabled glove with 5 buttons — 1 for each finger. It’s another do-it-yourself project.

    Software Options

    -

    I found an interesting project called ASETNIOP that allows chording on a standard Qwerty keyboard. (Assuming the keyboard supports multi-key roll-over well enough. Most keyboards should work.) It’s got a really nice online interactive tutorial. You basically chord with the 8 home-row keys, plus the spacebar.

    -

    For Android, a program called GKOS for Android uses multi-touch with 1 or 2 button presses. The buttons are different sizes, depending on their frequency. I like this concept, but I don’t think the implementation is quite ready for production.

    -

    I also found an app for iOS called Nintype that is a combination between Swype and a chording keyer.

    +

    I found an interesting project called ASETNIOP that allows chording on a standard Qwerty keyboard. (Assuming the keyboard supports multi-key roll-over well enough. Most keyboards should work.) It’s got a really nice online interactive tutorial. You basically chord with the 8 home-row keys, plus the spacebar.

    +

    For Android, a program called GKOS for Android uses multi-touch with 1 or 2 button presses. The buttons are different sizes, depending on their frequency. I like this concept, but I don’t think the implementation is quite ready for production.

    +

    I also found an app for iOS called Nintype that is a combination between Swype and a chording keyer.

    Conclusion

    I think I’m going to try the Twiddler. If I find the concept to be a good one, hopefully I’ll build myself a Chordite (or have someone build one for me).

    -

    I’m also going to play with implementing some of the ideas from ASETNIOP, using KeyRemap4MacBook.

    +

    I’m also going to play with implementing some of the ideas from ASETNIOP, using KeyRemap4MacBook.

    + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Gadgets
    @@ -135,10 +135,10 @@

    - Matthias says:
    + Matthias says:

    - + @@ -147,22 +147,22 @@

    -

    Frogpad2 failed recently (see https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=105714169451329), but there is another possibility using freeware: http://www.autohotkey.com/ and scripts (easy adaptable!?):
    -half querty: http://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/1257-half-qwerty-one-handed-typing/
    -frogpad: https://github.com/clarkm/dupepad/blob/master/frogpad.ahk
    +

    Frogpad2 failed recently (see https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=105714169451329), but there is another possibility using freeware: http://www.autohotkey.com/ and scripts (easy adaptable!?):
    +half querty: http://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/1257-half-qwerty-one-handed-typing/
    +frogpad: https://github.com/clarkm/dupepad/blob/master/frogpad.ahk
    Will be trying soon…

    -
    Reply
    +
    Reply

    • - + @@ -174,16 +174,16 @@

    The In10did DecaTxt is available on eBay and Amazon now. I ordered one recently and had it shipped over from the USA, which was a bit expensive when customs fees are added. It arrived yesterday morning and I plugged it in after arriving home from work. Sadly, it appears to do nothing whatsoever. Not sure if this model is DOA (but surely they test them?), or what. If I can get it to work, or get a replacement shipped, I’ll try to record my WPM with the device every day for a couple of weeks, to see where the improvement curve starts to taper off.

    -
    Reply
    +
    Reply
    1. - Oisín says:
      + Oisín says:
      - + @@ -195,16 +195,16 @@

      Update: It works just fine! Actually the problem was that my laptop only supports Bluetooth 3.0, but at least 4.0 is needed. It also wasn’t discoverable by my phone because Android 4.3 or newer is needed. Tested it on a newer phone and on my work PC and it connected straight away. Looking forward to trying it on an Android tablet and measuring my speed over a few weeks.

      -
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      +
      Reply
      1. +
        Reply
      2. @@ -230,7 +230,7 @@

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      Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

      - Posted on by
      + Posted on by
      @@ -94,7 +94,7 @@

      Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

      include MyORM::Model, table: 'people' end

      But that’s not valid Ruby; include doesn’t let you pass anything other than a module.

      -

      So when I was learning about Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

      +

      So when I was learning about Virtus, I noticed that its example of how to include it is a bit different than the standard Ruby idiomatic include:

      class User
   include Virtus.model
 end
      @@ -117,13 +117,13 @@

      Ruby Pattern: Parameterized Module Inclusion

      We could even pass a block. But how do we process those options? There are a few different ways. However we do it, we have to be sure to return a module. And we can create modules in a few different ways.

      Virtus uses the builder pattern. It takes the parameters passed in and builds a module dynamically. By that, I mean that it calls Module.new and then adds methods to that module. It does this by mixing in other modules, but it could do it by dynamically defining methods as well.

      I’ve never seen this pattern in any other language. It’s obviously only possible because we can dynamically create modules.

      -

      The use of this idiom seems to be catching on a bit in the Ruby community. I’ve started using it myself, and will be adding it to my Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

      +

      The use of this idiom seems to be catching on a bit in the Ruby community. I’ve started using it myself, and will be adding it to my Includable::ActiveRecord gem soon.

       

       

      @@ -139,7 +139,7 @@

      - Amos King on said: + Amos King on said:
      @@ -164,7 +164,7 @@

      - + @@ -44,18 +44,18 @@ - - + + - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -66,7 +66,7 @@

      January kept me pretty busy, so I’m a little late to this. But better late than never. And as an Agile practitioner, I don’t think personal retrospectives should be limited to one time of year.

      Review of 2014

      -

      Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

      +

      Last year I wrote a blog entry listing my goals for 2014. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I was relatively successful — about 50% of my goals accomplished. Unfortunately, my Open Source contributions weren’t as strong as I had hoped; while I released some of my own work, I didn’t do much else. I did increase my blogging; getting in on a weekly blogging pact helped immensely. I also increased my participation on the This Agile Life podcast to a level that I’m happy with. But the accomplishment I’m most proud of was giving a presentation at RubyConf.

      Plans for 2015

      I’d like to keep things rolling from last year, but crank up a few things. My plans are quite ambitious, so I don’t expect to get everything done by any means. But I think by setting the bar high, I’ll end up with a lot I can be proud of.

      Job Hunting

      @@ -96,10 +96,10 @@

      Job Hunting

      Conferences

      I was incredibly nervous leading up to my RubyConf presentation. Part of that was just the common fear of public speaking. For me, that only kicks in at around 100 people, and this audience was around 250. I think another reason was that I chose a really ambitious topic, and I kept finding more that I wanted to talk about, but wasn’t prepared for. But I think I did a pretty good job presenting an advanced topic. And I was so pumped by the sense of accomplishment as soon as I finished. So I’m hoping to do it more. I’ve already submitted a couple proposals, and plan to submit several more.

      Blogging

      -

      I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

      -

      I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

      +

      I believe that blogging is important for me to get my thoughts down — for myself and to share with others. I was really successful last year when I had a partner to keep me honest, via a pact. So I’ve started up another pact this year, which will hopefully ensure I’ll keep things going. I’ve got a really long backlog of topics, so as long as I keep at it, I’ll have plenty to write about.

      +

      I also want to move away from WordPress to a static system — probably Middleman. I’ve got 2 major problems with WordPress. First, I no longer trust its security, nor the security of any application written in PHP. Second, it generates HTML every time someone requests a page, instead of when the content is updated. I find that to be a waste of resources, and problematic from a security standpoint. The main problem with moving to a static blogging system is that I really want to allow comments, pingbacks, and tweetbacks. So I’ll have to find a way to integrate those.

      Programming Language Design

      -

      Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

      +

      Last year I started thinking about programming language design, and started implementing a language tentatively called Brilliant. I’ve done a lot more thinking on the topic, and have a lot of notes. But I haven’t implemented much more yet. This year, I’d like to get my thoughts more organized, and write a series of blog posts on various aspects of language design. The most interesting part seems to be the trade-offs involved in the ways that various language features interact. So I’d like to make some progress on the language implementation, but more importantly, I’d like to get a lot of my design ideas written down.

      I’m also going to spend a lot of time learning a bunch more programming languages, so I have a better understanding of possible features, combinations of features, and their interactions. I’ve already start with Elixir, Clojure, and Racket. I’m hoping to also look at OCaml, Factor, and Haskell. I’ll probably also take a look at the 2 “Seven Languages in Seven Weeks” books.

      Agile Book

      I think people often have trouble getting started with Agile. I started on a book last year, and got down quite a lot of good ideas. But I realized that I’m going to have a hard time organizing all those ideas into something coherent. Still, I’d like to try to get something out there that lets people get started with Agile. My idea is to present a toolbox of practices to get started with and build on that foundation over time with additional practices. Sort of a playbook on how to get started over the first 6 to 12 months and be successful. I want to make some progress on the book, at least enough to decide whether it’s worth the effort to finish it and self-publish it.

      @@ -107,7 +107,7 @@

      Agile Book

      + Author Craig BuchekPosted on Categories Agile, Blogging, Brilliant, Resolutions, Security

      @@ -115,7 +115,7 @@

      Agile Book

      -

      Leave a Reply

      +

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      @@ -128,14 +128,14 @@

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      - - - + + + - - + + @@ -42,16 +42,16 @@ - - + + - - - - + + + + @@ -62,7 +62,7 @@