This is yet another post that’s really a reminder for me, but you’re welcome to it if it helps. I’ve been working on the Android OS for a few months now and at first I was physically touching the phone to reboot it into fastboot mode and then back to the normal boot mode. I grew tired of this manual process and so one day it dawned on me that fastboot also had a reboot command & I could make a bash alias and run all the commands to do this process at once.

m && cd out/target/product/passion/ && adb reboot-bootloader && fastboot flash system system.img && fastboot reboot && cd ../../../../

You’ll hear the phone vibrate when it’s booting back up normally and know it’s time to get back to work…

I’ve been working on a Django-based project since October 2010 that includes some integration with Scrapy. Scrapy is a web scraping framework for Python and due to its design inspiration, Django developers will be quickly familiar with it. I have installed Scrapy no less than 10 times at this point and decided it was time for a script. This post is more of a reminder to me for the next time I install Scrapy, but if it works for you as well – great!.

This script works for Ubuntu 9.10, 10.04 and 10.10.  If you’re on an older release, you’ll need to install some dependencies first and then follow these instructions.

sudo apt-get install curl
curl -s http://archive.scrapy.org/ubuntu/archive.key | sudo apt-key add -
DISTRO=$(lsb_release -cs)
echo deb http://archive.scrapy.org/ubuntu $DISTRO main | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install scrapy-0.12

Last month when _Whytheluckystiff (_why) “went missing” I was not sure how to respond.  I needed time to process what was happening.  A lot of people, including some big names in web development were quick to step in and give a heartfelt thanks and goodbye to a man that had done so much for the Ruby community.

When I first started learning Ruby, I used the “Try Ruby in Your Browser” that _why made and hosted.  I read some of the coveted “Why’s Poignant Guide” and his blog, “Red Handed”.  I enjoyed exploring Hackety Hack and suggested it to friends.  His Shoes framework was also something I enjoyed, if only for a brief moment in time.

So here’s where I diverge from what seems to be the overwhelming sentiment of the majority of other people speaking out on the subject.  When _why left, he did not just abandon his projects and walk away.  He destroyed and deleted as he left.  He burned it all down and walked away into the wind.  I have 4 year old twins and a recent trip to the beach had a very similar outcome.  One child didn’t want her sandcastle to be used by anyone else, so she destroyed it before we left.  We talked about why she did it and what impact it would have.  She’s only 4 though, what’s your excuse _why?

So while _why doesn’t owe us anything, he surely didn’t leave in a way I could characterize as honorable or even mature.  Many people talk about the impact he made on their lives or learning process with his projects and his art, but to me his contribution will always be marred by his destcructive exit.  In my version of reality you’re not allowed to get full credit for the gifts you provide by  taking them back.

So _why,  good luck and Godspeed!  Your final and lasting impression is negativity.  Dude, I totally hope you come back only so I can sit next to Zed at a Ruby conference and huck milkduds and chunky bacon at you.

This was a great talk where Malcolm Tredinnick spelled out what he’s looking for in Django patches and what to avoid if you don’t want your patch tossed out.  Although his talk was targeting the Django project, he really dispensed good advice for anyone maintaining software regardless of project, language or platform.  The room was completely packed!  All of the chairs and couches we’re filled and people were sitting on the floor and standing at the sides of the room.

You’re doing it wrong if:

• the word “print” is in your patch
• you don’t have a test (fail before, pass afterwards)
• you think “PEP 8″ is an energy drink (PEP 8 is the style guide for python)
∘ make your patch look like django style code

Create patches by running diff from the top of the repository to get all changes.  The svn add command works locally even if you don’t have rights to commit to the repository so files you add will be added to the patch.

“Code style is opinionated and yours doesn’t matter!”

What he’s saying here makes sense in any open source project.  There’s a style defined and you should not deviate from it no matter how much you like your own special coding habits.  You might get away with minute changes, but don’t push it.

“Read the contributing document.”

This seems to be simple and common sense.  Skipping over information someone has left for you is a recipe for confusion.

Some tips given on comments:
• comments should last
• comments should be correct
• comments should explain they “why”, we can already read the how in the code.

Some general tips:
• Fix problems and not symptoms!
• Research is not a four letter word.
• The crowd is smarter than you

And what I believe was his last advice for the talk (at least I stopped taking notes after this) was to contribute and keep contributing.  Even when your patches don’t get in, don’t get discouraged.

It was a good talk and the first time I had heard Malcolm speak.  He was very informative and encouraging.  Overall I liked it and it was one of my favorite talks besides James Bennett and Cal Henderson.

Last night I tried the RM-Install product from Five Runs. It’s a multi-platform (Linux and Mac) Ruby on Rails Stack powered by BitRock. It is very similar to the Windows RubyStack offered by BitNami, but it is also supports a production install option.

I tried the development install and it was very easy to click next a few times and let it run. The very first thing I tried doing was updating the gems with “sudo gem update”. It failed giving me an error about not finding a file in require for some ELFClass. I’d never seen that before when updating gems, so I’m inclined to think that it may be something from within the RM-Install package.

So at the end of my first experience with the RM-Install stack, I think it’s a better solution to just create your own shell script for installing your Ruby/Rails environment.

I saw a lot of buzz about the new Sinatra web framework and decided I’d give it a try. I have a client now that has a simple site they need up now and then I can migrate them to Rails over time. When I saw how easy Sinatra looked, I thought I could give it a chance to see what it could do.

I installed Sinatra via RubyGems:
gem install sinatra -y

After that I created a simple file following the example:

require 'rubygems'
require 'sinatra'

get '/' do
"Now we're cooking with gas"
end

But much to my dismay, nothing happened when running this on my windows box. I instantly searched Google for “Sinatra on windows” and found the Google Group for Sinatra and a post explaining that Sinatra doesn’t run on Windows yet. As I read into the thread, I found someone had some suggestions for making it work.

John Bledsoe had the following suggestions:

My humble suggestion would be to remove the FileUtils#touch from
Sinatra::Server#tail and update Environment#prepare_loggers to
something like:

def prepare_loggers(logger = nil)
if logger.nil?
FileUtils.touch(Options.log_file)
logger = Logger.new(open(Options.log_file, 'w')
end
end

Making these changes allowed Sinatra to run, but it wouldn’t server the page. Instead it returned an error:

Fri Nov 09 16:26:26 -0800 2007: ERROR: undefined method `info’ for nil:NilClass

I made a post to the group and was promptly replied to! The general advice given is that it is a rapidly emerging framework undergoing a lot of changes and to check back soon.

More on testing Sinatra in Linux coming soon….

Update 2/8/2008: Since I posted this they shipped the release version and now intellisense is working beautifully. Over the last month NetBeans has become my go-to IDE for Rails.

I downloaded and started using NetBeans 6.10 Milestone 10 last night. I am thoroughly impressed! I’ve been using Aptana(RadRails) and Komodo Edit and although each is a decent Rails IDE, NetBeans has the better features by far. The Intellisense / Autocomplete crutch feature that I have become dependent on accustomed to is the best one I’ve seen for Rails so far. The intellisense for CSS and Ruby is good, but it doesn’t pick up Rails specific methods or objects.

Some of the features I have instantly enjoyed:

• I also love the CSS editor and it’s live element preview.
• It has a great way of displaying project files where you get the models, views and controllers folders up front and you still get the ability to look at the file structure in the normal way.
• I like the Subversion integration.
• It has a GUI front-end for managing Ruby Gems!
• One button click to run all tests
• An Action Navigator accessible within the controller – one click brings you to the action.

For a free editor, this IDE is a very nice option if you’re into Rails development!

I just read an article at EWeek, and I can’t emphatically disagree more with the writer’s statements.

While it is true that there aren’t many products coming out of Redmond as true open source these days, the writer bases his assumptions on the top five projects at CodePlex. CodePlex is not the only place to find open source projects!

The writer goes on to bash a few projects as too ambitious or already done some time ago in another technology.

“Number four is BlogEngine.NET. Guess what? It’s a simple blog back-end written in .Net. Wow. Let me see, if I do a search on SourceForge, a real open-source site, on blog and engine, I find 5,633 results. Oh yeah, I see a big demand out there for another blogging platform.”

Then he makes this statement:

“But, let’s assume that Microsoft really wanted to be open-source friendly. How about instead of flapping your lips, you release some code under your b.s. community licenses that’s actually not built from Microsoft proprietary parts, trashy example code, or is just a pointless “me too” project.”

So I must not get his point. The language and platform must also be open for the project to be considered open source? And if I want something to run on a Windows Server so it will be easier to support next to the other apps I have running on Windows, with a support team that knows Windows (and not enough Linux to support production environments), and I use a version of a product that was built in C# and ASP.Net that includes the source code and a license that says I may modify and distribute such source code – that’s not open source enough?

I realize the writer has a background working in Linux and Unix environments for some big organizations, but I’m surprised he could have overlooked SubSonic, SubText, DasBlog, NAnt, NCover, NHibernate, Gentle.Net, CoolStorage.Net, ProMesh.Net, MonoRail, NChart, PostSharp, AspectSharp, .Text, NGallery, .NETZ, mojoPortal, Rainbow, log4Net, NLog, Logger.Net, SharpPDF, PDFSharp, Report.Net, SharpSSH, Lucene.Net, DotLucene, CommerStarterKit / dashCommerce, ETC, ETC ETC. I could literally list out a huge amount of projects with active or recent development and a decent following.

I think plenty of people are doing open source development using Microsoft’s platform and tools. Not all large proprietary software companies release [some/any] code under an open source license – Microsoft’s not the only one.

I’m very open to the promise of open source and developing in non-microsoft technologies and yet I don’t expect Microsoft to give me code. I don’t expect Microsoft to give me anything. If I want something for free, I go here.

Rob and Eric have already released a second beta for SubSonic 2.0.

I introduced a colleague to SubSonic yesterday and found myself telling her how much faster I can get an app out the door because I don’t have to build a custom data access layer. I felt like I was telling her a secret…

 I’ve recently been planning an open source project for this summer.  I was approached last year during the holiday season by a woman on a forum with a story about her friend with Multiple Sclerosis who had lost most of his ability to speak normally.  She didn’t have any money and was taking this guy into her home because he had no where else to go.  She was looking for donations to buy a laptop to run a free application built for a Mac that would allow him to type and it would speak for him.  The only problem is that the original developer of the application had long since passed away and the source code was not available.

So when I heard about this story, I thought to myself there was something more I could do than pitch them $20 – I could write them an application.  They could get a PC laptop for a much cheaper price and really make the donations she received stretch further.  I started into motion by getting a CodePlex project set up and creating a very small demo to send to her.  They were excited and said the new application would be very helpful and encouraged me to continue with development.

Now I kicked back into planning mode.  I thought that it would be important to do this the right way and not just slam out some code in a day or two and send it their way.  As the week progressed I got a message from the woman that someone had offered a sweet deal on equipment similar to what Stephen Hawking has.  She would no longer need my application and she was thankful for the week and a half that I had worked on the project.  This information combined with the fact that it was the holiday season and I had plenty of other things fighting for time in my schedule caused the project to be shelved indefinitely.

Some time later, I was walking to a coffee shop near my office with a friend who had a nephew that was born with a cleft palate.   He was listening to my story and told me that there are other people like his nephew that would benefit from this.  This led me to think that there would still be some value in continuing this project.

I have now started planning again.  I have several ideas and have started a project plan document.  I’m looking to use an open source text to speech engine to support further goals of eventually making this application cross-platform.  If you would like to help in any way I could use assistance in development, documentation and of course testers!