Rails, Mootools and more...

Weather and Weather and Weather

2010-10-22T18:26:00.000+04:00

It is very cold this time of year kind nasty cold wet weather, will chill you to the bone.

Though there are quite a few places to catch a coffee/tea and few snacks. Since my last time visit here, there has been an explosion of coffee shops, though quality of coffee still does not reach kind that it is in America/Canada. Seems to be watered down a bit and if you hope to get drinkable coffee in Subway or some such place, forget it. It will taste as if it was made of burnt saw dust with addition of some caffeine. Starbucks has been strenuously working on fixing that situation.

You have the choice of very good teas though, almost any place will give you decent bag of with hot water. And there are most often pastries available of many sorts, cheaper and better then what we are used to in Canada.

It is also interesting vast difference in Tea/Coffee drinking culture between St. Peteresburg and Moscow. In Moscow an enterprise to acquire coffee/pastries has a character of getting substance / food energy, whilst in St.Petersburg it is more of a cultural endearment. And St. Petersburg is more 'russian', as such you expect to get even more of blinis & tea kind of fare, instead of cakes & coffee.

Thats it for today my fellow blog readers.

jQuery

2010-07-10T09:37:00.000+04:00

jQuery has improved last year, to a point of being a contender against mootools. But it seems that it still does not address issues of extending core datatypes. Extended data types are great for going fast, delivering value. For example enumerating over an array is requires one to implement a counter if there need be an order printed. With mootools array's each function already provides an index value as a parameter for a function that you pass into a .each hook.

jQuery animations, while expanded a great deal still lack some of the core items, like getScrollSize that mootools provides for every element, in order to ascertain its full size. Size is important in animation. Especially when you deal not with pixels but eclectic meta-shape/meta-data thing like a DOM tree.

monads of jQuery are great for expressiveness but can lead you down stray path of noodles of dotconnected idioms that make you scratch your head, when you run into a threeliner of dot noodles :)

Peace out my faithful blog readers.

flickr + mootools mashup

2009-10-28T17:40:00.000+03:00

I've been wanting to integrate flickr into few of the websites I've been working on and while doing that, avoid dealing with flickr on the server side. Currently I use mootools which is a great tool to solve this want. With javascript, client side processing you can easily do many things without loading the server.

There is an API website, where you can find all the documentation concerning fetching images off Flickr, as well as uploading and deleting them. But for plastering photos off my account it didn't do. So there is Feeds section part of api that describes how to get images off flickr without actually getting into whole API key mess. They key to making this supereasy, is JSONP. You can specify url as in one of the feeds documented in API/feeds section , but make sure to add parameter format=json and jsoncallback=aCallback.

If you load such url in a browser you can see flickr producing a bit of javascript code, wrapped around a call to a function 'aCallback' that we have specified earlier and now have to define in our code. Crux of the process is that:

You find a feed page that you wish to have, specify filter parameters alongside with specifying that you want json as a representaiton format and then you specify callBack name.
Then you define a function within one of your .js files with same name as a callback. 'aCallaback' as we have said before.
Mechanics of the third step go down to this, either you add a dom element script with src="" pointing to a constructed feed url, and after see your callback function be called or ...
use Request.JSONP to call the said url and have the callback be called. Callback will contain all data you need, including image urls off flickr image serving server farm.
Viola you can show off your galleries without even going to the server.

Thanks flickr!

I will make few code samples in a few

ars.Project

2009-09-15T12:48:00.000+04:00

Past while I've been working on my own project management system. It is to be used with a short list of my clients to enable information exchange beyond email.

Idea is to replicated basecamp on shorter feature list. Reason I've started going in this direction is that I want to own my featureset and I can't do that with the pay as you go services like basecamp. They are wonderful, don't misunderstand me and you should use them in the mean time.

You can check out the code from github like so git clone git://github.com/pavelz/ninja.git

Project page for now is http://github.com/pavelz/ninja

Enjoy!

Updated: Project named now ninja, after a vat grown ninja from neuromancer.

Cheat Sheet , To get quickly going with rails

2009-08-05T20:32:00.000+04:00

If you are quick on your feet, reading all sorts of manuals can be a bit time consuming, and somewhat frustrating. So what I will try to distill here is an essence of developing rails projects. No proselethysing about greatness of rails, various models. Just critical tools, that are used day to day to understand running rails.

These are just hooks, with google and these commands you will get up to speed pretty fast.

./script/console - here you will try out most of your database related queries. Key command is reload! . Yes with exclamation mark. Because code will not be reloaded here, unless you tell the console to do so, unlike with webrick.

rake -T - from a a tutorial you probably saw rake being use in a form of 'rake db:migrate'. There are zillions of useful kinds of things rake can do for a project. RTFM applies here.

./script/plugin install you probably want a few plugins for your project like make_resourceful and and flexfleximage. Most rails plugins are residing on github, my guess google is still your best bet looking for a proper component. Using gem is still a bit difficult to find appropriate modules/plugin on in the gemspace.

Stuff in lib/ directory of your rails project is probably very useful, if you install some gem/plugin that will help you do this that or the other, it will probably will deposit configurables down there.

And remember grep is your freind. Always use git or hg.

[ I will more stuff I think is useful for a new developer coming to rails community]

Make Money

2009-07-08T20:03:00.000+04:00

You know, some days thinking of one or other thing, a banal phrase goes under you mental microscope and you discover many wondrous things. Like Make Money. What does it mean?

Making money is one of those made-up abstract activities, when you really think about it - how much does it tell about our world. Specifically we are not allowed to Make Money - it is called counter fitting. Counter fitting is most direct way to 'Make Money'. But if one of us do that we will surely will end up in Jail. Not only that, it is a very anti-social activity, as it depletes the value of money that everyone else holds. (Barring complicated money market dynamics that Federal governments engage in, it is true).

So what is Making money? Every day we get you get up, is to make money. 8 hours a day, around half or more of your waking hours you spend doing things, in the name of "Making Money". So in this context, it is meant to attract money, by virtue of goodness of things we do. And there are different ways of attracting money into your life.

Being on salary means working on a regular schedule for an allowance of money paid at the end, usually at a fixed hourly rate or weekly rate. This is most tedious and often least rewarding way of 'Making money'. One who makes the money through the job, gives up most of the control over their life - 1/2 or more of their waking time, prime acting time for someone else's cause.

There is a freelancing way, of making money. It is most dangerous of all as you are at the mercy of the people who pay your cheque and you can be disposed of or not paid whatever your next installment is. Many things aren't available to freelancers, like employment insurance, government protection. But in terms of money freelancers are more able to attune their cash flow to their situation - if they play their cards right. It is a gamble, as often people are disposed of unceremoniously. Making money here includes shameless and endless self promotion, hard work and client relationship management. At the end though, in terms of Making money. If people come to you, you set the price for your billable hours/ projects etc.

Then there is the entrepreneur, and with making money can be characterized as compulsive gambler - all or nothing player in world of 'Making money'. For the people term Make Money, means engaging highly disparate groups of people in order to make a venture, which in the end can generate money and / or sold. To these people 'Making money' is where its at, but horizon of cash-in is alot longer. 'Making money' in that world is somewhat of a controlled gamble - you have some many circumstances that you have steer your way, to get that 'Make money' thing happening.

In the end 'Making money' isn't, it is just attracting money of others into your life by virtue of worthiness of what your do.

As for me I am still bit of meandering where I will be in a field of 'Making money'. Currently though freelancing seems to make more sense then other ways. With time I hope to graduate into entrepreneur status.

Facebooker tutorials

2009-04-28T01:39:00.001+04:00

Here are few of the ones that get you going fast with Facebooker rails plugin:

Happy facebooking from rails.

Unadulterated capitalism?

2009-04-27T08:33:00.000+04:00

Many sites like misses.org seems to be quite fond of the idea of Ayn Rand's unadulterated capitalism, everything be damned. I'd go and argue that just like in any practice, be it building practice, engineering one or medical one - foundations are quite hold quite an important function.
Functionally foundation is different from a pattern that defines a structure.
As such putting house of capitalism its own naked feet is absurd. It can be done but will be detrimental to many aspects of house and its tenants.
Unadulterated capitalism is just like that, a naked house,without a foundation. It is good to muse and strive towards it, but lets not forget that even though simple questions have simple answers. Complex problems in economics, require solutions that may start from being complex and become simplified - though not beyond reason and not to serve any particular ideology be it communist, socialist or capitalist.

on Captchas

2009-04-25T19:01:00.000+04:00

It seems alot of sites are implementing them [even facebook], and question is why are they are so irritable to users. There are few reasons that one may state why it is irritable, from making an effort for such a worthless bit of work to disliking being confronted with validation of our authenticity.

One idea I've mused about for a bit, is that it brings a user back from slipstream of informational flow and asserts operator's humanity. Humanity in age of ever-encroaching digital technology into all apsects of our lives. Captchas assert that though we are unique in our peculiar way that we can read jumbled up text - we are still not part of techno-space. Not in umbilical cord sort of way - as we engage various aspects of network space, be it watching videos, playing MMORPGS, conversing with family or procuring clients for our business.

Captcha is much like a stamp, giving a confronted a boot out of the domain, saying that we don't belong there, we are still human.

EOL.

The Flow

2009-04-20T10:47:00.000+04:00

Thinking of way programmers relate themselves to the flow model, I've realised there are these opposing forces at hand. While usually when the Flow happens programmist is able to finish great amounts of work in a short period of time. If programmer gets interrupted for a meeting or an impromptu discussion, the flow is swiftly broken.

Managerial talent would be foolish not to tap into such great power - its tricky to do so, because mental models of two are quite opposing in their perceived formulations.

The flow is an extension of the view, that programmists construct software and often, many of intricate and carefully weighted decisions go into execution of the project design [that has been in return been created from a business plan of sorts]. Any adjustments to design, from adjusting business plan put the whole intricate construct at a great peril. It is true that there are ways for composing of a software in more of a bite sized portions and treat them as such. However if we talk of absolutes, my proposition still stands.

For business management hands may well be tied by driving market forces, that mandate the change in way software might operate. Often though, lack of deep insight into how and why software design and development process is so fragile, leads to management making semi-spurious choices and brining about dilbertesque style to way a company might operate. Often dooming it to go the way of InniTech.

Intuitive improvement of the process and making company more efficient is for developers to become aware of precarious nature of the 'real world'. Perhaps, while making and executing plans, make effort to modularize software in many dimensions [ such as UI design, database design, actual software code ]. It is tough to make good software, perhaps if we are more flexible and allow for more flexibility in program code to be not so frail, our management will be able to answer to market forces at the appropriate time.

For management, working closer with developers is the key. In short, it is impossible to manage, "the Flow". When it happens developer should have all available information at hand, and not having to engage complicated human beings for more information...while facing possibility of being sucked into an impromptu business meeting. At this stage I would feel, that personally developer should be able to ask for such information over email, and have it be replied within shortest possible time with clear and concise answer omitting most manager/speak. {idea!: perhaps a larger company can have a software developer dedicated to 'fixing' manager-speakesque emails, for quick consumption by the developer in the flow}.

To sum up the fragile but powerful torrent like flow of a programmist's conscientiousness, can be augmented by a clear non-engaging communication process [ free from managerial and emotional baggage ].

On the power of CSS selectors

2009-04-15T03:29:00.000+04:00

Writing up CSS stylesheets for a website and adding components you realize some parts of CSS that aren't pointed out in tutorials. Programmists love to re-use the code, lazy to rewrite and avoiding pain of repetitive maintenance, we looks for shortcuts.

Here is one, we all know CSS has classes. To reuse large block of CSS typing but to change a small part you need to do few things. One define extra class, with small style change you want to be indicated with the new element. Then point combine two classes like so:

page.css:

.some_huge_definintion{ ... dozen lines of CSS cleverness, you don't want to understand but use. ... } .some_cool_style_you_want_to_add{ text-decoration: blink; }

page.html:

<html> ... <div class="some_huge_definition some_cool_style_you_want_to_add"> Wooo! Party like its 1994. </div> .... </html>

We were brought up to share.

2009-04-15T02:40:00.000+04:00

... Now we learn to share our keyboard and mouse.

Got to love the synergy , working with 3 desktops of different platforms and operating systems.

If you start the synergy from neo, you'd go something like:

synergys -a 192.168.1.100 -n neo

Here is my .synergy.conf file:section: screens neo: aki: esper: end section: links neo: up = esper right = aki aki: left=neo esper: right = neo end

Happy synergizing :-)

Bonus: Cut & Paste works for text across systems.

First Post!

2009-04-13T20:25:00.001+04:00

Okay, here is the first go, Java script is realy nifty weird cool language. Frameworks use function objects, and set parameters inside the function - bind them to a certain element... it is kind of interesting. I wish that though people would learn standard CS vocabulary, so that we wouldn't have to readjust to new naming conventions. These are bound [ where parameter is bound to a function and made into a new callable object, that doesn't require any parameters to be invoked ] functions are called curried functions, and came from mathematics.

Given the backward nature of of problem domain of active content / software in the web browser, strap-on nature of Java Script and fledgling [ mootools , dojo, etc] visual frameworks ,integrating this morass of uberscriptyness will be oodles of fun. I can already see that. I WILL ignore IE 6 with extreme prejudice too.