28 Apr 2021
Today’s project pulls together a number of built-in Rails tools, plus a couple of incredibly useful open source projects to build a web application that can convert user-uploaded video files to MP4.
To demonstrate some of the modern parts of the standard Rail stack, we’re going to go further than just building a converter. We will enhance the user experience during the upload and conversion process with Active Storage to handle direct file uploads, Action Cable for real-time updates on the video conversion, and Stimulus to dynamically update the DOM without needing a heavy Javascript framework.
Read the rest
33-minute read
27 Jan 2021
At one point in my time at CareerPlug, the company adopted a phrase that I said in passing a few times - “Quit doing stupid shit” - as a company-wide mantra.
Was that a great phrase for the company to rally around? Probably not.
Most office workers do some amount of pointless busy work in their day (some more than others, perhaps), but saying that out loud can rub people the wrong way. No one wants to hear that their bosses think they’re doing stupid shit!
In spite of the insulting phrasing, there’s a lesson to learn from the mantra.
Read the rest
Three-minute read
30 Nov 2020
If you’ve spent any time working with Ruby on Rails, you know that using generators can save you from a lot of console commands and copy/pasting from one file to the next. Need a new model? Just run rails g model MyNewModel name:string description:string and you’re set.
Rails covers most of the common use cases for you with built-in generators. If the built-in generators don’t meet your needs, you can get fancy by creating your own custom generators. Custom generators can save you time any time you’re finding yourself running lots of touch commands and copy/pasting boilerplate into new files.
Although Rails provides built-in generators for most things that Rails projects need, one common use case that’s missing is a generator for new Stimulus controllers. Stimulus , a modest JavaScript framework created by the team at Basecamp, is an increasingly common part of the Rails stack.
Read the rest
Eight-minute read