Paul Dix Explains Nothing

ruby-nyc

I attended the ruby-nyc meeting for the first time last night.  It was very cool!  There were about 20 people there.  Some of the guys had gone to RubyConf and were going over some of the presentations.  The format was very informal and more like an open discussion than a presentation.
We started off with a discussion about using mocks, stubs, and fakes (?) in tests.  Using these for creating things like virtual databases or file-systems for testing purposes.  Then someone launched a tangent about The Long Tail in regards to software development, which was a topic of one of the RubyConf presentations.
We then got back to technical stuff and talked about DSLs (Domain Specific Languages).  This subject is one that has been hard for me to wrap my head around for a little while.  I guess it's just another way of attacking a problem.  I may try to write one later this year for generating RSS and OPML.  Maybe that will help me understand the usefulness of creating a DSL.  Maybe that isn't even a valid project for a DSL (I guess I'll have to figure it out).
The end of the night consisted of a discussion about continuations.  We pretty much just tried to figure out how they worked and why they're useful.  This was based around Chad Fowler and Jim Weinrich's presentation at RubyConf entitled Demystifying Continuations.  My first thought is that they'd be a useful tool for implementing finite state machines, but I have to say that continuations are still mystifying to me.  I'm still a ruby newb so I can't feel too bad.
All in all it was a very informative night.  I liked the informal feel of the group and everyone there was friendly and smarter than I.  If you're into Ruby and you're in the NY area, you should be going to these events.  They meet on the last Tuesday of every month and are talking about adding the second Tuesday to that as well.
There are some pictures here and here.  A couple of guys came over from New Haven, CT and one of them posted about the meeting here.

technorati tags: ruby-nyc, nyc.rb, ruby, nyc

HelpSpot 1.0 Released

Ian Landsman announced the official 1.0 release of his help desk software, HelpSpot, today.  Congrats Ian!  You're an inspiration to every aspiring mISV/entrepreneur.

technorati tags:  helpspot

Culture of Inclusion

Dave Winer kicks complete and total ass.  Reading his post about the Techcrunch BBQ reminded me yet again of that fact. Sounds like Dave is all about trying to create a Culture of Inclusion.  Sign me up Dave, I'm not afraid.  Read his post and I'm sure you'll be on board if you're not already.

technorati tags: dave winer, techcrunch, techcrunchbbq

Ruby NYC Meeting

I just joined the Ruby-NYC user group and I'm just in time for the next meeting!  It's happening on Tuesday evening at 6 PM (here's the announcement).  Some of the guys will be talking about their experience at RubyConf.  Should be pretty interesting.

Maybe I'll get the chance to spread the word about BarCampNYC!

technorati tags: ruby, nyc, barcamp, barcampnyc

After Innocence

I saw the documentary After Innocence last night.  Here's a quick description from their site:

AFTER INNOCENCE tells the dramatic and compelling story of the exonerated - innocent men wrongfully imprisoned for decades and then released after DNA evidence proved their innocence. The film focuses on the gripping story of seven men and their emotional journey back into society and efforts to rebuild their lives. Included are a police officer, an army sergeant and a young father sent to prison and even death row for decades for crimes they did not commit.

It was very good.  It was shocking to see how these men were treated.  I'd say it is a wake up call that there are some flaws in our criminal justice system that must be corrected.  I highly recommend that anyone who is in NYC this weekend go see it.  It's playing at the Quad Cinema on 13th street in between 5th and 6th.

The men from the film were at the theater and held a little discussion after the movie to answer questions.  They're really trying to get the word out and raise awareness about how poorly their states treat them after being exonerated.  Some of these men still have the crimes they were falsely convicted of on their records because the state won't expunge them!  If you're interested in meeting the men from the film, they'll be at the theater again tonight.

For more information on the subject check out The Innocence Project (the organization that fought to free these men) and exonerated.org.  Here's the NY Times review if you're looking for a more professional recommendation of the film.

Tags:  after innocence, innocence project, movies, nyc

A few CodeSnipers posts

Alex Bendig put an interesting post on CodeSnipers yesterday about feature creep.  It's an open question, so join in on the conversation!
Also, after a few weeks of slacking off, my latest post titled Mozilla as a Thick Client Development Platform? is up.  It's really on open question to see if other developers are thinking of creating thick clients based on the Mozilla platform.  It seems timely considering yesterday's release of flock (an application built on Mozilla).

Tags: codesnipers, mozilla, software development

Flock Developer Preview

This post comes to you from Flock!  I received an email earlier today giving me access to the developer preview and I just got it all set up on my desktop (laptop is next).  UI looks pretty slick.  This is part of my "play with it to see the blogging interface" effort.  It looks nice and I like the full screen post editing action.  One thing I don't like is that I can't view the html.  There's probably a way to do that, but it's not immediately apparent.  There's a little box to the right of the compose screen for tags.  If it works like I expect (I won't know until this goes up), it's a nice feature.  I'm not noticing any kind of spell check, which is a must for my bad-spelling ass.  I'm also not seeing any kind of area for trackback pings.  I wonder how it handles images?

Pretty sweet.  I dragged that over from another web page (my first blog post) and dropped it in the editor.  I was then able to resize while keeping the aspect ratio.  Me likey.  In the picture is Timmy and he's my travelling companion.  He's the best yard squirrel ever!  In my first post I relayed the tale of his kidnapping.  Let's see if I can drag that over into this blog editing window...

Basil schemed to steal Timmy the Squirrel away from me but could not do so without attracting my attention.  So at the end of his trip he decided to just kidnap, or squirrelnap, him right in front of me and run out the door.  I'm currently training the mice in my apartment to be ninja assassins so they can go take care of Basil and bring Timmy safely back to me, but until then I'll need your help.  I'm putting a bounty on Basil and a reward for the safe return of Timmy.  I'm not looking for Basil "Dead or Alive" or anything like that.  Just do me a favor and give him a little roshambo.  Each pays a free drink from me the next time you're in NYC or I'm in Denver.

That worked like a champ.  There's flicker integration but I can't comment on that since I'm one of the last geeks on the planet without a digital camera...

The only documentation I see at this point is a five step "getting started" guide which is defintely geared towards users as opposed to developers.  I'll have to dig around a lot more.  I'll play with it for the next few weeks and keep everyone posted.
Update:  The tag thing didn't seem to work as I don't see any evidence of tags in this post.  Also, I wasn't able to put text next to the image.  Many of these things could simply be my stupidity.  Who knows?  Only more tinkering will reveal the answer... 
I'll tag it manually in the typepad editor now: flock

RadRails

Just spent a few minutes with the new eclipse based IDE for Ruby on Rails development RadRails.  At a glance it looks good, but there's no syntax highlighting support for rhtml files.  To be fair, the project is only a few weeks old.  I'll certainly keep my eye on it, but in the meantime I'll stick with the Ruby Editor Plugin for jEdit.
Side note:  Does anyone have recommendations on a decent editor for MySql?  Something with functionality similar to Microsoft's Query Analyzer would be good.  Unless, of course, there's something better in which case I'd be even happier!

Tags: Ruby on Rails, RadRails, MySql

Another Scam

I just received an interesting phone call.  It came from 866-656-8182.  The guy on the other end of the line had a thick Indian accent and there was a bunch of telemarketing office noise in the background.  He informed me that he was calling to send out $450 worth of free movie tickets as part of an anti-piracy effort by the movie studios.  He just wanted to confirm my information.  He then listed what he thought was my street address (but was actually the old one) and asked me to confirm.  I asked "what's the catch?  what do you want from me?".  He then informed me that he'd just need to collect $5.95 and verify some information to ensure shipment of the movie tickets.
I told him I'd pass and promptly hung up without giving him so much as my name (much less a street address or any kind of billing info).  This is obviously bogus.  I wonder what kind of information he was going to request of me.  $5.95 doesn't seem like enough to make the scam very profitable so there must be some other angle.  A quick Google of the number brings up this thread.  Seems a number of different stories are coming from these guys.  I guess you have to keep your guard up 24/7.

Barcamp NYC

Amit Gupta wants to organize a Barcamp NYC.  Count me in Amit!  I'd be happy to help organize and help  get the word out.  Anyone else in the New York area want to get in on the action?

Update: The wiki site for the event can be found here.

Technorati Tags: barcamp, nyc