The Napkin ~ A Blog By Highgroove Studios comments on Top 5 Rails Stories of the Week (8/28 - 9/3)

"Top 5 Rails Stories of the Week (8/28 - 9/3)": comment by JEG2

Tue, 5 Sep 2006 08:46:57 EST

Class variables in Ruby generally surprise you at some point down the road with unexpected behavior. Instance variables of the class object on the other hand, work just as people expect class variables to work or, put another way, as we are already familiar with from their normal instance usage. Since realizing that, I’ve never needed a class variable in Ruby again.

This is a well-known source of problems slated to be addressed in Ruby 2.0. To me, that’s just one more reason not to use class variables. Why get use to a system that’s considered broken and sure to change?

"Top 5 Rails Stories of the Week (8/28 - 9/3)": comment by Rails Blog

Sun, 3 Sep 2006 16:32:22 EST

I agree with you that the Embracing of CRUD remains a signature quality story. Understanding REST and how important it is is going to make all the difference for developers as their apps grow in size. Class variables is an interesting article, although I don’t agree they have no use, but many do missuse them!

"Top 5 Rails Stories of the Week (8/28 - 9/3)" by derek

Sun, 3 Sep 2006 14:09:00 EST

Here’s a look at the most thought-provoking Ruby on Rails news items of the week as determined by the always unbiased (but not beyond bribes) team at Highgroove:

1. The Enterprise Rails Debate

The best result of the latest “is Rails/Ruby ready for the enterprise debate” (see Joel Spolesky’s and DHH’s original cross-fire) was Justin Gehtland’s clarification of enterprise software. Frankly, Highgroove wouldn’t be in business (and growing) if Rails wasn’t a good choice in building software for the enterprise.

2. Ruby God Jamis Buck emerges from Idaho, releases Capistrano 1.9.1

Everyone’s favorite Rails Deployment tool, Capistrano, gets a major update. Jamis also clears up any confusion on the future development of Capistrano.

3. Are Mocked Models the New Testing Trend?

RubyConf Speaker Kevin Clark looks at a way to speed up your tests in an article on mocking models rather than using fixtures. We’re Test-Driven-Development (TDD) addicts here (it’s true – my recovery group class meets tonight), and faster-running tests is perhaps the greatest way to encourage TDD. Fixtures are great, but when refactoring is needed on a large application, they can be a major pain.

4. Class Variables in Rails

CNET Rails Guru Chris Wanstrath takes a look at class variables in Ruby and in Rails. Class Variables in Rails are often a constant source of confusion for many developers – take a look at this post for some clarity. James thinks Chris should have come right out and said: “Don’t use class variables. Use instance variables of the class instead.”

5. Embrace the CRUD (sounds like a good name for a t-shirt)

This is a little old, but worth noting. Scott Raymond gives a full report on the process of embracing the CRUD and becoming RESTful with a report on refactoring IconBuffet.com to REST. This is the most useful article we’ve seen because it walks through the conversion process rather than starting from scratch.