Would you like a Mobile App with That?

From Android to iPhone, users everywhere have made it abundantly clear that mobile apps are the future, and when it comes to mobile nothing beats a native experience. Native apps mean we need API’s, and API’s need Authentication. That’s why I’m happy to introduce the solution to your mobile Rails backed authentication needs: oPRO. oPRO (pronounced oh-pro) is a Rails engine for adding an OAuth Provider to any Rails app. OAuth 2.0 is how the web authenticates services, if you’ve ever “signed in with Twitter” or “connected with Facebook” you’ve used OAuth. If you’re new to the concept, check out my introduction to OAuth. Otherwise put your programming cap on, cause we’re going to build your first Rails API backed iPhone app.

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Heroku Sunsets the Argent Aspen Stack

I wrote some words on Heroku’s past and it’s future.

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Sunsetting and Deprecation at Heroku

Software erosion is what happens to your app without your knowledge or consent: it was working at one point, and then doesn’t work anymore. When this happens you have to invest energy diagnosing and resolving the problem. Over a year ago Heroku’s CTO, Adam Wiggins, first wrote about erosion-resistance on Heroku. Part of erosion-resistance is communication, and knowing what to expect moving into the future. This post will clarify what we mean by erosion-resistance, and help you understand what to expect when one of our features is deprecated or is sunset.

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Thank You So Much For The Article Raise Hell

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raise "hell": Better Programming Through Error Messages

Exceptions suck. When you are getting started on a project there is nothing worse than clicking that button, hitting enter, and then watching your software fall flat on its face. It might sound odd - then - if I were to say, more errors in your life could be a good thing.

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Database & Rails: Week 9

We are close to wrapping up our 10 week Rails Course. This week we will cover a handful of topics commonly encountered in Rails projects. We then wrap up with part 2 of our Reddit on Rails exercise!

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Databases & Rails: Week 8

Welcome back, this week we’re going to tackle some important concepts in Ruby like Dealing with Nil and using Modules in Ruby. We are also going to cover importing data from a spreadsheet, rake, rubygems, bundler, and talk a little about Rail’s testing ecosystem.

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Get Previously Saved Changes in Rails

Some times you need to see what fields changed in an object in Rails. I’ve known for awhile that you could do this before an object saved:

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Active Record Deep Dive

If you’re new to Rails and Active Record, or you’ve been using them for some time, there are likely methods you’ve been overlooking. This week I take a look at the most common SQL Query interfaces for Active Record. Finally we wrap up by talking about how Active Record allows us to chain together methods, how we can prevent SQL injection attacks on our websites, and how to read Ruby Documentation.

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Databases & Rails: Week 6 Data Visualization with Javascript

When most people think of great web sites they don’t think of borring pages that have to refresh every time you click something, they think of sites filled with dynamic like buttons, and moving charts and graphs. While I always encouraging having a solid site before adding any javascript extras, sometimes javascript is just the best tool for the job.

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