post-posterous

Browsing Memory the JRuby Way

Charlie Nutter (headius) just posted this:
http://blog.headius.com/2010/07/browsing-memory-jruby-way.html

A good set of tools.

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Aleph

I'm really getting into Clojure these days. I just came across a neat post on Aleph, an asynchronous web server that can really kick the tires, and it's only in the beginning stages. It's written on top of Netty, a fast and efficient network protocol stack.

Check 'em out, they're worth it.

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Why do I like Git?

It's fast.

It's offline, it's online.

It's branch-happy, it's merge-happy.

It's stash-happy, it's pop-happy.

In short, I can develop how I want to without worrying about how my
SCM wants my workflow to go.

I recently came across a great description of orthogonality in general
use: "[an approach | a tool | a programming language] is orthogonal if
its features can be used without thinking about how that usage will
affect other features." (from http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid5_gci283993,00.html)

Sweet! That's Git to a tee. I don't have to think about how it's all
going to affect something else. I just use it. If I mess something up,
it's usually only in my local repository. If I can't fix it with some
really easy command, I can just revert the repo. No one on my team is
any the wiser because what I just did didn't affect them (unless I
pushed it out, of course). I've messed things up a lot, but only once
have I had to completely revert the repo -- that was very early in my
use of Git.

Git's It! Git it.

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Scoring RailsConf speakers by their expletives

I threw up an application on Heroku that scores speakers based on the
number of expletives they use.

http://score-railsconf-2010.heroku.com/

It uses MongoHQ to store the data.

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Stored Functions in MongoDB

I've been experimenting with stored functions in MongoDB. While generally useful in a JavaScript context, I don't think I will use them from Ruby. Stored Functions run on the server side, making them extraordinarily useful. The problem I am running into is trying to call them from a non-JavaScript client (in this case, Ruby) without using the Database.eval interface to call the function because that will block execution on the server.

Here is some code to store a function in Mongo that will group Asset documents by a virtual attribute (small, medium, large) based on their file_size attribute. The function returns a count of the number of docs within that bucket, the average size, and a total size (in bytes) of the GridFS files to which the assets point.

The Stored Function

Invoking it from the Mongo Shell

Invoking it from Ruby

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An interesting read

I'm looking forward to more development with Mongo, and if I can do it
in Smalltalk all the better. Kent Beck has been working on a driver in
VisualWorks and Squeak/Pharo and has written an interesting read about
his experience thus far:
http://www.threeriversinstitute.org/blog/?p=466

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My first post

Posterous seems like a really neat way to blog -- just email, anything...

So, here's my first post, with a picture of our youngest in his sailor outfit.

All of the posts that come before this (after this if you're reading top to bottom) have been imported from my original blog at wordsanddeeds.org (which I will be shutting down soon).

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Add Support for HTTP OPTIONS Method to Sinatra Applications

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Crazy Michigan Spring

It's April 6th, spring started a couple of weeks ago. And this morning, I woke up to 3 inches of snow on the ground. Ugh...

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Truth that dispels the lie

This world and all its system is founded upon a lie. God told Adam not to touch the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but Adam disobeyed -- based on what? The serpent's story was "thou shalt not surely die," but God said "thou shalt surely die". This world and all its system is founded on that one act. One act of disobedience plunged the whole world into despair. One act of disobedience produced the likes of Mussolini and Hitler. One act of disobedience produced the cross of Christ, the most heinous act of all. But, what good would it have done for God to let man die and just say, "See? I told you so." No, God is love. He created man out of His love, and He saves man out of His love. The Lord therefore had to bring a truth that would forever dispel the lie that the devil sowed. What did He do? He slew the Lamb. He gave Himself for our transgressions. In the cross of Christ, I see that my sin, however small or great, would eventually destroy me. But, in His cross I also see His infinite love for me -- that He would be willing to give Himself for me, and it didn't stop there. He is the Way, the Truth, the Life. No death or grave can hold down Life. He had to raise again, and He did. And in His resurrection I am lifted up, sitting together with Him in heavenly places, even now. Praise the Lord!

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