Remote file dependencies in Capistrano

Remote file dependencies in Capistrano

Rake's File Tasks allow us to define steps to create a file and to add the File Task as a prerequisite. This can be useful when deploying an application that depends on configuration files not checked in to the repo.

Capistrano Version 3 - 7 reasons to be excited about deployment

In the Ruby world, Capistrano has been the de-facto standard for deploying applications since it’s release in 2006. This summer however, it’s time to get excited about deployment again  - version three is on the edge of a beta release and this feels like the perfect time to share some of the features about which I’m most excited.

Capybara on the Command Line - Live Browser Testing From IRB

Capybara on the Command Line - Live Browser Testing From IRB

Everyone knows retro fitting tests is not the best way to go, but you can't escape the fact that sometimes it's unavoidable. Writing integration tests after the fact can sometimes be tricky, especially when dealing with complex xpaths or trying to assert against deeply buried elements. So if you're as tired of digging around in web inspector as I am, try this instead

Vim - My .vimrc Highlights

Vim - My .vimrc Highlights

Moving from TextMate to Vim is probably the most significant change I’ve made to my daily development over the last year - and I’m amazed by how much difference it’s made. A few weeks back though a blog post convinced me to go one step further - I took a deep breath and deleted my entire vim install.

4 steps to faster Rails tests

4 steps to faster Rails tests

I love testing now, but I wasn’t always this way. Although I could instinctively understand the benefits of writing tests, I never properly understood the benefits of test driven development until around 18 months ago when working on my first gem for On the Beach.

Google fish - a tiny gem for Google Translate API V2

Google fish - a tiny gem for Google Translate API V2

As Google Translate API v2 has now launched, I looked around for a gem we could quickly plug in and was surprised to find only the google-api-ruby-client - which for our needs seemed to come with a lot of dead weight. Given we only require a very limited feature set, I decided to build a tiny gem to meet just that need.