Mack Framework

Before I start this article, let me apologize for the lack of writing over the last six months. My only excuse is that I’ve been working on a new book and that is where all my writing energy has gone. So with apologies out of the way, let’s talk pagination. Dealing with pagination in any [...]

I’ve started working this week on an example application for the next book I’m about to write and I wanted a simple way for my readers to easily run the app (it’s going to be a single HTML file with a ton of cool JavaScript going on in it). My first choice for running this [...]

Last night I had the pleasure of presenting to the Boston Ruby User’s Group on CoffeeScript. My talk was geared to helping Rubyists understand, and hopefully love, CoffeeScript. Along the way I tried to debunk a few myths and preconceptions as to what CoffeeScript is and isn’t. The reaction was really positive, so hopefully I [...]

I have to ask a question to my fellow Rubyists out there? Why are you still using YAML? I know why you think you like YAML. You think it’s a great way to write configuration files, but it’s really not. You know what’s a great way of writing configuration files for Ruby apps? RUBY! I [...]

Twitter is an incredibly rich source of information. I find out about new libraries, applications, plugins, screen casts, etc… But, there’s a problem with is overwhelming amount of information… keeping track of it all. A lot of time I read Twitter when I’m on my phone. I’ll see a link to an article or website, [...]

About six weeks ago I announced FluxTracker.com a unified issue, document, and error management service. The response has been amazing. People love that you can now manage all of those things in one place, without any configuration. Well, today I’m happy to announce that FluxTracker has taken the next step forward to make managing all [...]

Because I maintain several open source projects on Github I’m constantly getting emailed questions or issues, or people are always opening up tickets with bugs, issues, complaints, etc… And I really appreciate the feedback on these projects, I really do. What I would appreciate more is if instead of just opening a ticket, or sending [...]

For the last few years every project or company I’ve worked for has started the same way, by setting up Basecamp, Lighthouse and Hoptoad (or similar ones anyway). Why? Basecamp  - so we could share documents and todos. Lighthouse – so we could track our issues and bugs. Hoptoad – so we could track the [...]

In case you’ve been living in a cave this week you’ve probably heard that Ruby on Rails is going to be including both the CoffeeScript and SASS libraries, it will also make jQuery the default JavaScript framework, replacing the Prototype framework. I would like to start by addressing my experiences with CoffeeScript. My opinion of [...]

“Testing is painful.” “Testing is hard.” “Testing is complicated.” “Testing is not fun.” I hear those sorts of things all the time when I talk to people about testing. I agree that sometimes testing can be all of those things, but if you choose the right tools, the tools that best suite you, testing doesn’t [...]