RailsConf 2008 was a few weeks ago, and I didn’t go. I made babies instead. But if you ignore the whoohaa of MagLev and DHH’s Surplus talk, there was one piece of genuine, new awesomeness that came out of RailsConf. This awesomeness, plus Twitter created at least 6 new projects in the last month. These apps are going to make RailsCamp awesome.

That is if RailsConf never happened this piece of delicious coding happiness never would have occurred. It was built at RailsConf, by RailsConf attendees. It was built to solve a problem that only happens at conferences. Crappy internet.

The answer is gitj… no wait, I have more introductory story. [skip it]

Instead of going to RailsConf this year I “get” to go to RailsCamp, which is like a conference for Rails developers, but without the conference part. What’s left without the conference? Hacking, Guitar Hero3, rejectconf-esque talks, and alcohol. Its’ the Lord’s way of saying “you’re in the right profession.”

RailsCamp has two minor drawbacks, since it is held out in the country. One, there is no internet connection. Two, there is no internet connection. Now I know that is only one draw back but I thought it was such a big one it was worth mentioning twice [oh I miss Red Dwarf].

So, 6 months ago we solved one internet-related problem: we turned to Git and git-svn clone to take all our svn repositories with us camping. 6 months on, git has taken over the Ruby OSS world, thanks mostly to GitHub which made remote hosting of git repos easy peasy. But, Github won’t be with us at RailsCamp. So we’re back to where we were 6 mths ago – being gumbies at hosting remote git repos.

So the question to be solved: how do you host a git repository, or indeed, lots of git repositories from your development machine; and conversely, how do you find someone else’s git repositories on their machine and clone it?

And whilst we’re at it… how do you easily share the RubyGems you have installed on your machine with other people, and how do you easily find gems on other people’s machines that you don’t currently have, if you don’t have access to rubyforge.org or github.com to get them?

And furthermore… if you’re running a fun little web app off your dev machine, how can you easily advertise it and other people find it and use it? “Hey, what’s your machine’s name?” “drnic-mac” “Thanks. ..pause… Um, what port’s the app on?” “4050”…

Same problem. Local devs, running local services, but how to share with everyone in the room?

Bonjour

The core solution is a technology created by the boffins at Apple that is now completely open-source (afaik): Bonjour. From wikipedia:

Bonjour, formerly Rendezvous, is Apple Inc.’s trade name for its implementation of Zeroconf, a service discovery protocol. Bonjour locates devices such as printers, as well as other computers, and the services that those devices offer on a local network using multicast Domain Name System service records.

In the Ruby world there are two RubyGems to integrate Bonjour into your app: dnssd and net-mdns. The former is only for Mac OS X, and the latter is a Ruby-only implementation that can be used anywhere. Bingo.

gitjour

So, Chad Fowler, Evan Phoenix, Rich Kilmer and a cast of others started a humble project to solve the first problem: sharing git repositories across a local network, called gitjour.

This project became a happy hack place for many many people.

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

NOTE: I’ve included all the installation instructions that should work. If they don’t then try building the gems from src.

On OS X:

    sudo gem install dnssd
    sudo gem install gitjour

    or from source

    sudo gem install dnssd
    git clone git://github.com/chad/gitjour.git
    cd gitjour
    rake install_gem

On Linux/Windows:

    sudo gem install net-mdns
    sudo gem install_gem nogoth-gitjour --source=http://gems.github.com

    or from source

    sudo gem install net-mdns
    git clone git://github.com/nogoth/gitjour.git
    cd gitjour
    rake install

The gitjour project uses dnssd gem, with mac os x dependencies, and GitHub user ‘nogoth’ has ported the project to use the net-mdns gem for Linux/Windows.

Now, open up two terminal windows so you can emulate both sides of “serving” and “finding” a git repository.

Window 1:

    cd a/git/project
    gitjour serve

Window 2:

    gitjour list
    gitjour clone project

In Window 1, you can also serve an entire folder of repositories. Lots of them all at one time. Go into your project’s parent folder and run gitjour serve and you’ll see it Registered dr_nic_magic_models on port 9418. Starting service. a lot. In Window 2, you just gitjour clone xxx the project you want.

See, genius. No mucking around with Apache or setting up local “remote” repositories in your public folder so people can pull from it. Just run gitjour serve from your parent folder and you are instantly hosting ALL of your git repositories. Top Tip: move any private work into another folder first wink

So, that’s the git-sharing problem fixed.

pastejour

After RailsConf, twitter was alive with the coolness of gitjour, and very quickly John Barnette created pastejour to publish and find single pastie’s of code, given that without the internet you don’t have pastie websites.

To install on OS X:

    sudo gem install dnssd
    sudo gem install jbarnette-pastejour --source=http://gems.github.com

    or install from src:

    sudo gem install dnssd
    git clone git://github.com/jbarnette/pastejour.git
    cd pastejour
    rake install

On Linux/Windows:

    sudo gem install net-mdns
    sudo gem install nogoth-pastejour --source=http://gems.github.com

    or install from src:

    sudo gem install net-mdns
    git clone git://github.com/nogoth/pastejour.git
    cd pastejour
    rake install

Pastejour publishes a single block of text until one person retrieves it. Essentially, you yell at the person that there is a paste for them and they get it.

Window 3:

    pastejour <<< "Hello Window 2"

Window 4:

    $ pastejour -f
    Searching for servers (3 seconds)
    Found pastejour at 'drnic'
    $ pastejour drnic
    (drnic from drnic-mac.local.:42424)
    Hello Window 2

gemjour

After John’s announcement on Twitter, I asked “do we have a gemjour yet for sharing gems?”

Later that day, Evan Phoenix replies with “@drnic Enjoy! http://github.com/evanphx/gemjour/tree/master”

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

This gem serves up all your gems to anyone who wants to install them from you. Don’t have merb but want to try it? Grab it from someone else.

To install on OS X:

    sudo gem install dnssd
    sudo gem install evanphx-gemjour --source=http://gems.github.com

    or install from src:

    sudo gem install dnssd
    git clone git://github.com/evanphx/gemjour.git
    cd gemjour
    rake install

On Linux/Windows:

    sudo gem install net-mdns
    sudo gem install nogoth-gemjour --source=http://gems.github.com

    or install from src:

    sudo gem install net-mdns
    git clone git://github.com/nogoth/gemjour.git
    cd gemjour
    rake install

Window 5:

    gemjour serve

Window 6:

    gemjour list
    gemjour list someuser
    gemjour diff someuser  -- shows diff btw you and them
    sudo gemjour install someuser newgem -- install newgem from someuser
    sudo gemjour install_diff someuser -- installs all gems from someuser you don't have

Go around the room and steal everyone gems in a few minutes.

appjour

Room full of people hacking up cool things? Publish and find them easily with appjour, written by Lachie Cox

To install on OS X:

    sudo gem install dnssd
    sudo gem install lachie-appjour --source=http://gems.github.com

    or install from src:

    sudo gem install dnssd
    git clone git://github.com/lachie/appjour.git
    cd appjour
    rake install

To use it, after you’ve started a web app that you want to publish, open another window to run appjour:

Window 7:

    cd some/web/app
    script/serve -p 4000  # or whatever for your framework
    appjour leet_app 4000

Window 8:

    $ appjour
    Searching for servers (3 seconds)
  found web app called 'leet_app'

  $ appjour leet_app
    ... app loaded into browser

Mongrel publishing bonjour events

Courtenay hacked in a few lines to mongrel_rails so that each mongrel publishes itself to Bonjour.

The magic of this is that mongrels, or the applications behind them, could use Bonjour to self-discover each other within a mongrel cluster, and then talk to each other.

One man’s solution is another man’s problem

As new people join the circus, new gems, git repositories, web apps and pasties are added and the new problem is: how to keep in touch with the newness?

First solution: publish them to Growl with dejour by Aaron Patterson, tagged “Discover awesome services near you.”

On Mac OS X:

    sudo gem install dnssd
    sudo gem install aaronp-dejour --source=http://gems.github.com

    or install from src:

    sudo gem install dnssd
    git clone git://github.com/aaronp/dejour.git
    cd dejour
    rake install

There is no fork of dejour for Linux/Windows yet.

Window 9:

    $ dejour

All your current services should appear as Growl notifications (from Windows 1, 3, 5 and 7 above).

But Growl notifications fly-by pretty quickly. How to keep track?

Finally, *jour to the rescue (starjour)

I really felt that this problem was best solved with a GUI. Mostly cause I was keen to try out RubyCocoa. I don’t think I did productive work for a week, whilst I read books, tutorials and anything I could find on RubyCocoa, Cocoa, Xcode + Interface Builder, Objective-C and after trying and failing a few times starjour was created. By Lachie Cox (who also wrote appjour).

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

F@#$@#.

Really, I just couldn’t get my head around Cocoa Bindings at the time, but my experience of using RubyCocoa was very positive, once I’d learnt the underlying framework and the thinking-patterns of a Cocoa developer. Best book to read to learn Cocoa/RubyCocoa? The book is by Aaron Hillegass – Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X (3rd ed). After struggling with other people’s books and tutorials this one was wonderful. The “CollectionView” message in the image above was me telling Lachie that I’d figured out and used CollectionViews to replace his TableView. Now i just need to bind the bonjour message type (gitjour/gemjour etc) to an image. And more.

But, nonetheless, starjour (read: *jour as all these apps were collectively named on Twitter) did one job: it sat there showing which services were currently available.

Unlike all the others, this one used the native Cocoa framework for Bonjour, fwiw, and is doomed as an OS X-only app.

On Mac OS X, we don’t really have a place to download and run it, so grab it from src:

    git clone git://github.com/lachie/starjour.git
    cd starjour
    rake run

This requires Xcode and RubyCocoa (available on OS X Leopard or via rubycocoa.com on sourceforge)

Wow! What just happened last month?

Chronologically: gitjour, pastejour, gemjour, dejour, starjour and appjour. And I think there are others. Its incredible.

Firstly, it is going to be an awesome RailsCamp – these tools are killer apps for an internet-less hackfest like RailsCamp, or massive internet-starved conferences like RailsConf.

Secondly, it has been very exciting to watch the creation of these projects over the last few weeks, with the *jour meme bubbling through twitter and irc. Another happy month for our open source communities.

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I took a video recorder to the RejectConf, like I did in Portland. Unfortunately, there were two reasons I didn’t record any of them.

Firstly, there didn’t seem to be any obvious place to position the camera.

Secondly, it was deemed critical that everyone does their talks in the dark. The conference isn’t run in the dark, local Ruby groups don’t run meetings in the dark but consecutive RejectConfs have been run by adminstrators with a dark fetish. Great for drinking beer and heckling presenters. Bad for video recording.

The makers of the JVC HDD camcorder – a nifty device with a 20G HDD in it – don’t make it possible to record in the dark. Not because it doesn’t have a “night time mode” – apparently it does – but when you are already in the dark, you can’t figure out how to turn it on.

Ok, fine, if I’d made an effort I could have figured it out. So, let’s use excuse #1 as the reason for not recording the presentations.

Its a valid excuse, the Pirate Cove was chock-a-block full of people. The local Berlin Ruby Group did an awesome job of finding a great “underground”-esque venue.

Fortunately a fellow Australian – Marcus Crafter – had a front row position, and a MacBook Pro. With said device, he captured my talk on RubiGen (and John Barton’s).

RejectConf video of RubiGen

In 5 minutes, I make a Merb generator, using RubiGen and NewGem. Nifty stuff indeed.

There were lots of other awesome presentations (that is perhaps a dubious inference that mine was awesome), but it was dark, I had beer in both hands, and I was too busy yelling “AUSTRALIA!!!” to write notes.

What a great night

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Who? What?

Well, it could be you. If you are in Berlin tonight, come to RejectConf.

Time: 9pm (get there early to ensure a seat or at least a space indoors)
Location: NOT NEAR THE VENUE

The remaining details are documented so you can figure out which U-Bahn lines to take and which stops to get off.

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One day you will be able to write a human description of a RubyGem and it will make it for you. Ok, that’s crap. But the New Gem Generator is doing more and more cooler things lately; so let’s take a peek…

RSpec

For a growing number of people, RSpec is the way to go, over the Test::Unit test suite. Now, thanks to a contribution from Robby Russell and Graeme Nelson during Railsconf.

$ newgem my_cool_gem -t rspec
$ cd my_cool_gem
$ rake  # runs specs

Bonus website

New gems now have a website folder with an index.txt file (redcloth format). Put your glorious promotional materials and tutorials here (plus add additional .txt files as well) and the rake website task will convert them to html files and upload them to your rubyforge website.

The standard template looks like this (you’re encouraged to change some colours or fonts!)

Deploying gems

Ready to release a new X.Y.Z version of your gem? It takes 3 minutes.

1. Set the version number in lib//version.rb.
2. Check your Manifest.txt that it includes all new files (via rake check_manifest)
3. Update History.txt with changes. The default supported format is 2 paragraphs – a header and group of bullet points; these look nice when converted to rdoc format.
4. Commit the new version to repository.
5. Deploy/release gem

$ rake deploy VERSION=X.Y.Z

This will release your RubyGem to rubyforge so people can install it; plus upload your website and your rdocs.

You’ll then be prompted to commit a copy of the trunk as a tag REL-X.Y.Z. This could be very useful one day!

Video of NewGem at RejectConf

You can read the pdf slides and/or watch the presentation from RejectConf:

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The original Dr Nic’s Magic Models were named as such because I entertained the idea of showing them off as a live magic show. So, given 3 minutes in front of some of the Ruby community’s hottest hackers, I got my chance! Not the Original Magic Models, but the never-before-released Magic Model Generator.

How to install and use the magic_model_generator follows the video from RejectConf:

The Magic Show

How to use it

Create a rails application, and point it to your database.

$ rails magic_show -d [mysql|sqlite|postgresql|oracle|etc|etc]
$ cd magic_show
$ cp database.yml.sample database.yml
and point it to your database.yml to your legacy database

I use the database created for the ActiveRecord test cases – activerecord_unittest. If you’ve never downloaded the activerecord gem, run rake build_[mysql|sqlite|postgresql|oracle|etc|etc]_databases, and then rake test_[mysql|sqlite|postgresql|oracle|etc|etc], then you’ve probably got more free time than I do as a result and I appreciate that. And so does my wife.

Now install the magic_model_generator gem:

$ sudo gem install magic_model_generator

Nonetheless, you’re done. That’s all the preparation I did for the video.

Next I recreated the schema.rb file and the schema_info database table via rake db:migrate.

Next I ran the generator:

$ ./script/generate magic_model

And we’re done.

Coming soon

The MMG is awesome.

The one major drawback of the MMG is the same drawback of all rails generators: if you want to regenerate your models (say you update your schema via migrations) then you cannot regenerate your model associations and validations without completely recreating the file, thus destroying anything else you wrote. Which is useless.

The world of version control (subversion, cvs, etc etc) already solved this problem: merging. So I’m investigating adding merging to the rails_generator. That should be neat.

New Gem Generate to get merging too?

Currently the newgem command doesn’t use the rails_generator for creating files. So adding merging to rails_generator won’t help newgem. That is, unless I rewrite newgem. So, I’ll look into that too.

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Over the last month, Ryan mentioned “functional testing by a matrix” in four great blog articles.

Ryan shows this off at RejectConf; its 16 minutes but definitely worth your time to investigate, as I think this will be awesome for ensuring basic edge cases are thoroughly tested. Can a guest create something? Can a member delete something?

It is hard to see the code on the screen, but look at the blog posts linked above to get the gist of what is being shown.

People were really interested this as you can tell by the huge number of questions, despite this being the last of many many presentations.

This stuff looks primed for a sweet generator to create the test file.

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So, presenting…

Ryan Davis, Professional Artist

Who?

Conference proposal get rejected? Got something wicked to show off that didn’t exist when the Call For Proposals were cut off last year? Then you.

How?

You’ve got 5 minutes to demonstrate just how wrong the Conference Organisers were for not giving you the full 50 minutes, and to entertain the rest of us. Mostly I want to be entertained.

Where?

No idea yet. Maybe outside on the street. Perhaps in the kitchen at the venue. Hopefully we can muscle a room when we get there.

When?

Friday or Saturday night, after the BoF sessions for that night. The more mysterious and unorganised the better chance we have of organising it.

What do I do?

Join the RejectConf mailing list

What to bring?

BYO food, drink, props, costumes and face paint.

Beer?

Yes.

Do I bring a gift for Dr Nic

Dr Nic always accepts free gifts. Large items of furniture are frowned upon.

Who’s organising this?

Ryan Davis. And you? Join the mailing list.

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Dear Dr Nic Williams,

Thank you for registering for RailsConf 2007 happening on May 17 – May 20, 2007.

Conference Sessions Plus Tutorials Day

Tutorial
Title: Scaling a Rails Application from the Bottom Up
Date: 05/17/2007
Time: 8:30am to 12:00pm

Tutorial
Title: Harnessing Capistrano
Date: 05/17/2007
Time: 1:30pm to 5:00pm

Now, who’s organising the late-night RejectConf?

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