From Zero to a Rails Hero

Resources for learning about ruby memory management

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:36:00 -0700

I have been looking at ways to monitor and reduce the memory usage of a ruby script for a client in the past couple of weeks; following are some of the useful resources I came across in this context:

Matt Aimonetti’s very useful and detailed blog post : Ruby object allocation & why you should care
GC-stats-middleware - a rack middleware created by Matt Aimonetti (mentioned in the above blog post - which I adapted to use for my purpose.)
Garbage Collection and the Ruby Heap - Video of the awesome talk given by Joe Damato at the 2010 RailsConf
Slides from the same talk given by Joe Damato and Aman Gupta at LA Ruby Conf 2010
Memprof - the ruby memory profiler created and maintained by Joe & Aman. This works only for 1.8.7 and not for 1.9.2. Since I was working on 1.9.2, I didn’t dig too much into this. There is talk about a 1.9 compliant version of memprof; hopefully it will be out soon.
Ruby 1.9 API documentation on ObjectSpace & GC modules. Matt Aimonetti’s GC-stats-middleware code is a good example of how to use these modules.
Article about upcoming improvements in Ruby Memory Usage & Garbage Collection : Bitmap Marking GC for Ruby improves Memory Usage

"My personal pet peeve is how many people think the hard part is in the “big and hard problems” or in..."

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:17:06 -0700

“My personal pet peeve is how many people think the hard part is in the “big and hard problems” or in some fluffy but important-sounding thing like “innovation”. In fact, all the real work is in getting the details right. It’s that “1% inspiration, 99% perspiration” thing. People seem to think that inspiration is the much bigger and important part of the two, but I’ve come to believe that while it’s important to have inspiration, where people actually stumble is when they can’t execute on that inspiration. Inspiration isn’t that rare in the end, but people who have it and then actually follow through… that’s rare.”

- Linus Torvalds (via igrigorik)

Coderetreats in Colorado on Dec 3 - Global Day of Code Retreat

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:17:45 -0700

Saturday Dec 3rd is being observed as the Global Day of Code Retreat, with Code Retreats being organized in more than 60+ cities around the world! Check out more details at http://coderetreat.com/global_day.html

For the Colorado Developers interested in participating in an event, there is a code retreat being organized in the following cities:

1. Fort Collins : Register at http://fortcollinsgdcr11.eventbrite.com/

2. Boulder : Register at http://global-coderetreat-boulder.eventbrite.com/

3. Denver : Register at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2242350932/

4. Colorado Springs : Register at http://cospringsdec11.eventbrite.com/

Hopefully you can make it to one of these events!

Useful post with the basics of tmux

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 15:10:00 -0600

Useful post with the basics of tmux:

Will be using this in my presentation on tmux at the vim boulder meeting this Tuesday. http://www.meetup.com/Vim-Boulder/events/26498881/

Another useful post with cheatseet for both tmux & screen : http://www.dayid.org/os/notes/tm.html

About embellishing Rails URLs:

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 13:38:33 -0600

Learning about how to embellish Rails URLs for my current client project….

The following two links were very useful in this effort:

Useful link on configuring Test::Unit and Capybara

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 20:10:57 -0600

Useful link on configuring Test::Unit and Capybara

Rails Tip: Running Tests with Verbose Output

Wed, 04 May 2011 21:53:31 -0600

Rails Tip: Running Tests with Verbose Output:

Found this useful in figuring out why the following warning message was being shown in my test output:

ignoring attempt to close tr with table

opened at byte 1159, line 28

closed at byte 1261, line 33

attributes at open: {“class”=>”total_line”}

text around open: “/div>\n
\n \n\n
text around close: “rt" />\n
ignoring attempt to close tr with div
opened at byte 1159, line 28
closed at byte 1711, line 41
attributes at open: {“class”=>”total_line”}
text around open: “/div>\n

\n \n\n
ignoring attempt to close tr with div
opened at byte 1159, line 28
closed at byte 3960, line 85
attributes at open: {“class”=>”total_line”}
text around open: “/div>\n

\n \n\n
text around close: ” \n \n\n\n”
ignoring attempt to close tr with html
opened at byte 1159, line 28
closed at byte 3975, line 87
attributes at open: {“class”=>”total_line”}
text around open: “/div>\n

\n \n\n Rails Console - Show Error Messages for All Object Attributes

Delete Vs. Destroy In Rails

Tue, 03 May 2011 13:29:27 -0600
Delete Vs. Destroy In Rails

Rails Migration Data Types – MySql – Postgresql – SQLite

Mon, 02 May 2011 11:41:06 -0600
Rails Migration Data Types – MySql – Postgresql – SQLite

Rake task to run a single rails unit or functional test

Mon, 02 May 2011 10:49:57 -0600
Rake task to run a single rails unit or functional test:

ruby -Ilib:test test/functional/line_items_controller_test.rb

validates :rails_3, :awesome => true

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:56:16 -0600
validates :rails_3, :awesome => true

Good explanation about Named Scopes in Rails 2.x

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:56:06 -0600
Good explanation about Named Scopes in Rails 2.x:
The links mentioned in the comments are also useful, as they deal with why Scopes are no longer relevant in Rails 3.x

Sample Grid-based Design Process

Sat, 23 Apr 2011 10:39:00 -0600
Sample Grid-based Design Process:
While the article is titled Which CSS Grid Framework Should You Use for Web Design?, I found the section on Sample Grid-based Design Process quite useful for what I am attempting to do. Also, got confidence that learning to use BluePrint CSS framework would be a worthwhile exercise.

Why use HAML (and SASS)? I already know HTML.

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 14:11:03 -0600
Why use HAML (and SASS)? I already know HTML.:
Very well written blogpost, with solid arguments.

SASS Textmate bundle

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:38:14 -0600
SASS Textmate bundle:
While following the instructions on PeepCode Haml & Sass video, I installed the SASS textmate bundle with the following command run in ~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles directory:

git clone git://github.com/fluxsaas/sass-textmate-bundle.git

It created a sub-folder with name sass-textmate-bundle.

Later on when I was working on my first sass file in textmate, noticed that it did not automatically default to SASS. Turned out SASS wasn’t in the list of recognized bundles.

Looked up the instructions on the github page and found that the git clone command aliases the repo to Ruby-Saas-Alternative-Syntax.tmbundle with the following installation command:

git clone git://github.com/fluxsaas/sass-textmate-bundle.git “Ruby-Saas-Alternative-Syntax.tmbundle”

Ruby Hash of Array idioms

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 00:29:17 -0600
Ruby Hash of Array idioms:
Useful

Reloading source files while in rails console

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:47:34 -0700
Reloading source files while in rails console:
Found this useful today at work….

strftime reference and sandbox

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 21:39:02 -0700
strftime reference and sandbox:
Very useful! via @doctorzaius

Christmas Tree with a Ruby one-liner. via @camilleroux

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:40:29 -0700

Christmas Tree with a Ruby one-liner. via @camilleroux