Disqus - Latest Comments for philadelphia

Re: Cooler

philadelphia — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:45:25 -0000

I found that if I first get the sqlite3 lib with " sudo apt-get install libsqlite3-dev", then the "sudo gem install sqlite3-ruby" works fine.

Mike

Re: Cooler

philadelphia — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:43:36 -0000

OK.. spoke too soon. Mongrel installed by sqlite3-ruby complains about " No rule to make target `ruby.h'".

Googling now.

Mike

Re: Cooler

philadelphia — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:40:06 -0000

Hi there! Busy at work here. Things are rolling along. Lots of heavy lifting, but gradually getting there.

Quick comment on setting up the external site. My Ubuntu server on slice did not come with 'make'. I used "sudo apt-get install build-essential" to install the gnu compiler, after which all worked well.

I may have missed a step in the tutorial. Perhaps this will help a classmate.

Take care,
Mike

Re: Cooler

philadelphia — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:09:28 -0000

:-)

Works like a champ without the requires!

Thanks!!!
Mike

Re: Cooler

philadelphia — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:39:26 -0000

Yes... I will try that. I have it working in after commenting out two included libraries I had used in a couple of the models. These were:
acts_as_mappable and uuidtools. Neither of these are required for my current testing. They are used for adding devices and locations.

So.... will use your idea right now... and let you know how it goes.

Thanks!
Mike

Re: Cooler

philadelphia — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:20:28 -0000

Sort of...

I have an XML file I read in to pull some specifics about the User and the site to be tested.

I set up a log file to ouput status.

I've created 500 or so components in the DB I need to update through HTTP POSTS.

I've been using: res = Net::HTTP.new(url.host, url.port).start {|http| http.request(req) } to do so, from within a Windows Service I built.

In the Windows Service, I don't need access to the local classes... I'm just pulling a small amount of information from the XML file and from the local PC.

In the case of the test, I wanted to pull the specific endpoint information from the System Under Test. I can get at the classes to pull information, but one of the ones I need to access implements "acts_as_mappable". This is a class located within the lib/geo_kit directory. Unfortunately, I can't seem to be able to get the script to see this file.

My next step is to comment out the acts_as_mappable, in my locations model, to see if I can make it work...

Here's the script so far:

require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../config/boot'
require 'rubygems'
require 'activerecord'
require 'xmlrpc/client'
require 'win32/daemon'
require 'net/http'
require 'uri'
require "rexml/document"
require 'user'
mappable_path = '../lib/geo_kit/acts_as_mappable'
require 'location'
require File.dirname(mappable_path)

LOG_FILE = File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/test.log'

#here we want to read in the xml config file
@doc = REXML::Document.new File.new("./config/test_config.xml")

#open the log file
File.open(LOG_FILE, 'a+'){ |f|
f.puts @doc
}
#establish the xml doc root
root = @doc.root
#grab the user name & pwd for the test
@user_name = root.elements[1].elements["user_name"].text
@pwd = root.elements[1].elements["pwd"].text
@remote_server = root.elements[4].elements["remote_server"].text
# Initialize ActiveRecord
config = YAML.load_file('./config/database.yml')

#grab the development configuration
spec = HashWithIndifferentAccess.new(config['development'])
# Uncomment the next two lines if you want to see the SQL
# ActiveRecord::Base.logger = Logger.new $stderr
# ActiveRecord::Base.colorize_logging = false
ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(spec)

msg = 'Testing script started at: ' + Time.now.to_s
File.open(LOG_FILE, 'a+'){ |f|
f.puts msg
}

url = URI.parse(@remote_server + '/svc/post_kw_reading/')
req = Net::HTTP::Post.new(url.path)
req.basic_auth @user_name, @pwd
#find the locations for the user from the config file
locations = User.find_by_login(@user_name).locations
#create an array to hold devices
devices = Array.new
#add the devices for the user to the array
locations.each {|l|devices.push location.devices}

#start the while loop which will send usage data to the web server
#appearing as actual clients
while true

for device in devices

#make up some kw and voltage readings
kw = rand(10)
volts = 119.5 + rand

req.set_form_data({:kw => kw, :volts=>Vrms, :guid=>device.guid,:cost=>'0.22'} )

res = Net::HTTP.new(url.host, url.port).start {|http| http.request(req) }

case res
when Net::HTTPSuccess, Net::HTTPRedirection
File.open(LOG_FILE, 'a+'){ |f| f.puts res }
else
File.open(LOG_FILE, 'a+'){ |f| f.puts 'Error in posting' }
end
sleep 60
end

end

Re: Cooler

philadelphia — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:55:59 -0000

H there,

I'm working on some test capabilities for the final project. I want to be able to run a server which will inject messages using HTTP to my WEBrick web service.

I've created a script which will do this. I can make it run as long as I do not attempt to access any User Defined Classes, for example Classes in my app/models directory.

I've tried to include the environment by using:

require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../config/boot'

which is apparently how the script/console and other scripts pull in the Environment variables. The script does not recognize my model classes. If I require them in my script explicitly, I can see them, but if they refer to additional classes (maintained in the lib library), Ruby complains about not being able to find them.

Is there any way to make this work? Please let me know if you need me to provide more information.

Mike

Re: Protected: Panel of Ruby/Rails Professionals, Dec. 17

philadelphia — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 13:07:56 -0000

Are there any embedded Ruby/Rails implementations?
What is the smallest Ruby/Rails solution in terms of footprint?
Are there any examples of localized (non-networked) support of Ruby/Rails applications using a lightweight version of the framework?

Should new development add-ons be gems? (there seems to be some concern about plugins across various blog posts)

Has Ruby /Rails been adopted to a greater degree in specific industries? If so, which ones?

To what extent are folks serializing data objects for the persistification of state?

Re: Cooler

philadelphia — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:23:53 -0000

After reading your comment and thinking about it some more, maybe the best way to handle this is to write to the DB for each event with a timestamp and then report based upon this information. Every week a cron job would run and create weekly average. In that way, the max rows in the table would be 10,800 per user per reporting device. That's not too bad, as long as they are indexed. Most of the reporting will pull the most recent record (greatest timestamp) and will not require a lot of overhead (if it is indexed).

Thanks,
Mike

Re: Cooler

philadelphia — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:17:18 -0000

They will want to see minute by minute data for the previous 60 minutes. Then hourly averages for the previous day. The daily for the previous 7 days. Then weekly (forever?).

The difficulty is the missing data... machines go down and so do internet connections. Therefore, the data will have missing elements, which in some cases will span hours, days or weeks. So, I need to be able to handle missing observations as well.

I'll take another look at the rollups in MetricsMine. I may be able to use some or all of it for this purpose.

Thanks,
Mike

Re: Cooler

philadelphia — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:33:52 -0000

Hi there,

I'm thinking about the final project, and as one of the elements, I'm interested in maintaining minute by minute usage data associated with internet enabled equipment. But I'd like to roll the data up into hours, days, weeks, and years, so that I will not have to maintain hundreds of thousands of rows for each user for each year.

Is there a best practices way of doing this? I've been thinking about writing it myself using after_save callbacks on a Usage table. But, it's not all together trivial due, amongst other things, to some recursion issues I foresee (I foresee, I foresee, I foresee :-). I'd be very happy to find out someone has already figured this out and has written a gem or plugin...

Thanks,
Mike

Re: Screencast - RestfulAuthentication - 1

philadelphia — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:51:12 -0000

This is the one that I used: http://www.avnetlabs.com/ra...

I had looked at a few and they each were dated and broken.

I'm looking forward to seeing the next screencast... hoping you could show how to best use the authentication with RESTful clients. In my case, I'm looking to implement "basic authentication" from a service running on a PC. It needs to login and report usage information. I'm using Net::HTTP::Post, and I have it working, but probably could be improved to be more 'Best Practices' like.

Mike

Re: Screencast - RestfulAuthentication - 1

philadelphia — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:34:02 -0000

Very nice! I had been fooling around with this same plugin for possible use in the final project. It works really nicely. Thanks for putting together the screencasts. It cleared up some lingering questions I had.

Mike

Re: Final Project Proposal, and about the Final Project

philadelphia — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:48:08 -0000

Hi,

The project I am envisioning requires some geometry functions within the DB. MySQL has this functionality. Sqlite3 does not. May I use mySQL?

Specifically, I'm integrating geo-kit functionality for a Google Maps mashup which will provide dynamic user information on a live map. But I want to include asynchronous search functionality to find map points (stored in the DB) within some defined distance, and this is most easily accomplished via a geo-kit call which leverages functionality in the DB. While I could write the functionality in Ruby, it will not function as efficiently, and it will be an overly complex rewrite of a function which is available directly on mySQL.

Please let me know.
Mike

Re: Cooler

philadelphia — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:19:45 -0000

Hey John,

This is the kind of thing that would be a lot easier to ask in person. Something like, "hey, is this supposed to be there?" With a response like "yup".

When taking a course at a distance, you can't just point and ask a quick question. You need to spell it all out - in an open forum. Which appears to make questions much "bigger" than they are.

Thank you for the answer,
Mike

Re: Cooler

philadelphia — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:36:11 -0000

Yes... the Metric kind: personal weight.

It appears, in the static code, outside the title area (bracketed by h1's above it).

And in the online version it does not exist.

Mike

Re: Cooler

philadelphia — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:24:26 -0000

Hi,

In the example online, within the show, used to create a new observation, you have the metric kind (which I believe is the observation_kind.name) displayed within the title area.

But in the static HTML distributed, you have this information appearing outside of the title.

I'm guessing you meant to have it in the title. But I want to make sure this is not a distinction you made intentionally.

Thanks,
Mike

Re: Assignment 3, Milestone III

philadelphia — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:08:33 -0000

Hi,

My error was being caused by a data mismatch in the tables. I had gotten things a tad out of sync while developing... So, there had been no matching rec in the units table to be found from observation_sets. Hence, it was causing a nil error. That part is working now.

I'm a bit confused still on the association name... I see that I can use the name to access the data in the remote table. But, I do not see what code is being executed to get there. I had expected to find some generated code (somewhere) based upon the "belongs_to" in the model. But there wasn't any (that I could find)... I could see the preferred_unit as a method from observation_sets... Where is this method defined?

Mike

Re: Assignment 3, Milestone III

philadelphia — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:02:11 -0000

John,

Thank you.

But shouldn't there be a preferred_unit column in the observation_sets table? (There isn't one).

That is,
"(1) When an observation set is created, set the preferred unit to the first unit available for the measurement of the observation kind from which the observation set is being created."

I'm definitely doing this... and I am saving the record.... then I'm redirecting to the index page... and it starts to create the page, but dies because it can not find form.preferred_unit.name...

So it goes...

Mike

Re: Assignment 3, Milestone III

philadelphia — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:30:02 -0000

Hi,

I have a question about the preferred_unit... I'm not sure of the purpose for it... the data model calls for unit_id. The migrations use it in establishing the relationship between observation_sets and units. But where is it supposed to be stored? How is it accessed? And for what purpose?

Mike

Re: Assignment 3, Milestone III

philadelphia — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:00:50 -0000

:-)... learning a lot... That's what I'm here for. There are many ways to do things in Rails, and the syntax allows for a ton of variations... There are a ton of conventions as well, and reading about them is like reading the encyclopedia... Practice is the best way I know of to learn it. I keep working on it every day. It's clicking but not as quickly as I am used to...

Mike

Re: Assignment 3, Milestone III

philadelphia — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:00:07 -0000

Right... I should have said that at times Rails has a very confusing syntax and does not necessarily provide any error or warning when a method is invoked with a potentially incorrect set of parameters. And further that simple mistakes are compounded by the lack of feedback provided by the framework.

Re: Assignment 3, Milestone III

philadelphia — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:29:40 -0000

John,

I should have said... It's absolutely correct in LinkWizz. It's my user error that caused the issue. I simply did not add the curly braces. When I typed the line it, I missed them. I should have cut and pasted.... Anyway, hopefully this might help someone else.

Mike

Re: Assignment 3, Milestone III

philadelphia — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:05:36 -0000

I see the issue...

Rails is really finicky about braces

<%= link_to '(destroy)',:controller => :observation_kinds, :action => :destroy, :id => observationKind.id, :method => :post %>

is different, in terms of output, from:

<%= link_to '(destroy)',{:controller => :observation_kinds, :action => :destroy, :id => observationKind.id}, :method => :post %>

Notice the curly braces in the second one... this is what generates the javascript output.

Mike

Re: Assignment 3, Milestone III

philadelphia — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:22:55 -0000

Thanks.

I'm looking at the html generated by the reference app online. (http://metricsmine.plugh.or...

For delete, you are generating the following javascript:

(delete)

In the examples we've studied thus far, (CCC, LinkWizz, etc...) I think the output looks different. When I use those formats, like so:

<%= link_to '(destroy)',:controller => :observation_kinds, :action => :destroy, :id => observationKind.id, :method => :post %>

I get the following:

a href="/observation_kinds/destroy/2?method=post">(destroy)

I guess my question is, should I be worried about the creation of the javascript snippet you have online? If so, can you point to a way to auto-create this from some Rails macro?

Thanks,
Mike C