Disqus - Latest Comments for zdennis

Re: How to Determine a Realistic Growth Rate for a Company

zdennis — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 13:05:37 -0000

The link to the premium value spreadsheet in this article is bad. It's pointing to a file on your local hard-drive.

Re:

zdennis — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 09:22:41 -0000

Thanks Jeremy!

Re: AngularJS

zdennis — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 09:43:14 -0000

The fragment above under the differences between Q and $q that states "attached to a scope" has important implications. It'd be nice if the docs pointed these out. For example, using a promise in an expression that is the result of function call (and not attached directly to the scope) will not work, ie: "{{getPromise()}}" or "{{thing.getPromise()}}"

Re: an includes() trap

zdennis — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 14:01:46 -0000

Nice write-up on the subtleties of joins and includes. I agree that it isn't evil to use includes but knowing the behavioral differences between the two indeed goes a long way. Moving the usage out behind a scope with a great couple of tests around it is also a great to ensure the behavior is as expected.

But I also agree with your conclusion that its a performance optimization and avoiding it altogether makes it a non-issue.

Then again, will a future maintainer of that code try to clean it up not knowing why it is the way it is and fall into the same trap? Regardless of the approach I lean back on having a test which knowing you I wouldn't be surprised to find out that's how you exposed this in the first place!

Re: http://www.continuousthinking.com/2012/11/21/iteration-1-redesigning-scout-app.html

zdennis — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:57:46 -0000

Thanks Ray!

I think you're right that a list view would be valuable to have. If you want to share that mockup you mentioned that'd be awesome!

Re project tiles. Thanks for sharing your mockup. I'm going think on some of the things you brought up and maybe respond in a day or two (and maybe with another mockup!) I think I need to play with some of the mockups on top of an actual desktop to get an idea what it might feel like in use.

If you've any more suggestions keep'em coming!

Re: 7 Ways to Decompose Fat ActiveRecord Models

zdennis — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 12:13:20 -0000

Very nice article Bryan!

Re: http://www.continuousthinking.com/2012/05/14/scoutapp-0-6-0-rc1.html

zdennis — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:39:31 -0000

I should add that RC1 is only available for a OSX package, but RC2 which will come out tomorrow will be available for OSX and Windows. If any Linux-folks out there can assist us in making ScoutApp Linux friendly we'd love to make that happen.

RC2 will introduce built-in compass-h5bp support and possibly compass-html5-boilerplate support as well.

Re: Rails Refactoring Example: Introduce Null Object

zdennis — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:18:42 -0000

I really like the NullObject/NullDate usage for the example you listed. The anti-pattern (while I understand your intent) doesn't apply equally in all situations. This is referring to the conditional and not the chained list of method calls (I like extracting that out into an intention-revealing interface and keeping the view simple simple simple).

So the anti-pattern... here's my qualm: based on what needs to be displayed in the view for when there are/are-not orders, a simple conditional may be very appropriate. In other situations (like the example you used above), it's a wash because you replace the view requirements with your localization call, which works great when you substitute in a NullDate when no orders have been made, but doesn't work well when what's being displayed to the user is not a one-to-one substitution.

For this issue, I've used an extension to this pattern where there's polymorphic view rendering. This removes the conditional in the view and renders the appropriate partial based on the object you had available (i.e.: orders/_null_date.partial, orders/_order.partial). This worked well in some cases, but it also became challenging because what was going on became less clear and the rise in complexity related to understanding how the views were working seemed to be greater than the simplification of removing a conditional and having a explicit render statement.

Re: http://continuousthinking.com/2011/12/31/remote-people-are-an-opportunity-for-innovation-and-workplace-evolution.html

zdennis — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:58:59 -0000

Doug, co-working places and user groups may be ideal set ups for building a new local network and having that sense of community with other people who are geographically nearby. Have those been a good experience after your move to MI?

I've been on the employer side for a few years so I may have a blind spot. It's definitely good to hear a different perspective. Feel free to share any more thoughts!

Re: http://www.continuousthinking.com/2012/03/18/you-may-be-be-a-insert-language-here-programmer.html

zdennis — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 19:40:47 -0000

thx @brycedarling for the polyglot !

Re: Boston Ruby Group

zdennis — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 00:44:48 -0000

Great talk from a different side of the dev sphere. I always enjoy hearing Chad speak. Thanks for posting the video bostonrb!

Re: Building an Around Hook Using Fibers

zdennis — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 13:20:06 -0000

Very nice! I haven't done a lot with Fibers,so having you point out a potential use for them and then walk through it was great. Thanks for the post!

Re: Mike Pack Development

zdennis — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:05:22 -0000

A nice benefit of allowing the context to find and construct the instance is that it removes the issue of having a side-effects from the Context itself because any/all changes to the object by extending Roles is scoped specifically to the Context. I posted an above comment in which we started discussing this further. A possible way to allow passing in of objects to further advocate side-effect freedom is here: https://gist.github.com/173...

Re: Mike Pack Development

zdennis — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:02:42 -0000

Thanks for replying Mike. In the spirit of creating side-effect free DCI implementations I failed to note that your above example actually does that. By passing in the ids and finding and instantiating the objects you're already avoiding the issue of unintentionally creating side-effects by changing objects being passed in.

I know there are other approaches which could be taken:

* dup/extend (e.g. customer = user.dup.extend Customer)... ActiveRecord won't work out of the box for this now since the "id" isn't copied over.

* mixin/unmix the role modules using something like Mixology

* or what your example exposes above and not passing in direct references, but informatin to construct a reference so any changes are isolated to the context and don't leak out

In the spirit of #2, it would suck to have to remember to mix and unmixin explicitly. Here's a possible approach of baking that into a Context so the developer doesn't have to remember: https://gist.github.com/173...

I am looking forward to your follow-up article.

Re: Mike Pack Development

zdennis — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:14:55 -0000

Using #extend seems like it could cause headaches over time since you're adding role functionality directly on a user and that something would need to manage the roles as they evolve over-time so that don't override, conflict, or have other side-effects based on how the object traverses throughout the system in its lifetime. Granted a request/response cycle for Rails apps is not a very long life-cycle, but doing this creates side-effects that simply wouldn't exist if you instead encapsulated the functionality in a separate object in which you passed the user into and operated on (instead of modifying). You could operate on the user in a isolated, testable, side-effect free way and avoid the problem altogether.

Re: RSpec Requestable Examples : Mutually Human Software : Custom Software Strategy and Design, Mobile, Web Application, Product & Service, Software Craftsmanship, Ruby on Rails, Grand Rapids, Michigan

zdennis — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:36:13 -0000

Thanks for commenting. I hadn't thought about it the way you approached it in your gist. Based on feedback from dchelimsky on rspec-users ML earlit today and what you've posted I think it can become a lot simpler and with a nicer API. There are a couple incidentals I'll want to keep around, but I can't think of any reason why I'd lose them simplifying things.

Re: http://emilystoddardfurrow.com/post/16171476973

zdennis — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:33:51 -0000

Back in the day, when the Internet was young and as much content wasn't as readily available to us (or easily accessible: twitter, facebook, youtube, reddit, etc), it seemed easier to take dedicated time to consume things like books. Now, it seems there is so much content that is constantly being put in our face (whether we put it there or not) that we almost need to take a class on how to say "no" to it and to say "yes" to dedicating time to things like books; which I agree with you is totally "good".

I've been allotting an hour a day during the week for dedicated reading and I've been trying to dedicate 2 - 4 a day on the weekends. It may just be in my head but I feel like a better, more well-rounded person, from reading thought things like books (whether fictional or non-fictional). There was a time when I got sucked into Internet vortex of cheap gags and laughs and while I still enjoy those time to time I loathe the thought becoming a 30 year old version of an online tween interested in things as cheap and pointless as the Kardashians.

We should all be consuming things like books and not just tweets and facebook status updates.

Re: http://emilystoddardfurrow.com/post/15740926898

zdennis — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:32:07 -0000

That's so awesome Carl!

Re: To Find Your Audience, Think Like a Scientist : Mutually Human Software : Custom Software Strategy and Design, Mobile, Web Application, Product & Service, Software Craftsmanship, Ruby on Rails, Gra...

zdennis — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:01:56 -0000

Fantastic article Grace!

Re: cd’ing to frequently-used directories in ZSH

zdennis — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 13:17:40 -0000

I don't use zsh but we use ad (aliasdir) for faster terminal navigation which I believe works in zsh since some folks I work with use it. http://mutuallyhuman.com/bl...

Re: Highcharts, SVG, VML, and Auto-Sizing for Legends : Mutually Human Software : Custom Software Strategy and Design, Mobile, Web Application, Product & Service, Software Craftsmanship, Ruby on Rails,...

zdennis — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:05:37 -0000

Thanks Mitch. I realize I had some bad markup in my post, at the bottom of the post you can find the full chart-resizing.js file we wrote, in case it is helpful.

Re: http://www.continuousthinking.com/2006/05/20/live-at-last.html

zdennis — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 01:04:51 -0000

test comment

Re: Twiddle Wakka

zdennis — Fri, 27 May 2011 10:28:45 -0000

My favorite name for this operator is one that Chris Rittersdorf said a while ago... the tildemator. More appropriate (and less to confuse when OH) inl situations besides the spermy operator and it just rolls off the tongue!

Re: VIM is the Worst Text Editor Ever! ...sometimes. : Mutually Human Software : Custom Software Strategy and Design, Mobile, Web Application, Product & Service, Software Craftsmanship, Ruby on Rails, ...

zdennis — Fri, 06 May 2011 10:51:36 -0000

I love that Moses brought down tablets of the editors from the mountain.

Re: Eight Bit Humans : Mutually Human Software : Custom Software Strategy and Design, Mobile, Web Application, Product & Service, Software Craftsmanship, Ruby on Rails, Grand Rapids, Michigan

zdennis — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 14:35:22 -0000

Apparently I have very little feet or not feet at all, depending on how you look at it.