mindful iterations

In keeping with my 2 post a week goal, here is a post.  It may not be the post to end all posts, but it's a post nonetheless.

Today we took one of our cats to get a haircut.  She's a long haired cat who often gets mats in her fur.  This is the end result:

She is a bit groggy in this picture, but that's because of the stuff they used to sedate her.  I was looking it up on the Internet, and apparently it's like PCP.  So, I'm guessing it was probably really surreal for her to be walking around.

Aside from that, we also spent a lot of time with family today.

In the land of technology, I've been doing a lot of reading of code these days.  I'm actually quite enjoying the process and it seems that the more I'm reading, the more I'm digesting, and the more my mind is understanding what's being done, as well as thinking of other ways something could be done.  That growth is quite exciting.

I definitely miss coding in Ruby.  There is a certain ease that comes with coding in the language.  Yes, perl is a great language, and one that I'm growing to enjoy.  I also want to dabble a bit in Python and expand my knowledge base even further.

I've also put together a list of things that I want to focus on.  It's a mix of my 'weak points' as well as some things I'm just plain interested in.  I'll be hammering away at things one at a time.  (If I can... my attention span certainly wants to jump around quite a bit!)

I can't believe that I've been programming full-time for 8 1/2 months.  It's still a passion and something I really enjoy doing.

In any case, I'm going to sign off now.  I am also thinking that a 'regular' posting schedule might be a good idea.  I definitely benefit from structure.

This week I've gotten back into writing, er maintaining, code that is written in perl.  I've worked exclusively on Ruby and Rails projects for the last several months, never touching anything written in perl.  I have to say - I never realized just how much Rails does for you and just how logical some of those conventions are. 

I am excited about getting back into another language.  I feel like I'm going to be learning perl all over again, though.  This time with a bit of a different lens on my view.  Ruby is a very elegant language in a lot of ways.  Because I dabbled in Ruby on and off for a while before getting into it seriously, I feel as though it was really easy for me to get things done.

With Perl, I feel as though I'm walking on eggshells.  Perhaps that's normal.  Afterall, I don't know if I've even really touched anything in perl since last year.  So, I've decided that I'm going to go through some of the exercises in my Learning Perl book, and get my feet wet again.

Being that I'm uncomfortable with the change, it tells me that it's probably a good one. 

I just wanted to say.  I like ruby-debug.  It made today a lot easier.

So, my salute for the day goes to you, ruby-debug.  You make me happy. 

Who's paranoid?  Me?  Never... Are you saying I'm paranoid?  What makes you think I'm paranoid?  Am I doing something to make you think I'm paranoid... Maybe you're paranoid... er...

Okay, so I'm not necessarily paranoid (or am I?) but, I have been dealing with an application that is.  How is my application paranoid?  It uses the Rails plugin, acts_as_paranoid. In dealing with this application, the need has come along to undelete some of the deleted data.  The beauty of acts_as_paranoid is that when you utilize the plugin in a Rails application, your data isn't really deleted.  In each table, you add a nice little column with the name of deleted_at, and when you delete something, rather than destroying the record, it puts a timestamp in that field on whatever row you deleted.  It also follows the chain of relationships.

After reading up on the plugin and spending days wading around code, I learned that acts_as_paranoid also overrides the Find methods in ActiveRecord.  The one feature that I really wish it did have, however, was a restore or undelete feature.  Perhaps I'm utilizing it wrong - there's a great chance that is the case, however, given the number of has many relationships I have going on in my database, I'm really struggling with undeleting things.

In the meantime, I've been looking at other plugins such as acts_as_trashable, acts_as_restorable, and a plugin that deals with scope.  Some of the other plugins serialize and move data to another table, but I'm not completely comfortable with the idea of moving data.  What happens if something happens in the midst of that move?  It just makes me a little uneasy.  Call me a control freak.  I won't be offended. 

So, I've got to contemplate how I want to deal with the conundrum on my hands.  I have the need to show all records, and be able to undelete records that are deleted.

If any of you who read this blog happen to have this type of experience with Ruby on Rails and the acts_as_paranoid plugin, I'd love your comments.

And with that, I am off... more coding, more fun.

I was looking back and reading an older post that I wrote just a little over 9 months ago. In the post, I wax half poetic, half dramatic, about hitting the proverbial Wall of Dumbfoundedness.

To those who don't feel like reading the post, the story goes a little something like this:

I was starting on a Rails project after messing around with a few tutorials. I made a 20-some column table (normalization? who needs normalization?) to hold all of my 'stuff'. I wasn't sure how to populate the table. I wondered if I should have made more tables to hold my data.

So, moving on to today, which is 9 months and 2 weeks later, I can say to myself, "Of course you should have created more tables." Of course, sometimes there can be a use for a 20 column table (I'd imagine) but when you're dealing with data the way I intended on dealing with data, putting all of it into one table isn't the way to go. I would've had massive amounts of duplicate data. Which makes me wonder, "How many times can I use the word data in one paragraph?"

In any case, it's a good feeling to look back on yourself and see that you've grown. Today I was working with some Ruby code trying to figure something out. Something that would've taken me days to figure out a few weeks or a couple of months ago only took me a few hours to figure out. Again, it's just a great feeling.

Hopefully at some point I"ll be able to write more interesting posts regarding little things I find in Ruby, Rails, or Perl. All I can say to myself at this juncture is: "20 columns? 20 columns?"

What a long strange trip it's been. (ok, so nine months ain't all that long. Unless you're a pregnant woman, in which case, nine months is probably one hell of a long time.)

Going back to my last post – I finally settled on using Test::Unit. I already had my code written, but my test code ended up being twice, yes, twice as long as my actual code.

I got a lot of help with logic from reading parts of Intermediate Perl. After looking back over the last few months of the journey that has been learning perl, I’ve realized that some ‘grokking’ really comes with experience and doing. After coding for a couple of months, I can happily say that the book makes a lot more sense to me now than it did back in September.

Switching Gears

Currently, I’m focusing on Ruby on Rails. With that endeavor, I’m also looking at the concepts that go along with writing test code before and during the coding process. Whether it’s TDD (Test Driven Development) or not, I’m not quite sure, however, after my first experience with testing taking place after I had written the code, it’s definitely an adjustment to attempt writing tests before writing code. That and the syntax, while similar, is a bit different, so I need to get my head wrapped around that.

Luckily I’m quite familiar with pure Ruby and Rails. Perl was a completely new animal aside from editing a couple of pre-made scripts throughout the year.

So, at this point in time, I’m focused on the following:

1. learning about writing unit tests before writing code.
2. getting a greater understanding of the testing syntax in ruby.
3. something not mentioned in the prior paragraph(s) – learning how much validation I need to put in my rails models.

Oh, and one more thing before I catch up on some reading – I watched a screencast put out by RailsEnvy. The screencast was a tutorial on Active Record/ActiveRecord. It helped immensely.

Earlier today I was missing Gentoo. I miss my unstable platform. I miss breaking my system. sigh But, I guess I really don’t. I spend less time now messing around with emerge and recompiling my kernel, blah blah blah.

Hell, I haven’t recompiled my kernel since I started using Ubuntu.

This evening I booted up the LiveCD of Sabayon Linux, which is a Gentoo based system. It was nice. I ran emerge—sync at the command line just for old times sake.

Then, I went back into the nice smooth riding car that is Ubuntu.

What can I say – I guess I felt like with Gentoo I was living in the scary big city and now I’m living in the mild mannered suburbs.

I guess it’s time to break my system or find some new and exciting stuff again. :)

Ah, the joys of being fickle and ADD.

Earlier today I was missing Gentoo. I miss my unstable platform. I miss breaking my system. sigh But, I guess I really don’t. I spend less time now messing around with emerge and recompiling my kernel, blah blah blah.

Hell, I haven’t recompiled my kernel since I started using Ubuntu.

This evening I booted up the LiveCD of Sabayon Linux, which is a Gentoo based system. It was nice. I ran emerge—sync at the command line just for old times sake.

Then, I went back into the nice smooth riding car that is Ubuntu.

What can I say – I guess I felt like with Gentoo I was living in the scary big city and now I’m living in the mild mannered suburbs.

I guess it’s time to break my system or find some new and exciting stuff again. :)

Ah, the joys of being fickle and ADD.

Earlier today I was missing Gentoo. I miss my unstable platform. I miss breaking my system. sigh But, I guess I really don’t. I spend less time now messing around with emerge and recompiling my kernel, blah blah blah.

Hell, I haven’t recompiled my kernel since I started using Ubuntu.

This evening I booted up the LiveCD of Sabayon Linux, which is a Gentoo based system. It was nice. I ran emerge—sync at the command line just for old times sake.

Then, I went back into the nice smooth riding car that is Ubuntu.

What can I say – I guess I felt like with Gentoo I was living in the scary big city and now I’m living in the mild mannered suburbs.

I guess it’s time to break my system or find some new and exciting stuff again. :)

Ah, the joys of being fickle and ADD.

Earlier today I was missing Gentoo. I miss my unstable platform. I miss breaking my system. sigh But, I guess I really don’t. I spend less time now messing around with emerge and recompiling my kernel, blah blah blah.

Hell, I haven’t recompiled my kernel since I started using Ubuntu.

This evening I booted up the LiveCD of Sabayon Linux, which is a Gentoo based system. It was nice. I ran emerge—sync at the command line just for old times sake.

Then, I went back into the nice smooth riding car that is Ubuntu.

What can I say – I guess I felt like with Gentoo I was living in the scary big city and now I’m living in the mild mannered suburbs.

I guess it’s time to break my system or find some new and exciting stuff again. :)

Ah, the joys of being fickle and ADD.

All better. Just removed kubuntu-desktop and reinstalled kubuntu-desktop and voila – things seem to be good in the hood again. :)

All better. Just removed kubuntu-desktop and reinstalled kubuntu-desktop and voila – things seem to be good in the hood again. :)

All better. Just removed kubuntu-desktop and reinstalled kubuntu-desktop and voila – things seem to be good in the hood again. :)

All better. Just removed kubuntu-desktop and reinstalled kubuntu-desktop and voila – things seem to be good in the hood again. :)

So, maybe being impulsive isn’t such a good thing.

The upgrade from Feisty Fawn to Gutsy Gibbon was anything but smooth. By 1am last night/this morning, I decided it was time to go to bed.

It failed several times. After each time the upgrade failed, I had to run apt-get -f install. It would process crap and then I had to run apt-get dist-upgrade. Rinse and Repeat. Several times. Too many times.

While I’m able to boot into my system, it doesn’t seem to be the reliable car that it once was. It’s more like a jalopy that looks like it used to, but doesn’t quite run like it should.

Yes, I know that these are the perils of running Beta.

I’m downloading the CD release of Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon beta and once I’m done, I’ll re-upgrade.

Good times.

So, maybe being impulsive isn’t such a good thing.

The upgrade from Feisty Fawn to Gutsy Gibbon was anything but smooth. By 1am last night/this morning, I decided it was time to go to bed.

It failed several times. After each time the upgrade failed, I had to run apt-get -f install. It would process crap and then I had to run apt-get dist-upgrade. Rinse and Repeat. Several times. Too many times.

While I’m able to boot into my system, it doesn’t seem to be the reliable car that it once was. It’s more like a jalopy that looks like it used to, but doesn’t quite run like it should.

Yes, I know that these are the perils of running Beta.

I’m downloading the CD release of Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon beta and once I’m done, I’ll re-upgrade.

Good times.

So, maybe being impulsive isn’t such a good thing.

The upgrade from Feisty Fawn to Gutsy Gibbon was anything but smooth. By 1am last night/this morning, I decided it was time to go to bed.

It failed several times. After each time the upgrade failed, I had to run apt-get -f install. It would process crap and then I had to run apt-get dist-upgrade. Rinse and Repeat. Several times. Too many times.

While I’m able to boot into my system, it doesn’t seem to be the reliable car that it once was. It’s more like a jalopy that looks like it used to, but doesn’t quite run like it should.

Yes, I know that these are the perils of running Beta.

I’m downloading the CD release of Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon beta and once I’m done, I’ll re-upgrade.

Good times.

So, maybe being impulsive isn’t such a good thing.

The upgrade from Feisty Fawn to Gutsy Gibbon was anything but smooth. By 1am last night/this morning, I decided it was time to go to bed.

It failed several times. After each time the upgrade failed, I had to run apt-get -f install. It would process crap and then I had to run apt-get dist-upgrade. Rinse and Repeat. Several times. Too many times.

While I’m able to boot into my system, it doesn’t seem to be the reliable car that it once was. It’s more like a jalopy that looks like it used to, but doesn’t quite run like it should.

Yes, I know that these are the perils of running Beta.

I’m downloading the CD release of Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon beta and once I’m done, I’ll re-upgrade.

Good times.

So, I’m impulsive. I’m okay with that. (I say that now.)

I was just reading about upgrading to Gutsy Gibbon when I decided, “Hey, why not?” Yes, I know it is in beta and will be out very shortly. But, I decided to upgrade it now.

Maybe it’s just the part of me that misses running Gentoo, living on the edge with unstable packages. I’ve been running Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu (depending on the day) for a while now and it was a refreshing change from Gentoo.

In any case, the time that elapsed between the idea coming into my head of, “Hey, why not?” and editing my /etc/apt/sources.list file, replacing each occurrence of feisty with gutsy was less than 60 seconds. Hence the, “So, I’m impulsive,” observation that opened this post.

A quick sudo apt-get update followed by a sudo apt-get dist-upgrade and voila – I may end up with a broken system before the weekend is through.

Assuming that all goes well, I’ll be spending a great deal of my weekend working in Perl. Hopefully I’ll be working with Perl in Gutsy. Either way, I’ll post how it went after the upgrade is through.

And, in closing, I’d just like to say, “I <3 Linux."

So, I’m impulsive. I’m okay with that. (I say that now.)

I was just reading about upgrading to Gutsy Gibbon when I decided, “Hey, why not?” Yes, I know it is in beta and will be out very shortly. But, I decided to upgrade it now.

Maybe it’s just the part of me that misses running Gentoo, living on the edge with unstable packages. I’ve been running Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu (depending on the day) for a while now and it was a refreshing change from Gentoo.

In any case, the time that elapsed between the idea coming into my head of, “Hey, why not?” and editing my /etc/apt/sources.list file, replacing each occurrence of feisty with gutsy was less than 60 seconds. Hence the, “So, I’m impulsive,” observation that opened this post.

A quick sudo apt-get update followed by a sudo apt-get dist-upgrade and voila – I may end up with a broken system before the weekend is through.

Assuming that all goes well, I’ll be spending a great deal of my weekend working in Perl. Hopefully I’ll be working with Perl in Gutsy. Either way, I’ll post how it went after the upgrade is through.

And, in closing, I’d just like to say, “I <3 Linux."

So, I’m impulsive. I’m okay with that. (I say that now.)

I was just reading about upgrading to Gutsy Gibbon when I decided, “Hey, why not?” Yes, I know it is in beta and will be out very shortly. But, I decided to upgrade it now.

Maybe it’s just the part of me that misses running Gentoo, living on the edge with unstable packages. I’ve been running Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu (depending on the day) for a while now and it was a refreshing change from Gentoo.

In any case, the time that elapsed between the idea coming into my head of, “Hey, why not?” and editing my /etc/apt/sources.list file, replacing each occurrence of feisty with gutsy was less than 60 seconds. Hence the, “So, I’m impulsive,” observation that opened this post.

A quick sudo apt-get update followed by a sudo apt-get dist-upgrade and voila – I may end up with a broken system before the weekend is through.

Assuming that all goes well, I’ll be spending a great deal of my weekend working in Perl. Hopefully I’ll be working with Perl in Gutsy. Either way, I’ll post how it went after the upgrade is through.

And, in closing, I’d just like to say, “I <3 Linux."

So, I’m impulsive. I’m okay with that. (I say that now.)

I was just reading about upgrading to Gutsy Gibbon when I decided, “Hey, why not?” Yes, I know it is in beta and will be out very shortly. But, I decided to upgrade it now.

Maybe it’s just the part of me that misses running Gentoo, living on the edge with unstable packages. I’ve been running Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu (depending on the day) for a while now and it was a refreshing change from Gentoo.

In any case, the time that elapsed between the idea coming into my head of, “Hey, why not?” and editing my /etc/apt/sources.list file, replacing each occurrence of feisty with gutsy was less than 60 seconds. Hence the, “So, I’m impulsive,” observation that opened this post.

A quick sudo apt-get update followed by a sudo apt-get dist-upgrade and voila – I may end up with a broken system before the weekend is through.

Assuming that all goes well, I’ll be spending a great deal of my weekend working in Perl. Hopefully I’ll be working with Perl in Gutsy. Either way, I’ll post how it went after the upgrade is through.

And, in closing, I’d just like to say, “I <3 Linux."

This evening, as I was mindlessly navigating the Internet, I vaguely remembered Google Desktop becoming available for the Linux Desktop. Now, while I can’t quite recall when I first read this, I do know that it wasn’t more than a week or two ago.

As I continued to mindlessly surf the Internet, I decided to install the application. Now, there is a part of me that is concerned with privacy implications, however, after installing, I went and prevented indexing of my documents.

I was hoping that I’d get access to the nifty gadgets that I had when I ran Google Desktop on my Windows install. No such luck. I figured that since I was mindlessly navigating the Internet anyway, I might as well do a search for “google desktop linux” on Google. Here’s where it gets funny, people. (At least I think so.)

Result #5 was the Google Desktop for Linux product page. Result #6 was one from Google Desktop for Windows Help Center, which states:

“Google Desktop isn’t currently available for Linux. We realize that a lot of our users would like us to offer a Linux version, and we may consider this option in the future.”

I have to admit. It just made me giggle. I had just finished installing Google Desktop for Linux on my Kubuntu/Ubuntu system!

Hopefully the ability to add content to the desktop like you can in Windows will soon surface. I know I have options like SuperKaramba and other stuff, but I really liked some of the gadgets available from Google.

So, we’ll see. I’m not sure what use I’ll have for the Google Desktop until there’s sidebar functionality.

This evening, as I was mindlessly navigating the Internet, I vaguely remembered Google Desktop becoming available for the Linux Desktop. Now, while I can’t quite recall when I first read this, I do know that it wasn’t more than a week or two ago.

As I continued to mindlessly surf the Internet, I decided to install the application. Now, there is a part of me that is concerned with privacy implications, however, after installing, I went and prevented indexing of my documents.

I was hoping that I’d get access to the nifty gadgets that I had when I ran Google Desktop on my Windows install. No such luck. I figured that since I was mindlessly navigating the Internet anyway, I might as well do a search for “google desktop linux” on Google. Here’s where it gets funny, people. (At least I think so.)

Result #5 was the Google Desktop for Linux product page. Result #6 was one from Google Desktop for Windows Help Center, which states:

“Google Desktop isn’t currently available for Linux. We realize that a lot of our users would like us to offer a Linux version, and we may consider this option in the future.”

I have to admit. It just made me giggle. I had just finished installing Google Desktop for Linux on my Kubuntu/Ubuntu system!

Hopefully the ability to add content to the desktop like you can in Windows will soon surface. I know I have options like SuperKaramba and other stuff, but I really liked some of the gadgets available from Google.

So, we’ll see. I’m not sure what use I’ll have for the Google Desktop until there’s sidebar functionality.

This evening, as I was mindlessly navigating the Internet, I vaguely remembered Google Desktop becoming available for the Linux Desktop. Now, while I can’t quite recall when I first read this, I do know that it wasn’t more than a week or two ago.

As I continued to mindlessly surf the Internet, I decided to install the application. Now, there is a part of me that is concerned with privacy implications, however, after installing, I went and prevented indexing of my documents.

I was hoping that I’d get access to the nifty gadgets that I had when I ran Google Desktop on my Windows install. No such luck. I figured that since I was mindlessly navigating the Internet anyway, I might as well do a search for “google desktop linux” on Google. Here’s where it gets funny, people. (At least I think so.)

Result #5 was the Google Desktop for Linux product page. Result #6 was one from Google Desktop for Windows Help Center, which states:

“Google Desktop isn’t currently available for Linux. We realize that a lot of our users would like us to offer a Linux version, and we may consider this option in the future.”

I have to admit. It just made me giggle. I had just finished installing Google Desktop for Linux on my Kubuntu/Ubuntu system!

Hopefully the ability to add content to the desktop like you can in Windows will soon surface. I know I have options like SuperKaramba and other stuff, but I really liked some of the gadgets available from Google.

So, we’ll see. I’m not sure what use I’ll have for the Google Desktop until there’s sidebar functionality.