Basics of stderr and stdout on Ruby scripts Oct 23 2018

In our scripts, we present information to our users via the two standard output streams: standard output and standard error. In this post, I’ll explain why it is useful to distinguish between standard output and standard error, and share tips on how to interact with the streams when our script’s output is being redirected or used on a non-interactive shell.

The first part is the basics if you already know the basics you can skip to the last section to see an interesting example on how to take advantage of the streams.

Exit codes for Ruby scripts Oct 15 2018

One of the most common mistakes I see in ruby scripts is the lack of good exit status, this prevents the script from being trusted in composition with other commands. The purpose of this post is to explain why exit codes are important and how to use them on our scripts.

Bash Beyond Basics Increase your efficiency and understanding of the shell

If you are interested in this topic you might enjoy my course Bash Byond Basics. This course helps you level up your bash skills. This is not a course on shell-scripting, is a course on improving your efficiency by showing you the features of bash that are seldom discussed and often ignored.

Shell friendy Ruby scripts Sep 24 2018

When we build Ruby scripts, generally, we build them to be run independently but being able to compose them with other scripts makes them even better. How can we make our Ruby scripts be easy to compose? This is what this post is about, I will show you how to build your scripts so they can be composed or used independently.

Let’s see a basic Ruby script that receives a list of files and displays all lines capitalized.

Ruby one-liner scripts Sep 17 2018

Ruby excels in its simplicity. It allows programmers to go from idea to implementation in a short time without much overhead. While many programmers have only heard of Ruby in relation to the web framework Rails, the scripting side of Ruby is very interesting and a rewarding use of the language. In this post, I will show you how to use Ruby to build one-liner scripts, and I will explain some useful flags when using Ruby scripts to process text.

Using Thor and Ruby to build a CLI Sep 10 2018

Thor is a toolkit that can help us build command line interfaces(CLIs). You can find many tutorials on how to build a basic CLI using Thor. I want to explain the default behaviour of Thor and also when to use env to define the binary that will run your script.

We normally build custom scripts to automate tasks on our servers or local environments. Often these scripts require many flags or a big list of parameters. If the number of flags and parameters (from now on, options) are small then we won’t have a problem building the logic to handle them. However, when there are a number of options or we want to handle aliases, e.g. accepting the flag –delete or -d as the same operation, then things can become harder and more tedious to maintain.

Basic concepts on feature toggles, feature flags Aug 27 2018

There are simple concepts that can significantly improve our projects, one of these concepts is Feature Toggles. In this post, I will explain the basic idea behind Feature Toggles and a basic implementation example.

Feature toggles (aka, flags, flippers, bits), in simple terms, are a way to control the flow of our code and make decisions to run specific versions/implementations of it. What this means is better understood by an example, so let’s get to it.

Basic developer setup Aug 20 2018

I have always been fascinated by other professions that have physical workshops, imagine a room full of neat rows of tools, with everything at hand, just having everything on its own places makes you want to create and build new things with your tools. The same applies to software, we should have all of our tools clean and sorted, we should know where everything is and where to expect to find a piece of configuration we need to modify.

How to add RSpec to an existing Rails engine Aug 13 2018

Update 2018-08-27

I ran into a problem with Rails, it couldn’t find a database.yml, this was not because of a Rails missconfiguration but because of the binstub for rails had:

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APP_PATH = File.expand_path('../../test/dummy/config/application', __FILE__)

And well we change it to use rspec, so it should be:

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APP_PATH = File.expand_path('../../spec/dummy/config/application', __FILE__)

Adding RSpec to an existing Rails engine

If we already have a Rails engine and we wish to add RSpec to it, how would we go about it? The solution is not as straightforward as we might think, there are a few details always missing from tutorials or the guides, so I’ll try to share what I found and hopefully help someone that has the same issue.

Innovation in legacy projects Aug 6 2018

Let me start by stating that all code is legacy code, the difference is in how we perceive it, and like with everything else, is only a matter of perception. There is more focus on the “new” but working on something new is not the only path to innovation. I’ve heard people wanting to work on the edge of the field bringing new development and improvements to the industry. Well, here is the trick, innovation is not tied only to new projects, innovation and improvements can occur on already existing projects, the only limitation to innovation is how we approach each problem.

Find command for the million Jul 29 2018

One of the most useful Unix commands, and mostly underutilized, is find. To get the most out of it there are two key features that we need to explore and understand.

How to iterate over the results
Limitation on the number of results we can operate on

Learn by doing

Lets create a few files and directories to use as examples: