As children we see the world with a sense of wonder that comes about from a sense of newness with the world. This month Brian Cardarella brought back that sense of wonder and excitement as he spoke to us about Dockyard’s gems, Ember.js and organizing Boston’s upcoming Ruby conference Wicked Good Ruby Conf.
Brian discussed the following gems:
- ClientSideValidations – Like the name suggests. Check Dockyard’s github page for the gems that they support.
- ValidAttribute – Validation matcher that easily plugs into your testing framework of choice.
- Capybara-Email: Dead simple way of testing your email.
- Postgres_ext – Adds support for missing PostgreSQL datatypes to ActiveRecord 3.2 and 4
- Dismissible Helpers – Renders a helper only if the website visitor hasn’t dismissed it.
- PartyFoul – Alternative to airbrake that allows you to use github to track your errors.
- ContextValidations – Context validations for rails.
Brian also gave an excellent talk on the history of Ember.js, the benefits of using it and how it is being used. For those considering using it, it was pointed out that Discourse is the current post child for Ember. Brian also provided some excellent resources for learning Ember such as the Ember guides as well as the EmberCasts and Ember101 screencasts for video learning. This only scratches the surface of the talk, everything from forms to json to hateos was discussed with a great quote from Yehuda thrown in there too. It is definitely worth watching.
Next month we have Aaron Patterson who is on both the Ruby and Rails core team and sure to amaze us.
The Picks
- Hamlbars – Extensions to HAML to allow the generation of Handlebars templates.
- Rules for developers – Sandi Metz’ rules for developers.
- Swipeless View – Extensions to HAML to allow the generation of Handlebars templates.
- Rules for developers – Android list view implementation.
- Coffeescript Regetto – Reg Braithwaite’s blog posts compiled into a book.
- Chemex Coffeemaker – Fantastic for home coffee making.
- Bower – Package manager.
- Adventure Time – Kids Cartoon free on Netflix.
- Magnetic Bottle Opener – Kickstarter project for an awesome bottle opener.
- Master Space and Time – Excellent javascript learning resource.
- Rails API – A more lightweight version of Rails for using as an API.
- Wicked Good Ruby Conf – Boston’s first ruby conference.
We also had our first Anti Pick this month.
Anti Picks
- Arrested Development Season 4 – Don’t watch it. Please.
Audio Now Available
We’ve had requests to make the hangout available in audio format for listening on your commutes to work and we’ve listened!