Posts on Life Beyond Rails

Docker Compose All The Things

Sat, 04 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

After getting the GPD Win Max 2 and using it as my everyday machine bothe for work and for personal use, I’ve started enforcing the philosophy of not installing any project dependencies locally, and instead leverage containerization technology (mostly via docker). I’ve talked about this in a previous post and you can probably think of this post as an improvement on top of that.

I’ve been successfully using this following pattern both for work projects as well as personal ones, and I thought I’d like to share them.

Get Workflow Data From CircleCI

Tue, 20 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I needed to analyze some data regarding the costs of my client’s current CI system, and CircleCI’s insights dashboard–while itself is impressive–isn’t quite up to task.

Sometimes you just need the plain old “spreadsheet analysis technique” to make progress.

Here’s a quick ruby script I’ve written to get data from all the workflows for a particular project, and write them down into a csv for easy importation into a spreadsheet program.

Installing MySQL client 5.7 in Ubuntu Focal 20.04

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 20:37:56 +0800

TLDR;

download the client from https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/
install dependencies

sudo apt install libaio1 libtinfo5

install the client

sudo dpkg -i mysql-community-client_5.7.30-1ubuntu18.04_amd64.deb

check the client version

$ mysql --version
mysql Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.7.30, for Linux (x86_64) using EditLine wrapper

Advantages of Using Docker Compose in Your Projects

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s that time of the year again when I get a larger drive, refresh my operating system, and back up important files.

Ever since I’ve settled on having my home folder always be on a separated drive, it’s been really easy to change operating systems, and even moving to a different (more powerful) computer isn’t as much of a chore. If I need to upgrade storage capacity, I just copy everything in my home folder onto the new drive (either by imaging or rsync) and then make sure that when I setup the new OS, that new drive is mounted in /home.

One thing that’s been really convenient for me is the ability to even move database data along with my home folder. This has been largely because I’ve been using docker (and docker-compose) more and more on my projects.

The Art of Tracking

Tue, 04 Sep 2018 15:22:18 +0800

When a Pixel isn’t a Pixel

Presented at the KL Ruby Brigade.

Slack Bots in Ruby

Tue, 07 Aug 2018 15:27:40 +0800

What I learned while building a slack bot in ruby.

Presented at the KL Ruby Brigade.

Vue on Rails

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 09:16:23 +0800

A gentle introduction to modern client-side web frameworks for Rails developers.

Presented at the KL Ruby Brigade.

Setup Braintree with Rails

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 09:16:23 +0800

Braintree has just recently released v3 of their Javascript SDK offering a lot of improvements. Searching online for tutorials on how to integrate Braintree with Rails tend to show older articles, so I decided to write an updated one :)

Life Beyond Rails: Building Cross Platform Applications

Sat, 13 Aug 2016 15:00:00 +0800

This is the talk I presented during the first Ruby Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It’s not a word-for-word transcription, but this is mostly the same material I wrote to prepare for the talk.

The secret to creating cross platform apps is something you already know, but probably not doing.

Featured Pattern: Rescue, Log, Rethrow

Fri, 15 Jul 2016 15:16:02 +0800

Whenever you use a method that you know might throw an exception but shouldn’t, the rescue-log-rethrow pattern is useful to figure out what happened while preserving the contracts implied in the code.

TDD and the Scientific Method

Thu, 02 Jun 2016 16:57:36 +0300

TDD’s mantra is the following: Red, Green, Refactor. In other words: write a failing test, write code to make the test fast, and then make the code better (having the test as a safety net).

Featured Refactoring: Extract Method

Mon, 25 Apr 2016 13:55:34 +0800

I work with really awesome people who do really amazing work. I came upon this commit recently while I was reviewing a pull request, and I thought I’d share them with you.

Note that some of the information on the diff presented here has been redacted or removed, due to it being proprietary. But the full idea of the refactoring is present.

A Strange Case of Inheritance Behavior

Thu, 14 Apr 2016 20:27:59 +0800

While working some code to work with the Zuora SOAP API, I got bit by a strange case of inheritance behavior. It would seem that this is related to what self is bound to during the execution of the statement. Here it is, distilled to its essentials:

2016 04 08 Linklog

Fri, 08 Apr 2016 11:44:28 +0800

Here’s this week’s linklog:

Producing Documentation for your Rails API
The Making of an Expert
Apprenticeship Patterns
So Good They Can’t Ignore You
Architecture: the Lost Years

Javascript Training at Mindvalley Day 2

Fri, 18 Mar 2016 15:54:40 +0800

We’ve commissioned Dekatku to train some developers here at Mindvalley on Javascript, and it’s been a great experience so far! Today is Day 2 of the the training and we’ve covered some really deep topics.

I’ve started wearing my whitebelt again and I thought I’ll put up my thoughts and notes here for future reference.

String Interpolation with Templates Using String#

Fri, 05 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I was working on a feature for upcloudify that will use Slack notifications instead of email notifications. One of the challenges I faced was how to build-in flexibility for generating messages. I would want that the user be able to provide their own custom notification message, but at the same time be able to provide placeholders for items like the S3 download link.

Opalbox—Run Ruby Code Inside Pages

Sun, 03 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Opal is a Ruby to JavaScript compiler, and OpalBox is a jQuery plugin to easily create a textarea that can take ruby code and allow it to run.

I just added OpalBox to this blog and it’s been quite interesting. I’ve learned how to resize a textarea based on its content (you need javascript to do that because CSS just doesn’t cut it) and I’ve added in a shortcode.

update:

Angelmmiguel (the author of opalbox) has just released 0.1.0 that fixes the issue :)

Exploring Query Objects

Fri, 18 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A CodeClimate Article gave a number of ways to decompose fat ActiveRecord models, and one of them was: Extract Query Objects. I’ve been trying to explore and get myself familiar with a good standard of how to implement Query Objects, and here is my take.

I’ll be trying out a new format in these articles. I’ll be using something of a Q/A style similar to Socratic Questioning

Using Hash Fetch

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I fat-finger my code a lot and produce a lot of typos. I do test driven development so it’s not as bad, but what’s annoying is when I typo a hash key and the test blows up with a failure due to a nil – resulting in a very confusing error message.

ActiveRecord and Forty Two

Sun, 06 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I was making a gem to have Google Spreadsheets as the backing store for an ActiveRecord adapter when I came upon this interesting method:

Safely Passing Ruby Code in a Rake Task

Fri, 04 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to make a rake task that would accept something like 1.month or 1.day as one of it’s arguments. The immediate tool I reached for was eval and it worked like a charm. However, Code Climate (the tool we use to check for static analysis) complains about eval and understandably so; the use of eval is a practice full of danger and security vulnerabilities.

I’m using it inside a rake task that is never exposed to third parties, and anyone malicious enough to run the rake task with a bad parameter to be eval’d would already have had access to the system anyway, and able to wreak even greater havoc than by running the malicious code through the rake task. I believe this is an accepted risk scenario, and Crystal (one of my colleagues who was reviewing my code) suggested that since I had a valid point, I can just turn off the Code Climate check for this particular instance.

I thought that was justified, but I also thought it was a slippery slope. I’m sure there are ways to pass in a string and have it dynamically interpreted, without having to expose the system to a security vulnerability.

Evaluating Hackerrank for Tech Hiring

Thu, 03 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

We were looking at Hackerrank to see if they can help us with alleviating some of the interview and review load on our senior developers.

Ruby Development in Windows Revisited

Sat, 07 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Some time ago I wrote about how I set up my machine so I can program hassle-free in ruby while running Windows. It was more of a reminder to myself than anything, if I ever needed to set things up the same way again.

Fast forward to 2015. When a colleague saw my workstation and realized I was running Windows, he was quite surprised and asked me how I was doing it. I thought of pointing him to my old blog post, but I felt that:

It was outdated (the setup described was from 2012, written in 2014)
It was incomplete (it’s just a checklist of what I’ve installed)

I’ve improved on the whole setup since, and I thought it’s time to share the whole updated setup so that anyone else interested can benefit.

Codility - PermMissingElem

Fri, 30 Oct 2015 04:16:00 -0800

https://codility.com/programmers/task/perm_missing_elem

Codility - FrogJmp

Fri, 30 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

https://codility.com/programmers/task/frog_jmp

Codility - TapeEquilibrium

Fri, 30 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

https://codility.com/programmers/task/tape_equilibrium

Using Dependency Injection and yield to Refactor a Legacy App

Wed, 28 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I had to create an automated report for finance and accounting that will send particular columns and their data in a csv once a month.

Being the lazy developer that I am, I tried looking for code that already existed. I was planning to wrap up that code in a rake task and use whenever to schedule a cron job to send the report monthly.

While I was able to find pre-existing code that did what finance wanted (I checked with them as well if the output showed what they needed), the code itself wasn’t easily convertible to a rake task.

Have Rails.logger Output Sent to the Console (surprise, created_at field is protected from mass-assignment)

Tue, 29 Sep 2015 23:14:07 -0700

While working on a feature, I was wondering why my test is returning 0 records when I’m quite sure the query was written properly (it’s just a very simple query regarding date range).

Moving Hosts From Github Pages to Amazon S3

Sat, 26 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve decided to simplify the deployment process and instead host the blog at S3.

Preparing for a Hackathon: Choosing Your Platform

Sat, 27 Jun 2015 13:57:41 +0800

One of the best things you can do during your hackathon presentation is to have your hack available on a publicly accessible platform. You can definitely just host your app in your local machine for the demo, but it is more powerful and impressive if you can involve everyone else in a room and get them to play with your hack during your demo.

Preparing for a Hackathon

Fri, 26 Jun 2015 11:46:04 +0800

I once posted an answer to one of my friend’s question: Guys, how to win hackathon and I thought I should expand more about this.

The Tick-Tock Innovation Model Applied to Agile Methodology

Mon, 15 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

You’ve probably heard of the tick-tock model that Intel is using.

It’s a model where every 18 months, there’s a new focus on the chip architecture: the tick is a shrinking of the chip (which requires retrofitting their manufacturing process to support the smaller size) and the tock is an upgrade of the architecture itself, using the current manufacturing process.

Setting Up and Automating my Hugo Blog Deployment to Github Pages

Sun, 14 Dec 2014 07:16:31 -0800

Update

This is largely obsolete. I have setup a new process to deploy to Amazon S3 amd I recommend it over Github Pages.

I’m currently moving my blog posts (and collecting all my blog entries from various blogging platforms) and putting them into Hugo. In case you’re wondering how I’ve set mine up, here’s a guide of what I’ve done.

Redoing my Blogs

Fri, 12 Dec 2014 12:25:29 -0800

Yet again I’ve ported my blog into yet another blogging platform - Hugo. I feel so strongly that I’d be staying for quite some time on this platform that I’ve been porting over all my other posts in all my other various blogs over here.

It’s quite an interesting blogging platform. It outputs static files, which means hosting options are very cheap with a wide variety of providers.

How I Hire Developers

Tue, 04 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I was invited to pressent at the KL Ruby Brigade and I thought I shuld mix things around by talking about something not very technical but still very much relevant to the audience.

Since I’m in charge (but saying “in-charge” is a bit of a misnomer since in Mindvalley we don’t really have predefined job descriptions) of the internship program for new tech hires, I figures I should share some of the things I consider when interviewing and hiring people.

Getting Data From a Join Table in Rails

Tue, 19 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

A friend asked in my Ruby Facebook group about a problem he was having that I feel I’ve encountered before (or will be encountering in the future). It’s about having to retrieve data that is associated with a join table.

Here’s the question:

I have set ActiveRecords models like these

I want to do something like current_user.boards.first.role which I expect to load the membership details of current_user AND the first board. Do you have any idea how can I achieve this? Do you suggest another approach?

Setup and Configuration of my Machines

Sun, 03 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Work In Progress

I’m still in the middle of writing this article, and I probably will be always updating this.

I’ve just recently (re)installed Linux on my Acer V5 122p. Had to fiddle around with UEFI settings thinking to preserve my Windows 8.1 partition, but eventually I had to bite the bullet. I wiped the whole partition clean and turned off UEFI so my installation would be a lot simpler.

API Documentation with Grape and Swagger

Sun, 01 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

TL;DR Use Swagger and Grape to create self-documenting APIs that automatically update themselves from metadata in the code. It also provides an API explorer to play around with.

During the AngelHack KL event, I (being the backend developer of the team) had to create an API to facilitate communication between the iPhone app and Twilio. Since it was a hackathon, there was not a lot of time to completely hash out API protocols (as well as explaining to my team mates how RESTful APIs work).

I was able to solve this by using Grape and Swagger. I can develop the API at my own time. When a particular endpoint was finished, I can push to production and my team mate is immediately able to see the documentation. He was also able to make use of the API explorer to test out the API’s responses to his queries.

We were able to quickly develop the whole project quickly and easily because of this, and here’s a quick look at using Swagger with Grape.

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule

Tue, 01 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Paul Graham’s (of YCombinator fame) essay on the difference between the Maker’s Schedule and the Manager’s Schedule is a timeless piece of advice that is sadly not as well known as it should be. The essay provides an interesting, if not logical reason behind why programmer’s skip meetings called by managers, while managers often tend to interrupt programmers.

Here are some of the important points in his essay:

Ruby Development in Windows

Sun, 09 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve done the unthinkable and I have a confession to make.

I’ve switched my development machines to Windows.

Here’s the story of my heresy … and my possible salvation.

Ruby and Blocks

Tue, 04 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

One of the most often used and ironically least understood concepts in the Ruby programming language is the block. If you’ve used one of the Enumerable mixed-in objects, you’ve encountered the block syntax.

Install ruby-2.0.0-p195 on Ubuntu 12.04

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

It’s always easier to deal with a ruby binary that’s installed server-wide rather than a local user installation (done via rvm or rbenv). Server initialization scripts don’t need to do path magic and profile sourcing in order to find the correct binary. Here I how to install ruby-2.0.0-p195 in a way that your system administrator will love you for.

Rolling Restarts with Capistrano and Linode

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Here I show how to perform a rolling restart using Capistrano, and making sure that the load balancer (in this case Linode) properly reroutes traffic to the still-running servers while the others are being restarted.

WARNING I’m still ironing out a few bugs for the rolling deployments. The issue appears to be that Capistrano executes deploy:create_symlink in parallel so the apps still experience downtime before the restart happens. The concept itself is sound but the code is not yet production ready!!

Running PrivatePub/Faye Standalone in Heroku for Free

Sat, 25 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

PrivatePub is an awesome gem by the renowned Ryan Bates of Railscast fame. It provides an easy way to use Faye as a pubsub provider. Watch this episode to see it in action.

You don’t have to bundle the gem with a Rails application though; you can deploy PrivatePub standalone as a rack application in Heroku. This allows you to run PrivatePub in a web dyno instead of a worker, allowing for easier maintenance (separation of repositories/codebases) and as a side effect, save on hosting costs.

My Development Setup

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

At Mindvalley employees can have any kind of hardware/software they want, provided that they can prove it is necessary for the work they’re doing, or at least it increases their productivity. In my case, I opted for the setup as seen here (picture courtesy of my colleague):

View this post on Instagram

@parasquid's #workstation #mindvalley

A post shared by Wu Han Ngeow (@ngeow) on Jan 17, 2012 at 2:18am PST

Look, Ma! Four eyes!!

(the blank monitor on the left was an Ubuntu VM on screensaver mode)

Having Fun With Remote Shells

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I just bought a VPS (virtual private server) a couple of days ago, and I’m enjoying tinkering with it. It’s not the most powerful beast though; it only has 64MB RAM and 128MB swap. I won’t say the name of the company I’m subscribed to since my box isn’t exactly the bastion of security, but you should be able to discern the shell provider from how I describe my escapades :D

Recommended Programs

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

While mucking around my computer and generally getting bored, I found a few neat programs to install. They’re really cool, and your Linux computer shouldn’t be without them :)

Firefox AdBlocker - blocks ads from websites. Definitely heaven sent, as browsing becomes faster without all those ads being loaded (the extension dynamically modifies the page to comment out the ads, so they don’t get rendered). You can get to choose which ones to block too. Get the AdBlocker and teach those popup advertisers a lesson.
Yakuake - cool konsole for KDE. Anyone who had played quake before would recognize the interface. No need to reserve a space for the taskbar entry in the main panel. Plus, a terminal emulator is just one keypress away :)
kde WorldClock - nice way to impress your friends by showing you are a “Citizen of the World.” Set this as your desktop background and you’ll immediately know if it’s day or night in a particular region of the Earth.

Reinstalling Kubuntu

Sun, 19 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

My data drive had some corruption as regards its file system tree, and i was forced to rebuild it. I figured I’ll just reinstall Kubuntu too since I inadverdently installed Ubuntu Desktop, which kinda doubled the applications I have on the menu.

Here are some of the things I did in order to remind myself in case my system crashes again:

Make a dos partition writable - the options in fstab for the partition should be: user,exec,rw,umask=000 0 0
Get Automatix and install some of the necessary non-free software
Install packages used for compiling source code: sudo apt-get install build-essential

I’ll add to the list as I walk through the rebuilding of my settings.