Radiant Theory

I have been working with Ruby on Rails in my free time for a while now and even though Java has been good to me I have been on the lookout for a great Rails position for a while. Luckily the day is here. I have accepted a software engineering position at Getty Images working with Rails. I can’t tell you how excited I am by this job. I will finally have the opportunity to work with Rails during my day job and really master it. Ever since I start learning Rails, Java has just lost it luster. It’s just so tedious to compile and deploy and wait for the server to start. Where Ruby on Rails has greatly improved over the frameworks, development tools, and servers in Java’s domain. Needless to say I am looking forward to starting my new job June 1st.

Most of my job has revolved around web services the last 4 years. I’ve used a variety of SOAP stacks, such as CXF, JBoss WS, and Axis 2. Recently I’ve had the opportunity to work with Spring-WS 2.0. I’ve used Spring-WS 1.5 previously and enjoyed the simplicity of the framework. Spring-WS 2.0 adds some really nice features without sacrificing that simplicity.

• Java 5+ Support – this addition is especially noticeable with the use of generics in the template classes, although it does make Spring-WS dependent on Spring 3 now.
• Improved the @Endpoint Configuration – one cool part of this improvement is that you can now configure the inputs using one type of binding and the outputs with a different one. For example, I was able to have an XPath binding for the request and a custom marshaller for the response.
• Integration Testing Module – adds classes for testing services using @Endpoint and service clients using WebServiceTemplate.

Also added was support for Spring Security 3.0 and using Jabber (XMPP) as a transport protocol.

So far my experience with the framework has been fairly positive. I had to submit a couple of bug fixes in the RC releases but I’ve had no problems with the GA release.

In May I created a base project, called Devise_Base, to help people get started using Devise on Rails 3. It was configured to use Devise, 960gs, HAML, and SASS. After using it on a couple of projects, however, I have found myself often relearn the configuration and the intricacies of Devise anyway. Every time I would start a new project I would forget some detail that I would have to dig into and figure out. It seemed Devise_Base wasn’t as beneficial the second time around.

Each time I used Devise_Base it felt like I was a new developer on a preexisting project. Just a little out of touch with the state of the code base. If I ran into a problem it wasn’t always obvious what the problem was since Devise_Base’s configuration wasn’t fresh in my mind. Combine that with the fact that Devise_Base wasn’t self contained either. It was just a configuration of other plugins any of which could be updated at anytime. This would often be the trigger for my troubles. I would update Devise or HAML and some part of the configuration would no longer function quite right. The last time I used Devise_Base as soon as I fixed one bug another one would crop up. After almost 2 hours I started a new Rails 3 project adding Devise, HAML, and SASS to the project one at a time. After each addition I would test to make sure everything was working as expected. I was up and running after only about 20 or 30 minutes. It also helped that adding them individually allowed me to use short, iterative feedback cycles. In conclusion, I have ceased work on Devise_Base and have removed it from my GitHub repository.

Besides Devise_Bases itself, I also have started avoiding Rails authentication frameworks in general for simple projects. While Devise or Authlogic are helpful, the truth is it really isn’t that hard to write authentication into a project yourself. A couple of views, some before filters, and a session variable and your good to go. The best part about writing it yourself is knowing firsthand how it works. Plus it avoids another plugin dependency. Admittedly, though, for a complex project I would still lean towards using Devise or Authlogic since they have already been put through their paces.

Started working for a new contract firm in Madison this month called Beacon Technologies. Since my old firm was absorbed recently I thought it was time to look around a bit. Beside better benefits, the company appears to provide more of a growth plan for its contractors and is seems to have a solid plan for growing the company. I like the idea that they want to be more than just another contractor body shop in town.

I have update Devise_Base so it works with Rails beta 4. Devise_Base is located at http://github.com/swanjr/devise_base.
After downloading or updating your copy of Devise_Base make sure to run gem update bundler to update Bundler.
Once Bundler is updated, run bundle install to install the new gem versions.
Afterward, you may want to run gem clean to clean up old gem versions on your computer.
You can run cucumber -P to make sure your cucumber tests still work.

For the past few weeks I have been working on a starter project that uses Devise, HAML, SASS, and the 960 grid system for Rails 3. I have decided to release the project on Github at http://github.com/swanjr/devise_base for anyone who wants to use it.

Devise_Base uses most of the modules included in Devise. It has a single User model that uses an email address and password to authenticate. When I converted the Devise pages to HAML and SASS I used the 960 grid system style sheets to add a little more structure to the pages. I configured Devise with some pretty standard defaults which can be changed easily. I also added Cucumber tests for many of Devise’s flows to make sure everything worked as expected. Devise_base projects can use these tests as the beginning of their BDD test suite. RSpec is also integrated into the project for unit testing. See the Github repository for more details.

I hope people find it useful. Please feel free ask questions or suggest further improvements for Devise_Base.

This last week has been interesting. The consulting company I work for, QWANtify, has merged with Safe Bridge Solutions in Madison. They are more of a PM, BA type consulting company with a small number of developers where we are mostly developers and architects. The combination should result in a nicely rounded software consulting company. I’m looking forward to the added benefit of working for a bigger consulting company. I have changed the QWANtify navigation link to Safe Bridge if you would like to check out their website.