So I just watched the “5 minute video” by Iron Designer for .NET

Very sexy. Very very sexy.

As an MSDN subscriber (thanks to my corporate sponsors employers) and MCP (SQL Designer test or something, I’ve forgotten), this is very enticing…

AND .NET has failed me in several situations where I was trying to do something “outside the box”.

How does Ruby on Rails compare to this ?

Well the 10 minute video is almost a religious experience to many. AND Ruby and Rails DOES NOT fail us in situations where we wish to go “outside the box” in order to accomplish something.

That is all

Jim’s article demonstrates this :
Don’t say CRUD say FUC’D.

I Love It!

rcov 0.5.0.1: code coverage for Ruby released by Mauricio Fernandez contains all that is needed to produce code-coverage reporting in Rails.

Requirements

Ruby 1.8.4 (especially on Win32 requires updated libraries.)
Rails 1.1.2

Classes

There is only one file to add to your current rails app: lib/tasks/coverage.rake

require 'rcov/rcovtask'

namespace :test do
  Rcov::RcovTask.new do |t|
    t.libs << “test”
    t.test_files = FileList['test/unit/*.rb', 'test/functional/*.rb']
    t.output_dir = 'test/coverage'
    t.verbose = true
  end
end

Rake -T

Here’s the new tasks with rake -T :

(in C:/radrailsworkspace/pimki/trunk)
[... snip standard tasks ...]
rake test:clobber_rcov         # Remove rcov products for rcov
rake test:rcov                 # Analyze code coverage with tests
[...]

The default taskname for the RcovTask instance is ‘rcov’. Rcov automatically creates the ‘clobber_’ task that is basically a rm_rf on the RcovTask#output_dir.

Cover it

Run rake test:rcov and see how much of your code is really tested!!

Report Coverage

The end of your rake run will contain a pretty-print text report of the rcov. Also, you can navigate to ./test/coverage/index.html to see the graphic report. See the docs for more info.

When testing out a complex website, replicating the |open|/selenium/setup?fixtures=x| line would be painful!

So, Add a const at the beginning of the setup_controller in Selenium Plugin at
./vendor/plugins/selenium_on_rails/lib/controllers/selenium_controller.rb:

MY_FIXTURES = “table_a, table_b, table_c”

Also alter #setup as so :

def setup
    unless params.has_key? :keep_session
      reset_session
      @session_wiped = true
    end
    if params[:fixtures] == “all“
      fixtures = PM_FIXTURES
    end
    fixtures ||= params[:fixtures].to_s
    @loaded_fixtures = load_fixtures fixtures
    render :file => view_path('setup.rhtml'), :layout => layout_path
  end

New lines are 6-9, and the change on 10 from referencing params[] to the local var fixtures.

Then, use this in the selenese script :

|open|/selenium/setup?fixtures=all|

Isn’t that beautiful!??

Now I don’t have to endure copy-paste-age-break hell on my fixtures configuration.

Ahhh, Ruby is so nice!

The Strategy Pattern really resolves to “composition” in practice. This OO technique says to take components that could change at runtime and encapsulate them in their own objects. The master-object is then “composed” of instances of the dependent clasess.

Example:

class Duck
  def fly
    puts ‘Flap Flap’
  end

  def quack
    puts ‘Quack!’
  end
end

d = <span class="constant">Duck.new
d.flap
d.quack

Produces:

Flap Flap
Quack!

So now handle the en-user request to have ducks with different flap :

class FlapWings
  def fly
    puts ‘Flap Flap’
  end
end

class FlapSoaring
  def fly
    puts ‘Soaring in the wind’
  end
end

class Duck
  def initialize (flapInstance)
    @flapDelegate = flapInstance
  end
  def changeFlap(flapInstance)
    @flapDelegate = flapInstance
  end
  def fly
    @flapDelegate.fly
  end

  def quack
    puts ‘Quack!’
  end
end

mallard = Duck.new(FlapWings.new)
mallard.fly
mallard.quack
mallard.changeFlap(FlapSoaring.new)
mallard.fly

Now produces :

Flap Flap
Quack!
Soaring in the wind

This example looks trivial. The technique is powerful. Behold that in Java/C#, this requires a lot of effort including Inheritance and Interfaces.

Nice that Ruby allows this run-time change through duck-typing!!

Here’s how to use AJAX from the onchange event of the SELECT element :

I used an extra ERB step in my view in order to reduce chaos being created by double quotes. This example actually triggers two AJAX calls on the event to update different targets (two cascaded SELECTs).

 :model_select,
                    :url => { :action => :ajax_list_model_select },
                    :with=> " 'project_id='+value") + ";" +
                 remote_function(:update => :category_select,
                    :url => { :action => :ajax_list_category_select },
                    :with=> " 'project_id='+value")
                 %>

 onchange_ajax } ) %>

The result has the SELECT element with onchange=”new Ajax.Updater…”

Joy!