Better Know A Ruby Thing Bonus: Contestants and Nesting
Sorry for skipping a week or two -- I was approving copyedits on the book that is now called Programming Ruby 3.3, because we now want to be proactive about...
Better Know A Ruby Thing #2: Constants
A fun thing about learning Ruby is that sometimes concepts that have the same name as in other languages have different behavior and purpose in Ruby. Today:...
Better Know A Ruby Thing #1: method_missing
Welcome to "Better Know A Ruby Thing". In each one of these, we're going to look at some feature of Ruby language, library, ecosystem, or culture and explain...
Introducing The Dynamic Rubyist
Hi. If you have no idea why you are receiving this email, it's because at some time in the past you signed up for Noel Rappin's email newsletter. Surprise!...
Hi, All, It's a Pickaxe Q&A
I haven't sent out a newsletter in 2022 -- about 10% of people subscribed to this newsletter have never seen an actual newsletter in their mailbox. That...
Redundancy, Terseness, and Code
Most human communication, text or written, is wordier and more redundant than it needs to be, strictly speaking. That previous sentence, for example, would...
TypeScript and jsbundling and Rails 7
This is a quick bit of service journalism about one thing that seemed less than obvious about converting the code in Modern Front-End Development For Rails...
Bell Curves and Developer Teams
Jessica Kerr wrote a very interesting post on bell curves and engineering teams. Jessica’s point is that bell curves are for random distributions, and that...
Another Refactoring Story: ActiveRecord Lists
I’ve now tried to write this post like three times, and one thing that’s clear to me again is why you don’t see more write-ups of even moderately complicated...
A quick note about this newsletter
Just a quick note that will only be of interest to those of you that are paying for subscriptions. I'm removing the paid option for this newsletter, and...
More Ruby Magic
Hey, if you like this post, you might like my recent books: “Modern Front-End Development for Rails” (Ebook) (Amazon) and “Modern CSS With Tailwind” (Ebook)...
Rails 7 and JavaScript
Or: Rails and JavaScript, Part 5 A quick program note: If you like this newsletter, you might like my recent books: "Modern Front-End Development for Rails"...
Refactoring, Part Two: In Defense of Magic
A quick program note: If you like this newsletter, you might like my recent books: "Modern Front-End Development for Rails" (Ebook) (Amazon) and "Modern CSS...
An Object-Oriented Example
If you've been reading this newsletter for a while, you've may have noticed there are two patterns I talk about all the time: We're doing something because...
Databases and Validation and Uncertainty
A long time ago, I studied research on what makes successful engineering teams. (Not programmers, other engineering fields). I don’t remember a lot of it,...
Testing Strategies
Previously on Locally Sourced: I wrote about building a small feature in Hotwire. Also, I have two, count 'em, two, books for sale. Modern Front End...
Simple Things Should Be Simple
Previously on Locally Sourced: The Tailwind book is out. Buy it in ebook or at Amazon. Modern Front-End Development For Rails is in final layout and headed...
Entropy Essays 8: Why Entropy?
Previously on Locally Sourced: About a year ago, I started this newsletter with a bunch of posts that I originally called XP 2020 and later called Entropy...
# Take Home Interview Code
After writing about one kind of contrived sample code, I want to write about a different kind: the kind that is part of an interview process. A disclaimer...
Hotwire And React And Ecosystems
Previously on Locally Sourced: I said this one would be about interview code, which it isn't. Next time. Meantime, the live home of this newsletter is...