Action Hack: features research on github

During Action Hack I did a quick scan of GitHub.

Was looking for ideas for laying out and grouping features. I looked at 20 projects that had features folders.

Almost all of them just had a flat structure. Simply features files named for groups of features.

The one exception had sub directories that grouped the feature files by release.

Would be interested in hearing how people layout their features.

Gnoll110

Ruby: Cloud Crowd

This post is only a heads up. Seen Cloud Crowd talked about. Looks interesting, but not used it myself yet.

Gnoll110

Ruby: Playing with Colour

Had an idea for a new twitter background.

I wrote it in ruby, using the rmagick API wrapper for ImageMagick.

Pretty straight forward:

• make a big black background,


• create a lot of random coloured squares and write the colour on them while you're at it,


• write to jpeg file

Here's the code.

require 'rubygems'
require 'RMagick' 
include Magick

buffer = Magick::Image.new(1700,1040) { self.background_color = "#000000" }

x = 10
y = 10
tone = [ '0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', 
         '8', '9', 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F' ]

srand 1234
1118.times do
  puts '* '+x.to_s+' '+y.to_s
  red = rand(16)
  green = rand(16)
  blue = rand(16)
  ligthness = red+green+blue
  co = '#'+tone[red]+tone[green]+tone[blue]
  patchObj = Magick::Draw.new
  patchObj.fill = co
  patchObj.polygon(x,y,x,y+30,x+30,y+30,x+30,y)
  patchObj.matte(3,3,PaintMethod::ReplaceMethod)
  patchObj.draw(buffer)
  textObj = Magick::Draw.new
  textObj.font = './fonts/Ghoul.ttf'
  textObj.pointsize=12
  if ligthness > 25 || green > 11 
    textObj.fill = '#000'
  else
    textObj.fill = '#fff'
  end
  textObj.text(x, y+12, co)
  textObj.draw(buffer)
  x = x+40
  if x > 1690
    x = 10
    y = y+40
  end
end 

buffer.display
buffer.write("random_colour.jpg")

exit

Enjoy.

#ToDo: use a resource pool so don't have the cost of creating over 2K Draw objects.

BarCamp Brisbane

I came, I saw, I had fun.

Lots of great talkfest on tech, culture & business.

Should have posted this almost two weeks ago.

BarCamp Brisbane III was in East Brisbane on the 18 July. Well worth the trip. It's part on BarCamp Queensland (yes, there is a BarCamp Gold Coast).

Gnoll110

Git & Capistrano

Last month I got my first Vertial Private Server (VPS) at slicehost.

Got it setup. Used Git & Capistrano for the first time, Happy with Both.

Found a good into tutorial for them, that I can't find atm Doh!

Will post links when I do.

Cheers,

Gnoll110

Update: Found it, it's called 'the building of jetrecord episode 3 git capistrano and a test release'.

Whole Series:
the tabula rasa of doom
tell me a story
git capistrano and a test release
cucumbers and webrats

CSS background images & Rails

Setting a CSS background image in Rails have one quirk, when using a relative url, the base directory is not the base directory of the project. It's the directory where the stylesheet CSS file lives. So the correct relative url is this;

#wrapper1 {
background: url(../images/background.gif) repeat left top;
}

when the image & stylesheet live in the usual places.

Gnoll110

Symfony: rails-ish PHP?

A friend has asked me to help on a site he wants to develop. It's in a PHP environment. This is not a language I've worked in before. A chance to learn.

Looking around I've come across what look like a rails like framework called Symfony. Not used it yet.

I have a project directory structure like rails and is based in the Model View Controller (MVC) pattern.

Should be interesting. Anyone got any comments?


Gnoll110