Points of Interest

• Following a recipe from Dan Chak‘s Enterprise
  Rails, we came across code following this
  pattern:

  class Thing
    def foo
      def bar(args)
        # some code
      end
      # some code that calls bar()
    end
  end
  

  The structure of this code suggests that bar is scoped only within
  the context of foo. But alas, that is not the case. Ruby simply
  defines Thing#bar the first time foo is called, analogous to
  define_method :bar. Misleading syntax, for sure.

• Ryan Davis‘s Flay is awesome. If you’re not
  familiar with it, Flay parses your Ruby and compares subtrees with
  each other to find where code has been duplicated (or nearly so).
  Run on a codebase of over 20,000 lines of Ruby, Flay was able to
  quickly indicate places where we had duplicate code lying around, as
  well as many likely targets for refactoring work. We’ve found it to
  be helpful in keeping code DRY.

• This looks interesting: MagicPrefs gives you gestures
  for your Magic Mouse (Yes, Pivotal NYC has Magic Mice, as well as
  27″ iMacs. Apply today!).

• In Snow Leopard, mapping CapsLock => Ctrl when two keyboards are
  plugged in is problematic. You can do it by plugging in one keyboard
  at a time and mapping each one individually. If anyone knows the
  story behind why this is, or how to deal more easily, please comment!

• Another interesting link: Open Frameworks is a
  “creative coding” toolkit (like Processing) that’s
  implemented in C++. Why ask why?

• Another lesson learned the hard way: starting up a bunch of leopard
  machines at the same time wreaks havoc on the network for a few
  minutes. Packet storm, dropped packets, etc. Is Bonjour to blame?
  Inquiring minds want to know.

• If you’re trying to stub a subclass of ActionMailer::Base with
  Double Ruby (also known as RR), and you’re having issues, try
  stubbing the method on ActionMailer::Base directly. There’s some
  weirdness there with method_missing in Rails 2.3.

Help Wanted

• Does anyone know how to make command-1 through command-9 switch
  tabs inside of Term.app? By default, these keys are bound to
  switching windows, and we’d love to be able to do this on tabs
  instead.

• Rails’s select_tag(..., :multiple => true) option doesn’t properly
  set selected on the generated options. This appears to be a boog,
  and anyone who’s interested in helping a Pivot write a patch, please
  comment below!