Ask for Help

*”ActiveRecord has three methods to determine the number of records: #count, #length, and #size. Which one should we use when?”

As a general rule, always use #size. It checks to see if the recordset has been loaded and if so returns the number of records. Otherwise it hits the database with a count query. The #count method will query the database every time when it’s called on an ActiveRecord scope. The #length method is proxied through to the array of the result set, so every time you call that all the records are pulled from the DB and instantiated.

*”We’re using pow in development and it’s pretty good except sometimes we see 12 second delays in serving assets. Has anyone else encountered this?”

Quite mysterious. Perhaps updating to the Pow 4.0 beta release might help.

Interesting Things

• Is WebOS dead? This question can be answered at iswebosdeadyet.com. Enyo, the UIKit and data-management layer used in HP’s WebOS, is now available for other webkit browsers. It works with PhoneGap and applications based on Enyo are already in the pipeline for iOS and Android.

• Webrick when used in development with the Rails Asset Pipeline appears to truncate large CSS files. The general consensus was “Don’t use Webrick” with shoutouts given to unicorn, mongrel, passenger(standalone) and pow.