Ever since I started working with Ruby I have been using RSpec to test my apps and gems without giving minitest much thought. Recently I started a new non-Rails project and decided to give Minitest a try just for the fun of it. Migrating from one tool to another was refreshingly fun due to the … »

When we start programming with Ruby, one of the first niceties we learn about are the Ruby blocks. In the beginning it’s easy to get tricked by the two existing forms of blocks and when to use each: %w(a b c).each { |char| puts char } %w(a b c).each do |char| puts char end The … »

Swift has been recently announced by Apple and I have been reading the docs and playing with the language out of curiority. I was pleasantly surprised with many features in the language, like the handling of optional values (and types) and with immutability being promoted throughout the language. The language also feels extensible. For extensibility, … »

Rails 4.1 was just released this week and I already had a great experience trying out the release candidates on my latest project, so I decided to write a bit about my favorites features on this release and some things I have learned by using them so far. 1) secrets.yml Placing your configuration in a … »

Rafael França shows how Plataformatec manages the development setup using Boxen, a tool created on top of puppet to automate machine setups.

Today I want to show you a project I’ve started over a year ago, during Mendicant University core skills course. For those who don’t know, Mendicant University is a group of skilled software developers that offer courses, mentoring, and help out the community, started by Gregory Brown, and that nowadays counts with some other awesome … »