Blog Archive

Talk notes › Yes, you should provide a client library for your API! (RubyConf 2018)

On Nov 13, 2018, I spoke on "Yes, you should provide a client library for your API!" at RubyConf in Los Angeles, CA. The talk discussed the benefits of providing client libraries for HTTP-based APIs, and some techniques for writing them. Read More ›

Talk notes › Docker and OTP: Friends or Foes? (ElixirConf 2018)

On Sept 7, 2018, I spoke on "Docker and OTP: Friends or Foes?" at ElixirConf in Bellevue, WA. The talk discussed ideas for making OTP applications work together with container-based deployments. Read More ›

Talk notes › Containerizing Rails: Techniques, Pitfalls, and Best Practices (RailsConf 2018)

On April 18, 2018, I spoke on "Containerizing Rails: Techniques, Pitfalls, and Best Practices" at RailsConf in Pittsburgh, PA. The talk discussed best practices for designing Docker containers for Rails applications. Read More ›

Talk notes › Dispelling the Dark Magic: Inside a Ruby Debugger (RubyConf 2017)

On November 16, 2017, I spoke on "Dispelling the Dark Magic: Inside a Ruby Debugger" at RubyConf in New Orleans, LA. The talk demonstrated how to implement a simple debugger for Ruby applications, and covered some of the techniques used in the implementation of the Stackdriver Debugger for Ruby. Read More ›

Family Ties part 10: My type of language

This is the tenth of a series of articles on what I've learned about Erlang (and Elixir) from writing an Erlang-to-Elixir transpiler. This post covers records, the type system, and dialyzer support in both languages. Read More ›

Family Ties part 9: Curse of the Preprocessor

This is the ninth of a series of articles on what I've learned about Erlang (and Elixir) from writing an Erlang-to-Elixir transpiler. This post continues our coverage of the Erlang preprocessor, discussing how preprocessor features can be reproduced using Elixir. Read More ›

Family Ties part 8: Rise of the Preprocessor

This is the eighth of a series of articles on what I've learned about Erlang (and Elixir) from writing an Erlang-to-Elixir transpiler. This post covers the Erlang preprocessor, probably the most significant Erlang feature that is not supported by Elixir. Read More ›

Family Ties part 7: Lost and Found

This is the seventh of a series of articles on what I've learned about Erlang (and Elixir) from writing an Erlang-to-Elixir transpiler. This post studies some of the "missing features" found in Erlang but omitted from Elixir, and how they can be reproduced in Elixir. Read More ›

Family Ties part 6: Being On Guard

This is the sixth of a series of articles on what I've learned about Erlang (and Elixir) from writing an Erlang-to-Elixir transpiler. This post compares guard clauses in the two languages, and uncovers some features known by Erlang developers but often overlooked in Elixir. Read More ›

Family Ties part 5: Exceptionally Similar

This is the fifth of a series of articles on what I've learned about Erlang (and Elixir) from writing an Erlang-to-Elixir transpiler. This post covers exception handling in both languages and how they relate. Read More ›

Family Ties part 4: Scoping Out the Scene

This is the fourth of a series of articles on what I've learned about Erlang (and Elixir) from writing an Erlang-to-Elixir transpiler. This post discusses the differences in variable scoping in the two languages, comparing Elixir's caret operator with Erlang's single assignment, and exploring a few surprises in the scoping rules. Read More ›

Family Ties part 3: It's All In a Name

This is the third of a series of articles on what I've learned about Erlang (and Elixir) from writing an Erlang-to-Elixir transpiler. This post discusses the naming conventions of Erlang and Elixir and how that affects interoperability. Read More ›

Family Ties part 2: A Tale of Three ASTs

This is the second of a series of articles on what I've learned about Erlang (and Elixir) from writing an Erlang-to-Elixir transpiler. This post compares the Erlang and Elixir abstract syntax trees. Read More ›

Family Ties part 1: Comparing Erlang and Elixir

This is the first of a series of articles on what I've learned about Erlang (and Elixir) from writing an Erlang-to-Elixir transpiler. Read More ›

New Maintainer for RGeo

Today I'm naming Tee Parham as the new official maintainer of the GeoRails stack (rgeo, activerecord-postgis-adapter, and six other related gems). Read More ›

Talk notes › Humanity on Rails (RailsConf 2013)

On April 29, 2013, I gave a talk entitled "Humanity on Rails" at RailsConf in Portland, OR. The talk was a brief introduction to the philosophy of technology, targeted toward the Ruby and Rails developer community. Read More ›

Talk notes › Getting Down To Earth: Geospatial Analysis With Rails (RailsConf 2012)

In this post is a collection of useful material related to my RailsConf 2012 talk, entitled "Getting Down To Earth: Geospatial Analysis With Rails". You can download the slides for the talk, and I've provided links to all the software mentioned (as well as some that wasn't mentioned but that I think is useful or at least interesting). Finally, I've curated links to a bunch of articles, reference material, and other information for those interested in digging deeper into geospatial features. Read More ›

Geo-Rails Part 9: The PostGIS spatial_ref_sys Table and You

Part 9 of my series on geospatial application development using Ruby and Rails. Read More ›

Geo-Rails Part 8: ZCTA Lookup, A Worked Example

Part 8 of my series on geospatial application development using Ruby and Rails. Read More ›

Geo-Rails Part 7: Geometry vs. Geography, or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Projections

Part 7 of my series on geospatial application development using Ruby and Rails. Read More ›

Geo-Rails Part 6: Scaling Spatial Applications

Part 6 of my series on geospatial application development using Ruby and Rails. Read More ›

Geo-Rails Part 5: Spatial Data Formats

Part 5 of my series on geospatial application development using Ruby and Rails. Read More ›

Geo-Rails Part 4: Coordinate Systems and Projections

Part 4 of my series on geospatial application development using Ruby and Rails. Read More ›

Geo-Rails Part 3: Spatial Data Types with RGeo

Part 3 of my series on geospatial application development using Ruby and Rails. Read More ›

Geo-Rails Part 2: Setting Up a Geospatial Rails App

Part 2 of my series on geospatial application development using Ruby and Rails. Read More ›

Geo-Rails Part 1: A Call to Revolution

Part 1 of my series on geospatial application development using Ruby and Rails. Read More ›