L'etat, c'est moi
Mere Complexities sells the consulting and development services of me, Paul Wilson.
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Web apps on the desktop
First Joyent’s Slingshot puts Rails on the desktop. Now we get DjangoKit (via Gruber / Daring Fireball). I’m sceptical: I’m thinking special adapter kits for using hammers as screwdrivers.
Edgy Rails Circular Silliness
I’ve been using Rails Edge on a project for no particular reason. Today I did an svn update and things stopped working.
A secret is required to generate an integrity hash for cookie session data. Use config.action_controller.session = { :secret => “some secret phrase” } in config/environment.rb
No problem – I followed those instructions and added the option to config/environment.rb. Then I got another problem.
ArgumentError (`name’ required):
/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/cgi_ext/cookie_performance_fix.rb:44:in `initialize’
/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/session/cookie_store.rb:129:in `write_cookie’
All I could find was this post. The resolution was to update everything, create a new project, and copy code in. I couldn’t be bothered with this, so I unfroze and went to gem rails (1.2.2). Now neither Mongrel or Webrick will start.
/opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-1.2.2/lib/initializer.rb:328:in `send’: undefined method `session=’ for ActionController::Base:Class (NoMethodError)
Aaargh! I googled for the exception and found nothing. Eventually I check out initializer.rb and realise what’s happening. From config/environment.rb I remove
config.action_controller.session = { :secret => “some secret phrase” }
Problem gone.
Lessons? When I give up on one way of fixing a problem, completely back out of that fix before trying another.
String === “hello” => true
My first OO language was Eiffel – taught on my MSc conversion course. It is so statically typed that it squeaks. I also remember it described as a Reduced Instruction Set Language: for instance, there was only one loop construct.
Ruby ain’t Eiffel; it’s a lot more fun, though.
Jings, crivvens!
There’s a Scots Language Wikipedia. Help me Boab!!
BTW, in case you’ve ever wondered about the Scottish Parliament, “ye are walcome tae visit the Pairlament tae hae a keek roon or find oot aboot whit wey the Pairlament warks”.