Archives

Explore My Annals

• 2026-04-08 →
  Fixtures on Purpose: Fixtures as Documentation

  The one where an unplanned side effect turns out to be the whole point.
• 2026-04-07 →
  Fixtures on Purpose: The Rule of Four

  The one where four is the magic number for tolerating duplicated test setup.
• 2026-04-06 →
  Fixtures on Purpose: Mining Production for Personas

  The one where production data tells you what your fixture personas should be.
• 2026-04-03 →
  Fixtures on Purpose: Telling Stories With Data

  The one where fixture files start reading like the setup chapter of a novel.
• 2026-04-01 →
  Fixtures on Purpose: Fixture Personas

  The one where UX design from 1999 solves the fixture archetype problem.
• 2026-03-30 →
  Fixtures on Purpose: The Combinatorial Trap

  The one where I do the math on why you can't create a fixture for every possible state.
• 2026-03-30 →
  Fixtures on Purpose: From Accident to Artifact

  The one where I realize nobody, including me, was designing their test data.
• 2019-06-18 →
  New minitest-rails releases (5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 6.0.0.rc1)

  The one where I finally release new minitest-rails versions.
• 2015-04-17 →
  Writing Games with Ruby

  The one where you make a game with Ruby.
• 2015-03-30 →
  Stupid Ruby Tricks

  The one where I throw down on puns.
• 2014-02-20 →
  Jim Weirich: My Mentor

  The one where my heart is broken from the loss of a friend.
• 2013-07-08 →
  Adding Minitest Spec in Rails 4

  The one where I show how easy it is to add the Minitest spec DSL to a Rails 4 application, without using minitest-rails.
• 2013-05-29 →
  Minitest & Rails: Total BFFs

  The one where I shame myself and my family by exposing my obsession with Minitest and Rails and My Little Pony.
• 2013-03-18 →
  minitest-rails: Roadmap to 1.0

  The one about getting minitest-rails ready for prime time.
• 2013-02-07 →
  Refactoring towards "better" code

  The one about code quality, Discourse, ruby drama, and redemption.
• 2013-01-24 →
  How to write a conference proposal

  The one where I explain why I still like you even thought I didn't accept your conference proposal.
• 2012-09-19 →
  Escape to RubyConf!

  The one where I talk about wrote a game nobody ever heard about.
• 2012-07-12 →
  Where to Put Tests in Rails

  The one where I argue that Rails places its tests wrong and propose minitest-rails as a solution.
• 2012-07-10 →
  Announcing minitest-rails

  The one that announces minitest-rails, a library that enables you to test your Rails 3 apps using minitest.
• 2012-06-13 →
  Presenters and Decorators: A Code Tour

  The one where I share my thoughts and slides about my presentation at RailsConf.
• 2012-03-01 →
  Outgrowing the Cloud

  The one where I share my thoughts and slides about my presentation at Ruby on Ales 2012.
• 2011-05-16 →
  Rubiverse Podcast Lives!

  Where I explain that Rubiverse isn't dead, its just been sleeping for more than two years.
• 2008-03-30 →
  Binary Lottery 2008

  **Watch** as I demonstrate the Binary Lottery! **Feel** the excitement from MountainWest RubyConf 2008!
• 2008-03-29 →
  Ruby Folk Are Nice

  Just one little example of how MINASWAN is alive and well in the Ruby community.
• 2008-03-10 →
  IronRuby + C# = Awesomeness

  Slides and code from a presentation I gave about a fantastical future where we didn't use a computer language just because a giant corporation told us to.
• 2008-02-14 →
  The Blizzard of 2008

  My family almost died. It was scary. I took pictures.
• 2008-01-06 →
  What I Do

  I participate in a silly meme that ran through some tech blogs in 2008. Ugh.
• 2008-01-03 →
  A brief history of Ruby on .NET

  Hard to believe I thought Ruby would ever really succeed on .NET.
• 2007-12-19 →
  The Failure of Static Languages

  A point-by-point rebuttal of criticism I received for thinking static languages don't work.
• 2007-12-18 →
  The Rubification of C#

  The beginning of the end for me and the .NET community. I try to be fair and even-handed, but nobody cares about that when they think you are slaughtering their sacred cows.
• 2007-10-20 →
  Why the kids don't like the RSS

  The one where I attempt to impress Michael Coté by ranting on the internet being the way it is.
• 2007-10-18 →
  Getting RubyGems to play nice at work

  I am so impressed with myself for hacking RubyGems that I announce it to the world.
• 2007-10-10 →
  Ruby Blue Visual Studio Theme

  Ruby Blue is a great theme. If you absolutely have to Visual Studio and are unable to kill yourself, this will make it slightly less painful.
• 2007-10-10 →
  Will we ever get IronRuby on Rails?

  I slowly start to realize that Microsoft isn't that interested in helping developers use Ruby on Rails.
• 2007-10-08 →
  ALT.NET Conf: Day 3

  Luke Melia and I do a Rails coding demo to mixed results. I decide ALT.NET is something worthwhile.
• 2007-10-07 →
  ALT.NET Conf: Day 2

  I convinced some people to look at Ruby, and then ScottGu ruins everything with ASP.NET MVC.
• 2007-10-06 →
  ALT.NET Conf: Day 1

  I met a lot of great people at the first ALT.NET Conference.
• 2006-06-25 →
  RailsConf 2006: Day 1

  A wrap-up of my first day at the inaugural RailsConf. Apparently I was too busy to write about the other days.
• 2006-06-22 →
  Ruby.NET Beta Announced

  Do you remember how excited you were when you first heard about Ruby.NET? No? Well, it was awesome.
• 2006-06-16 →
  Polymorphic Podcast on Object Thinking

  I wasn't on the Polymorphic Podcast, but I did provide some questions to be asked. Yay me.
• 2006-04-28 →
  Agile Databases

  TL;DR If you are using an integration database you suck and there is no hope for you.
• 2006-04-27 →
  Ruby and Thought Leadership

  Did you know that Ruby had a certain amount of thought leadership in 2006? This impressed me at the time.
• 2006-03-21 →
  Boise Code Camp Wrap-up

  A short summary of the presentations I gave there.
• 2006-02-17 →
  Ruby Thinking

  The one where I am frustrated by other developers not getting why Ruby is so awesome.
• 2006-01-27 →
  Boise Ruby Brigade

  I started a Ruby User Group in Boise, Idaho.
• 2005-10-08 →
  Who killed Web 2.0?

  The one where I lose all hope for the future and rant about it.
• 2005-09-30 →
  Book Review: Agile Web Development with Rails

  Wow, do you remember the first edition of this book? Seems so simple and quaint.
• 2005-09-20 →
  Book Review: Object Thinking

  Have you read 'Object Thinking'? No? Then put the internet down and read it now.
• 2005-08-31 →
  Installing Typo on Shared Hosting

  I ran Typo for a while. Seems like needless complexity now, but at the time it was so hawt!
• 2005-08-20 →
  Installing Rails on Shared Hosting

  Obligatory post where you show how to install Rails. Who didn't do one of these?
• 2005-07-08 →
  Extending Rublog with ERb

  This is where I attempt to prove my serious Rublog chops.
• 2005-06-24 →
  Installing Rublog on Shared Hosting

  Oh man, back in the day Rublog was all the rage.
• 2005-06-10 →
  Installing eRuby on Shared Hosting

  eRuby was an early attempt at getting web responses from Ruby.
• 2005-05-28 →
  Installing Ruby on Shared Hosting

  I attempt to show that installing Ruby on shared hosting doesn't have to suck. I think I failed.