Notes on getting my M1 Rails + Foreman environment working

I expect this to evolve quickly and different things seem to be working for different people. In the meantime, hope to avoid a few rabbit holes for others.

1. rvm worked for ruby 3.0.0 but not 2.6.6 (which is what I needed). cflags workarounds made it so ruby could get installed but gems with native extensions like grpc could not compile correctly. Tried asdf before trying rbenv and it worked, so I stuck with asdf.
2. Had to prepend every brew installation (including brew itself) with arch -x86_64 brew install ....
3. After installing asdf, I installed bundler as usual. No arch -x86_64 or anything. Same for bundle install afterwards.
4. Foreman and rake tasks don't need arch -x86_64 either, as expected.
5. This DriftingRuby episode helped a lot.

I don't think the following were necessary but this is what I did because installing things with brew was getting hairy:

1. Use Postgres.app to keep PostgreSQL running in the background, deleted it from my Procfile. Naturally, I have to start Postgres manually before I start Foreman.
2. Downloaded ElasticSearch binaries and put the path in my Procfile. Essentially /Users/jose/dependencies/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-#.#.#/bin/elasticsearch

Cowork con Técnica Pomodoro

Con esta herramienta https://cuckoo.team/ y algún canal de conversación (zoom, meet, etc) podemos correr pomodoros para grupos de enfoque de trabajo. La idea es proponerse enfocarse de manera grupal. Y sentir el compromiso de lograr el foco con otras personas. En los recesos se convive y comparten experiencias. Es bastante agradable realizarlo.

Using Gem::Dependency class manually to ensure version matching

I needed to add a mechanism to ensure that some actions of a controller were available only for specific versions, and I thought it was super similar of what Gemfile does, so I started to look how to use Gem::Dependency to solve this, and turns out it was super easy:

class Controller
  def feeds_one
    check_for_version_support('>= 1.0', '< 3')

    render json: SomeData.all
  end

  def feeds_two
    check_for_version_support('= 1.0')

    render json: SomeData.all
  end

  def feeds_three
    check_for_version_support('>= 2.1')

    render json: SomeData.all
  end

  private

  def check_for_version_support(*specification)
    checker = Gem::Dependency.new(action_name, specification)

    return if checker.match?(action_name, params[:version])

    raise VersionNotSupported, "Version not upported"
  end
end

P.A.R.A. Method

P.A.R.A. stands for Projects — Areas — Resources — Archives

A Project is “a series of tasks linked to a goal, with a deadline.”

An Area of responsibility is “a sphere of activity with a standard to be maintained over time.”

A Resource is “a topic or theme of ongoing interest.”

Archives include “inactive items from the other three categories.”

This Method has captured my attention and has been an exceptional tool for assign our projects, tasks, and resources.

use bundle open gemname

You can take a peek at a locally installed gem's code very easily in ruby mine.
If you are using another IDE it would require a few extra steps:
First, set BUNDLER_EDITOR in ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc (or whatever shell you are using)
export BUNDLER_EDITOR="code"
(code to use VS code)
Then, simply run $ bundle open gemname and voilá! Look at whatever gem you want

A11Y

Today I learned that A11Y is an abbreviation for accessibility this word has eleven letters between A and Y.

Ruby 2.7 introduced numbered parameters for blocks

Since Ruby 2.7, it is possible to use numbered parameters in blocks additionally to named parameters.

This is an example of a block with named parameters:

my_array.each { |element| element.do_something }

And this is the same line with numbered parameters:

my_array.each { _1.do_something }

This works with multiple parameters too:

# named parameters
my_hash.each_pair { |key, value| puts "#{key}: #{value}" }

# numered parameters
my_hash.each_pair { puts "#{_1}: #{_2}" }

If you're having issues installing gems...

...try running rm -rf vendor/cache inside your app's root directory. Looks like sometimes cache can cause compilation issues while building gem extensions so getting rid of it fixes the issue. I can't guarantee this works 100% of the time, but it's worth giving a try if it can help you avoid a headache.

Browsers' IndexedDB are shared across domain

I was working on a major refactor for a PWA which basically changed the DB schema by reducing the amount of versions, nothing outstanding. BUT, I didn't change the DB name.

I was puzzled why whenever accessing the previous version I had to delete the data to have the app load correctly, then I realized that despite the PWA being located at different URL paths, both versions were using the same IndexedDB because of the same domain policy.

Using Upsert with Rails

Some DBMS support natively something that behaves like update or insert, Rails recently added the method Upsert that can take advantage of this method.

It is useful to update information that do not need to run validations, meaning, in a super performant way, here's an example:

# We usually do this:
activity = current_user.activity
if activity 
  activity.update(last_seen_at: Time.current)
else
  current_user.activity.create(last_seen_at: Time.current)
end

But if you see, it does not need to run any validation, it just needs to update last_seen_at if exists or create a new one, it performs two queries: one to instanciate the activity object and a second one that performs the real update/insert statement.

That can be replaced with the following code and it will perform just a single query and it will take care to either create the record or update an existing one

Activity.upsert({ last_seen_at: Time.current, user_id: current_user.id}, unique_by: :user_id)

To make this really work, considering you use Postgresql, you have to add a unique index on user_id and modify default value on created_at and updated_at in a migration like this:

query = <<-SQL
  ALTER TABLE #{Activity.table_name}
  ALTER COLUMN created_at SET DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  ALTER COLUMN updated_at SET DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
SQL
execute(query)

What is your car color?

Did you know that your car color can say a lot about how you want to be perceived by other people? Here is a list of some colors and their own meanings.

White: This color evokes freshness, cleanness, youth, and modernity.

Black: This is the most popular color in luxury vehicles. Black can be described as a sexy, powerful, and mysterious color.

Silver: This color is linked to a sense of innovation and modernity, that is why a lot of high tech products go for silver.

Red: This is a bold color, if your car is red this might mean you want to show an image of power, action, and confidence.

Blue: Blue is often described as the color of stability and safety. If your car is blue this might mean you are a trustworthy person.

Yellow: If you drive a yellow car might mean that you are a happy person or maybe a person who likes to take risks.

Gray: If you have a gray car this could mean you are a person who does not want to stand out, and prefers something a bit more ¨subtle¨ instead.

Better usage of Rails logger

Logging usefull data is a hard task, but there's one specific method that helps to improve the experience of logging actual useful information: tagged. It adds extra tags to the log message making it easy to debug:

Rails.logger.tagged('Super App') do
  Rails.logger.info('Log Message')
end

This will result in somethin like this:

[Super App] Log Message

If you can see, it prepends usefull information, you could add personalized data to trace logs, for example:

class ApplicationController << ActionController::Base
  around_action :add_logger_tags

  def add_logger_tags
    Rails.logger.tagged(logging_tags) do
      yield
    end
  end

  def logging_tags
    [
      "Request Id: #{request.id}",
      "Session Id: #{session.id}",
      current_user && "User id: #{current_user.id}"
    ]
end

And you will have super nice logs to read

Creating an infinite loop in Ruby

If you need to iterate over a collection that its size is unknown, you can create an infinite loops in ruby easily, but if you need an index, then there's this option:

(1..).each do |page|
  results = ExternalService.get('/endpoint', page: page)
  parsed = JSON.parse(response.body)
  break if parsed['data'].empty?

  process_data(parsed['data'])
end

How to use my local browser and get access to the server on Circle CI with port-forwarding

This helped me to debug a failing test, that was only happening on the CircleCI Server.

How to do it?

1. Go to Details Job Page on the Circle CI app and re-run the job as Rerun Job with SSH.

2. You should be able to find an additional step called Enable SSH, just expand it to see a command similar to this ssh -p 64625 ubuntu@54.221.135.43 but with minor differences (the port number and IP address will be different). Copy the command into your terminal.

3. Paste it and append this -L 3000:localhost:4000. With this, every request happening on the port 4000 (CircleCI server) will be forwarded to my local computer in the port 3000, so my local browser can reach the CircleCI server directly.

   $ ssh -p 64625 ubuntu@54.221.135.43 -L 3000:localhost:4000

4. Lastly, change of directory, go to your application folder and serve your app in port 4000.

   $ cd my-app-directory && <command to serve your app>

   In this example, I ran yarn run dev which runs a server on the port 4000.

5. Go to the browser and visit the localhost:3000.

Count similar items in an array in Ruby

Before ruby 2.7, you would have to do some hacky code like:

array.inject({}) {|f, v| f[v] ||= 0; f[v] += 1 ; f }

But starting with Ruby 2.7, there's a nicer way:

array.tally

irb: [1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5].tally
=> {1=>1, 2=>1, 3=>1, 4=>2, 5=>2}

Printing queries executed by ActiveRercord

Starting of Rails 6, there's a handy way to specify the level of verbocity to ActiveRecord queries:

ActiveRecord::Base.verbose_query_logs = true

Full documentation here

No more adding a custom logger to ActiveRecord::Base.logger

Is it possible to render a "sidecar" partial for a ViewComponent?

Let's say I have

class MyComponent < ViewComponent::Base
end

and 2 view files in

app/components/my_component/my_component.html.erb
app/components/my_component/_some_partial.html.erb

In my_component.html.erb, I want to be able to do:

render "some_partial"

But without a special configuration, that looks under the views directory for said partial. I don't want to extract that partial to its own component, nor do I want it floating by itself in the view directory.

The first step is to tell Rails it can look for templates in the view components directory

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  append_view_path "#{Rails.root}/app/components"

Keep in mind that view contexts are based on the currently executing controller, so <%= render :some_partial %> in a PostsController (even within a ViewComponent class) will look for a partial in a subdirectory /posts or /application.

To make sure Rails finds your partial, use an absolute path when you render it:

<%= render "/my_component/some_partial" %>

Hat tip to Roli in the StimulusReflex discord

More about randomness

If you want to generate random but predictable sequences of numbers, then the rand command and the srand are not enough, you have to use a trick to save the state of the variable. Fibers are primitives for implementing light weight cooperative concurrency in Ruby. Basically they are a means of creating code blocks that can be paused and resumed, much like threads. The main difference is that they are never preempted and that the scheduling must be done by the programmer and not the VM.

require 'rspec'

#i = pseudo_random 10
#p i.resume => 37
#p i.resume => 12
#p i.resume => 72
#
def pseudo_random num
  srand 1

  fiber = Fiber.new do
    num.times do
      Fiber.yield rand 100
    end
  end
end


describe 'Pseudo Random number generator' do
  it 'creates the same sequence of random numbers' do
    random_sequence = pseudo_random 3
    expect(random_sequence.resume).to eq(37)
    expect(random_sequence.resume).to eq(12)
    expect(random_sequence.resume).to eq(72)
  end
end

Quasi-Random numbers in Ruby

I was interested in random sequence because I was in need to test the Montecarlo Method for getting Pi digits.

One method to estimate the value of π (3.141592…) is by using a Monte Carlo method. This method consists of drawing on a canvas a square with an inner circle. We then generate a large number of random points within the square and count how many fall in the enclosed circle.

So, if you need a random sequence, you can use Sobol for quasi-random numbers.

require 'gsl'

q = GSL::QRng.alloc(GSL::QRng::SOBOL, 2)
v = GSL::Vector.alloc(2)
for i in 0..1024 do
  q.get(v)
  printf("%.5f %.5f\n", v[0], v[1])
end

Updating ActiveRecord models without loading an instance using Postgresql

There're sometimes that we need to update an ActiveRecord Model but it is not necesary to load an instance, the normal flow would be the following:

profile = UserProfile.find_by(user_id: id)
profile.update(last_seen_at: Time.now)

The problem with this is that we load a useless instance of UserProfile, it is not needed, in a high traffic sites, an extra select query can count a lot, but luckly, Rails has addressed this with upsert command:

UserProfile.upsert({ last_seen_at: Time.now, user_id: id }, unique_by: :user_id)

This will use native Postgresql upsert command to update a record if it exists or insert a new one and no select will be performed, everything in a single query instead of two.

To make it really work, you need to modify your created_at and updated_at columns to have default current_timestamp

Testing and sharing simple SQL queries online

If you want to test and share a simple SQL query, take a look at http://sqlize.com. Keep in mind you'll need to create the tables you need in the same script and you're only allowed to create TEMPORARY tables. You can run your query and see the results below it right away. Then, you can generate a permalink and share your query with everyone!

NIX node manager

Use n, an extremely simple Node version manager that can be installed via npm.

Say you want Node.js v12.10.0 to build Ghost template.

npm install -g n   # Install n globally
n 12.10.0          # Install and use v12.10.0

Usage:
n                            # Output versions installed
n latest                     # Install or activate the latest node release
n stable                     # Install or activate the latest stable node release
n <version>                  # Install node <version>
n use <version> [args ...]   # Execute node <version> with [args ...]
n bin <version>              # Output bin path for <version>
n rm <version ...>           # Remove the given version(s)
n --latest                   # Output the latest node version available
n --stable                   # Output the latest stable node version available
n ls                         # Output the versions of node available

StimulusReflex + ActiveStorage + Localhost

As it turns out, when you're working with StimulusReflex and ActiveStorage to store Images for a given model, you need to setup default_url_options in development.rb to

 config.action_controller.default_url_options ={ host: 'localhost', port: 3000 }

otherwise, they will be rendered with www.example.org/ host and won't show properly

Using Rails to migrate columns from JSON to JSONB in Postgresql

Postgres offers data type json to store any structure easily, but one dissadvantage is that filtering by properties stored in the json column are super slow, one simple fix before refactoring the whole implementation is to migrate the column to be jsonb, since it is stored in binary form, it supports indexes, a easy and safe way to do it is as follows:

class ModifyJSONDataDataType < ActiveRecord::Migration[6.0]
  def up
    add_column :table_name, :data_jsonb, :jsonb, default: '{}'

    # Copy data from old column to the new one
    TableName.update_all('data_jsonb = data::jsonb')

    # Rename columns instead of modify their type, it's way faster
    rename_column :table_name, :data, :data_json
    rename_column :table_name, :data_jsonb, :data
  end

  def down
    safety_assured do
      rename_column :table_name, :data, :data_jsonb
      rename_column :table_name, :data_json, :data
    end
  end
end

Then, using another migration(due the ability to disable transactions), add an index to it

class AddIndexToDataInTableName < ActiveRecord::Migration[6.0]
  disable_ddl_transaction!

  def change
    add_index :table_name, :data, name: "data_index", using: :gin, algorithm: :concurrently

    # You can even add indexes to virtual properties:
    # add_index :table_name, "((data->'country')::text)", :name => "data_country_index", using: 'gin', algorithm: :concurrently
  end
end

SoulTrain

If music is the food of the soul. Dancing is the spirit's dessert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RecY5iZn6B0&list=RD_UxO01gG5z4&index=10

The slice_when method in Ruby

Creates an enumerator for each chunked elements. The beginnings of chunks are defined by the block.

This method splits each chunk using adjacent elements, elt_before, and elt_after, in the receiver enumerator. This method split chunks between elt_before and elt_after where the block returns true.

The block is called the length of the receiver enumerator minus one.

The result enumerator yields the chunked elements as an array. So each method can be called as follows:

enum.slice_when { |elt_before, elt_after| bool }.each { |ary| ... }

For example:

Return adjacent elements from this array [1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10] in chunked elements as an array.

[1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10].slice_when {|i, j| i+1 != j }.to_a
=> [[1, 2, 3], [5, 6], [9, 10]]

The each_cons method in Ruby

Iterates the given block for each array of consecutive <n> elements. If no block is given, returns an enumerator.

irb(main):001:0> [1,2,3,4].each_cons(2).to_a
=> [[1, 2], [2, 3], [3, 4]]

irb(main):002:0> [1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10].each_cons(2).to_a
=> [[1, 2], [2, 3], [3, 5], [5, 6], [6, 9], [9, 10]]

Print any two adjacent words in a given text:

def print_adjacent_words(phrase)
   phrase.split.each_cons(2) do |words|
     puts adjacent_word = words.join(" ")
   end
end

irb(main):025:0> print_adjacent_words("Hello Darkness my old friend")
Hello Darkness
Darkness my
my old
old friend
=> nil

Optional Chaining Operator (?) and Nullish Coalescing Operator (??)

Optional Chaining Operator(?) (**)

//Car object
const car = {
  attributes: {
   year: 2021,
   model: "Ferrari"
  }
}

Before in javascript to validate that the attributes of an object exist, it was necessary to use the And operator (&&) to validate if the attributes of the object existed.

See the following example:

if (car && car.attributes && car.attributes.model) {
  console.log('Exist',  car.attributes.model)
} else {
  console.log('Do not exist')
}

# => "Exist Ferrari"

Now with Optional Chaining Operator (?) We can validate if the property exit will return undefined if the property attributes or model doesn’t exist.

if (car?.attributes?.model) {
  console.log('Exist',  car.attributes.model)
} else {
  console.log('Do not exist')
}

# => "Exist Ferrari"

Nullish Coalescing Operator(??) (**)

//Car object
const car = {
  attributes: {
   year: 2021,
   model: "Ferrari"
  }
}

If we want to get the car model then we would like below:

console.log(car.attributes.model);
# => "Ferrari"

Now the new car object does not have the model property, so we get an undefined value

//Car object
const car = {
  attributes: {
   year: 2021,
  }
}

console.log(car.attributes.model);
# => "undefined"

To avoid the undefined value the OR (| |) operator can be used, It will now return the value BMW because the property model is undefined. But what if the name property is empty like below example

console.log(car.attributes.model | | "BMW" );
# => "BMW"

Now the problem is when the property model exists but has an empty, undefined or null value we will get the BMW value and this is not right.

//Car object
const car = {
  attributes: {
   year: 2021,
   model: ""
  }
}

console.log(car.attributes.model | | "BMW" );
# => "BMW"

The solution for this problem is to use the Nullish Coalescing Operator (??), Which will print the result as an empty string.

console.log(car.attributes.model ?? "BMW" );
# => ""

Ruby Double star (**)

def hello(a, *b, **c)
  return a, b, c
end

a is a regular parameter. *b will take all the parameters passed after the first one and put them in an array. **c will take any parameter given in the format key: value at the end of the method call.

See the following examples:

One parameter

hello(1)
# => [1, [], {}]

More than one parameter

hello(1, 2, 3, 4)
# => [1, [2, 3, 4], {}]

More than one parameter + hash-style parameters

hello(1, 2, 3, 4, a: 1, b: 2)
# => [1, [2, 3, 4], {:a=>1, :b=>2}]

Inserting images in markdown posts

If you want to insert an image inside a markdown body, you can do it with:

![alt text](https://cdn.host.com/image.png "Title")

Example:

Invoking ActiveRecord::Migration functions in command line

If you need for some weird reason, to run migration commands in your rails console, just do the following:

ActiveRecord::Migration.add_index :table, :col, name: 'col_index'

THE MEANING AND POWER OF WORDS (ONLINE)

If the interpretation of messages in an oral face-to-face conversation is too subjective —even with clear tones of voice and body language— imagine when communicating through a screen! We have to be assertive AF!   I believe that to be assertive through texts messages we need to consider WRITING RULES such as spelling (correct use of punctuation marks, accents, and capital letters), syntax (the way in which words and the groups they form are combined to express meanings, as well as the relationships established between all these units), and semantics (the meaning and changes in the meaning of words and expressions).   To the point> Semantically speaking, it is important to consider that there are two divisions in this area: denotation and connotation.   The denotation: This is the original or formally accepted expression of the word, this is the word that is formally found in encyclopedic dictionaries and is universally accepted.   Connotation: Connotation is the alternate or secondary form in which a word is used, such as is the case with the word donkey, which in denotative form implies the equine type animal, and in the connotative form the dumb man or person.   Get it? So, we have to be super conscious of the meaning and power of the words we choose when having written conversations. Is like: the connotation of the words OCUPO and NECESITO could be similar, but the correct thing to say, because of the denotation of the words, is NECESITO QUE ME AYUDES ME ACORREGIR ESTE CODIGO.   It is better that way so we don't misunderstand things. And if so, nothing better than talking to eliminate misunderstandings, right? Talking-communicating is the best way to understand each other, the best way to organize ourselves.   It is good to be sincere and direct. But, we must try to be assertive. And, in my opinion, there is a fine line between being assertive, sincere, or direct > and rude. To be assertive the message must get through to the receiver correctly, otherwise, it's not.

Make your docker images safer!

Use docker scan <your image> to detect vulnerabilities easily! (JUst patch them after!)

Turbo Native wrappers are generally available and working well

I've been waiting for updates to this technology for a long time and today found out that it's already available.

The website is here: https://turbo.hotwire.dev/handbook/native

And there's a cool blog post about it here: https://blog.minthesize.com/turbo-native

Optional Chaining in JavaScript

The Optional Chaining Operator ? allows you to read the value of a property located deep within an object without having to validate each property in the object. It works in a similar way than the chaining operator ., except that instead of causing an error if a reference is nullish, the expression will return a value of undefined.

A common way to validate properties was to do something like this:

const player = {
  stats: {
    stamina: 40
  }
}

let stamina
if (player && player.stats) {
  stamina = player.stats.stamina
}

This was done because calling player.stats.stamina directly could led into an error being thrown if stats didn't exists, and sometimes even the execution would stop.

Using the Optional Chaining Operator, we could do something like this:

const player = {
  stats: {
    stamina: 40
  }
}

const stamina = player.stats?.stamina

The result is shorter and simpler, and in case stats didn't exists the value would be undefined, without an error being thrown.

Remove Rails model's fields without crashing on production

If you are experiencing problems after removing an attribute from a Rails model it is probably because ActiveRecord has cached that field, it is something normal is intended to help to improve performance on production environments but when removing a field may cause errors because Rails is training to read/writer a column that doesn't exist anymore, so for Rails 5 and newest we have the ignore_columns setting to fix this issue, simply add it to your model something like:

class MyModel < ApplicationRecord
  self.ignore_columns = %w[field_to_ignore]
end

And you are good to go! if you want to be warned or remind to your team you would like to consider using the strong migrations gem https://github.com/ankane/strong_migrations

Heroku console (IRB) with no "multiline"

If you need to paste a script in the Heroku console (IRB) with multiple lines and you notice it's very slow to finish pasting all the code, you can use the --nomultiline tag to disable multiline and let you run your script faster

heroku run 'bundle exec rails c -- --nomultiline'

Native Pub/Sub in Rails with ActiveSupport::Notifications

If you want to use pub/sub design pattern inside your rails app, there's no need to add extra dependencies, you can use ActiveSupport::Notifications to do the job

Example:

class Order
  # methods

  def complete
    update(complted_at: Time.zone.now, etc: 'some')
    ActiveSupport::Notifications.instrument("order_completed", { number: order.number })
  end
end

module Subscribers
  class SendConfirmationEmail
    def self.subscribe!
      ActiveSupport::Notifications.subscribe("order_completed") do |_name, _start, _finish, _id, params|
        order = Order.find_by number: params[:number]
        OrderMailer.confirm_order(order).deliver_later
      end
    end
  end
end

module Subscribers
  class UpdateCustomerCRM
    def self.subscribe!
      ActiveSupport::Notifications.subscribe("order_completed") do |_name, _start, _finish, _id, params|
        order = Order.find_by number: params[:number]
        CrmIntegration.update_customer(order.customer.email, order.total_amount)
      end
    end
  end
end

# etc

Rails find_by using relationships

If you want to find records via a relationship you can do it easily:

product = Product.joins(:variants).find_by(variants: { sku: 'SKU' }

Instead of:

product = Variant.find_by(sku: 'SKU')&.product

Measuring memory utilization

Ruby comes with the cool module Benchmark, but the only downside is that it only provides the time taken for each task.

A simple approach to get how many memory the ruby process is consuming is to call: ps -o rss:

memory_before = `ps -o rss= -p #{$$}`.to_i
Utils.heavy_memory_consumming_process
memory_after = `ps -o rss= -p #{$$}`.to_i

puts "The process took #{memory_after - memory_before} KB"

Change the starting point for your ordered lists.

Use the start attribute to change the starting point for your ordered lists.

<ol start="10">
  <li>Git</li>
  <li>Ruby</li>
  <li>JS</li>
  <li>PostgreSQL</li>
  <li>CSS</li>
  <li>HTML</li>
</ol>

Output:

10. Git
11. Ruby
12. JS
13. PostgreSQL
14. CSS
15. HTML

THE HOOK IS IN EXPERIENCE

When working with brands, yep, its image and its communication are essential. But, TODAY I LEARNED: EXPERIENCE IS THE REAL HOOK!! People will forget what you say, people will forget what you do, but they will never forget HOW YOU MAKE THEM FEEL!!! Right???

In life, sometimes I tend to observe and analyze stuff that would help me to improve something, especially at work. There is a local fashion brand I used to follow (as a fan, I must say) because -besides their clothes are cute- I loved their branding and how they work with their social media communication. Well, I am working with my own fashion brand and I tend to look at the mentioned one as a visual reference. But I wanted to know how their logistics works and I tried to buy something to learn about it, BUT THE EXPERIENCE WAS TERRIBLE! They made me feel ignored and even stupid with their election of some words...

I must say this post is not about talking sh** about a brand and complain about it. Is about expose a case so we can understand why EXPERIENCE is the real value. Even if you have the most beautiful, luxurious, good vibing brand, if you gave a negative experience YOU WILL LOST a follower and probably A CLIENT!

Consumers will transmit their experience: positive or negative. It could become viral and have a huge impact. So, if you really want to capitalize with it, GIVE THE BEST EXPERIENCE EVER TO YOUR AUDIENCE! You could even create brand ambassadors by doing it!

xoxo

Editing a file using cat

If you have to modify a file because any editor is present (vi, vim, nano, etc). you can use cat to do it:

$ cat > filename.ext
write or paste the content

ctrl+d

And that would be it! Super helpful when debugging flaky tests that only fail in the CI server

Create a Pull Request from the CLI

In 2020 GitHub launched its CLI.
Among many other wonders, it allows you to create a PR from the command line.
Using it is exceedingly easy!

First, install it
$ brew install gh
Then, authenticate
$ gh auth login
Finally, create a PR with
$ gh pr create
If your repo has a PR template, it will make use of it.

Test your CircleCi build locally

The CircleCI CLI allows you to locally validate your config.yml and run some or all non-parallelized jobs locally:
To Validate the config:
$ circleci config validate
To Run a job:
$ circleci local execute --job JOB_NAME
To Run the workflow:
circleci local execute
To know more visit the CircleCi Docs

Export defualt const is invalid because...

const is a lexical declaration

default expects a HoistableDeclaration, ClassDeclaration or AssignmentExpression

and thus, export default const someVariable is a SynthaxError

Use discard_on to discard the job with no attempts to retry

Discard the job with no attempts to retry, if the exception is raised. This is useful when the subject of the job, like an Active Record, is no longer available, and the job is thus no longer relevant.

You can also pass a block that'll be invoked. This block is yielded with the job instance as the first and the error instance as the second parameter.

Example: 1

class SearchIndexingJob < ActiveJob::Base
  discard_on ActiveJob::DeserializationError
  discard_on(CustomAppException) do |job, error|
    ExceptionNotifier.caught(error)
  end

  def perform(record)
    # Will raise ActiveJob::DeserializationError if the record can't be deserialized
    # Might raise CustomAppException for something domain specific
  end
end

Example: 2:

class UserNotFoundJob < ActiveJob::Base

  discard_on ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound



  def perform(user_id)

    @user = User.find(user_id)

    @user.do_some_thing

  end
end

Source

When to eager load relationships in Rails and when it is not that good

Rails provides a way to eager load relationships when fetching objects, the main idea is to avoid queries N+1, but, when isn't a good idea when to do it?

Good

When rendering unique results that can not be cached, for example: table reports

Why? Most of the times you need to display related information

orders = Order.includes(:user, :line_items).completed

Try to avoid

When you use fragment cache

Why? Eager load is executed before the rendering, regardless the final result is already cached or not. If using eager loading, it will always be executed, but when allowing queries n+1 that query will be executed once to fill the cache, and that's it

products = Product.includes(:categories, variants: [:price]).search(keywords)

Use product.id & updated_at to fill a fragment cache and fetch the data from database only when needed, no extra info needed such as variants, categories, prices, etc

Test Rails log messages with RSpec

Have you wondered how to test your Rails log messages?

Try this:

it "logs a message" do
  allow(Rails.logger).to receive(:info)
  expect(Rails.logger).to receive(:info).with("Someone read this post!")

  visit root_path

  expect(page).to have_content "Welcome to TIL"
end

Or this:

it "logs a message" do
  allow(Rails.logger).to receive(:info)

  visit root_path

  expect(page).to have_content "Welcome to TIL"
  expect(Rails.logger).to have_received(:info).with("Someone read this post!")
end

Source

Beware of calling #count on Active Record relations!

Given code like this:

records = Record.includes(:related).all # Eager-loads to prevent N+1 queries...
records.each do |record|
  puts record.related.count # => ... but this produces N+1 queries anyway!
end

If you run this, you'll notice you get an N+1 queries problem, even though we're using #includes. This happens because of record.related.count. Remember, records.related here is not an Array but an instance of CollectionProxy and its #count method always reaches out to the database. Use #length or #size instead to solve this issue.

records = Record.includes(:related).all
records.each do |record|
  puts record.related.length # Problem solved!
end