Hillary Hueter demonstrates how to validate user interfaces with Watir. Learn how to write scripts that automate common functions (clicking links, selecting options from a list, filling out forms, etc.) and how to use Watir in Cucumber or RSpec

Episode 132: Intro to Ruby 2.0

May 12th, 2013 35m 40s

Matt Aimonetti introduces the latest version of Ruby -- Ruby 2.0. Find out what's new in Ruby and what it means for your Rails applications.

Episode 131: Profiling Ruby

Apr 23rd, 2013 30m 40s

Greg Price was frustrated by how long it takes Ruby 1.9.3 apps to launch, so he decided to dive in and fix things. By using general techniques for profiling and fixing code, he was able to make app launching in Ruby 2.0 twice as fast. Greg shar

Episode 130: What's New in Rails 4

Feb 10th, 2013 33m 57s

Ruby on Rails 4 offers a number of useful new features and also breaks ties with a lot of old Rails baggage. Ben Hughes talks about what's new in the next release of Rails and shows how to prepare your existing Rails 3 apps for the upgrade.

Episode 129: Class's Class is Class (Metaprogramming is Trolling You)

Dec 29th, 2012 41m 5s

Chris Kelly returns to SD Ruby to give a talk on Ruby metaprogramming, starting with the Ruby Object Model and working through the most common metaprogramming callbacks.

Episode 128: Writing APIs

Dec 29th, 2012 37m 2s

James Miller explores writing and testing JSON APIs with Sinatra and rack/test. Authenticate, handle errors, set proper HTTP status codes, customize headers with pagination and rate limiting data, and mount it to an existing Rails app.

Episode 127: Saying No to NoSQL

Dec 20th, 2012 26m 7s

Jonathan Neddenriep shows how to migrate a production application from MongoDB to Postgres without losing your mind or your data.

Episode 126: Fast

Sep 7th, 2012 1h 3m

We live in a fast society, so why should our apps be any different? Richard Schneeman from Heroku demonstrates how to optimize your Rails app for speed and scalability -- on both the front end and back end. If you wanna go fast, this talk is fo

Episode 125: Get Concurrent With Puma

Aug 26th, 2012 32m 16s

Matt Aimonetti shows how to serve up web pages using Puma, a multithreaded, easy-to-use Ruby web server. Based on Mongrel, Puma is a small library built with Rack that provides a very fast and concurrent HTTP 1.1 server for Ruby web application

Episode 124: Build Your Api With Node.js

Aug 26th, 2012 21m 46s

Scott Motte demonstrates how to build an API for your next web application using the power of Node.js.

Episode 123: A Tour of Haskell: A Rubyist's Take on Functional Programming

Aug 26th, 2012 33m 21s

Xavier Lange discusses features and concepts of Haskell. Haskell is a high-level, strictly-typed, and lazy functional programming language. This talk is geared towards Ruby developers who want to stretch their programming muscles.

Episode 122: RubyMotion: Native iOS Apps in Ruby

Aug 26th, 2012 29m 37s

Learn how to get started with RubyMotion, a new tool that lets you quickly develop and test native iOS applications for iPhone or iPad using Ruby. James Miller demonstrates how to create a project, configure it, manage dependencies, and get you

Episode 121: How to Make Your Rails App Roar With the Power of Lion

Aug 26th, 2012 32m 25s

OS X Lion might be the world's most advanced OS, but we don't normally use it to host Rails applications. It can be pricey, hard to virtualize, and doesn't work well with Linux-based servers. Patrick Crowley demonstrates a breakthrough way to i

Episode 120: Postgres FTW: Postgres Is Just Easier

Aug 26th, 2012 23m 47s

Why choose Postgres over the "other" open source database? Guyren Howe has the answer. He will demonstrate how Postgres can make building database applications easier -- including custom data types, custom functions, robust text search, and mor

Episode 119: Postgres Rules

Aug 26th, 2012 23m 21s

Postgres has a powerful feature called rules that let you rewrite incoming queries. Rules are similar to triggers in Postgres, but much more efficient. Guyren Howe shows how to use rules in some common use cases.

Episode 118: Smaller Javascript Packages With the Rails Asset Pipeline

Aug 26th, 2012 18m 23s

Marc Leglise shows how to break up your large application.js into logical chunks, leveraging more power from the Rails 3 asset pipeline. Building on last month's talk by Rafael Cardoso, this method allows you to separate concerns about download

Episode 117: Command Line Applications in Ruby: the Good Stuff

Aug 26th, 2012 32m 28s

Mark Ranallo explores writing command line applications for the Unix programming environment, including a basic overview, some tips/tricks, and Ruby gems that can help.

Episode 116: Javascript Isolation With the Rails Asset Pipeline

Aug 26th, 2012 22m 40s

Rafael Cardoso shows how to load page specific javascript, while still using the default configuration for the asset pipeline in Rails 3.

Episode 115: You're a Manager. Now What?

Aug 26th, 2012 47m 13s

It happens to a lot of us: you're doing a good job as an engineer, you've been around the company for a while, and BAM! You get "promoted". Well, it turns out that like engineering, management takes skill and practice. You can't just expect tha

Episode 114: The Global Interpeter Lock in Ruby, Python, and Javascript

Aug 26th, 2012 36m 11s

Have you heard of the infamous Global Interpreter Lock that prevents Ruby from being webscale? Are you so scared you might switch to Node.js? Well, before you do, learn more about what the GIL is, what it does, and why it isn't being removed. M

Episode 113: Visualize Twitter #tags in Real Time

Jul 17th, 2012 39m 8s

Etienne de Bruin demonstrates how to visualize Twitter retweets in real time using the tweetstream gem, arbor.js, Redis, and Resque. He also shares his personal journey as a developer and how he came to love Ruby.

Episode 112: Ultra-Minimalist Gem Bootstrapping

Jul 9th, 2012 30m 54s

The simplest way to start a gem from scratch is using nothing but your bare hands. And Bundler. Ian Young shows us how.

Episode 111: Ruby Debugging: Life After "Puts"

Jul 5th, 2012 29m 11s

Have you outgrown basic debugging in Ruby? Rob Kaufman shows how to step up your game and use the Ruby debugger in a variety of practical ways.

Episode 110: Converting Flat Data into Rich Ruby Objects with :composed_of

Jun 25th, 2012 22m 28s

Storing simple data as model attributes in a database is easy to do in Rails, but sometimes we want to handle and manipulate data that is more than just a string or a number.The :composed_of macro in ActiveRecord gives us that ability, and it's

Episode 109: Transforming Ruby Code

Apr 18th, 2012 41m 2s

Programmatically transforming Ruby code is easier than you think and has several interesting applications: automated refactoring, coding style/best practices enforcement, DSL translation, and more. Ben Hughes explores how to transform ruby code