Copy Heroku Database To Local
I’ve had a few Heroku projects where it’s been really nice to copy production data to my local database for development. Obviously, there are a few security concerns with this method (make sure the data in your project should be on your local machine – don’t do this if you’ve got any sensitive data!).
Modify Your Ruby App's DNS Lookup
We recently had a Heroku support ticket where a user needed to modify their DNS lookup inside their app:
Rails' Tagged Logging + Heroku Dyno Metadata
Rails added “tagged logging” awhile back, but it’s never seemed like a particularly useful thing to me. I care far more about the log output than a request ID or other data.But the more and more I debug odd edge-cases in other people’s Rails apps, the more I see the need the potential benefits.
Removing Distractions For Your Team
I’ve known far too many people who reach the coveted level of “middle management” and believe they’ve finally reached Easy Street. “Time to sit back and let the minions do my bidding!” Ok, I’m sure that’s not exactly verbalized, but delegation is easily abused by middle managers who think their primary job is to ensure everyone is typing away happily all day. (these are all the same managers you find tapping their watch when you come in too late or leave too early)
Measure, Release, Measure Again
In the world of product development, there is far too little mentioned about the need and use of data in decision making. We’re easily pleased with ideas that seem logical to us, but may be terrible for the users of our product. We add new features, but we never check to see if the investment we made (in resources and hours spent) have actually paid off.
Delegation in Rails
After spending a year or two in Rails, I started to plateau a bit. I knew my code wasn’t clean, but didn’t know how to make it better. I began to ask more-senior Rails programmers about thoughts and ideas that helped them improve.
Default UUID's In Rails
🎉 I added a new feature to Rails: Default to uuid as primary key when generating database migrations. Enjoy!
SMS Verification With Rails
While working recently on a side project, I came across the task of “SMS validation”. The project allows users to sign up with their mobile phone number, and have certain text messages sent to their phone on a schedule they determine. Here’s how the feature request came in:
Washington 2015
After spending a few weeks in Canada, it was nice to make it back to the lower 48 (and to the land of cheaper data and text messaging).
Canada 2015
Following our time in Montana, we were thrilled to take our kids on their first trip out of the U.S. My sister and her family live just outside of Calgary, but we’ve never visited them yet. So we pointed the truck North and crossed the border into Alberta.
Hi there, I'm Jon.
Writer. Musician. Adventurer. Nerd.
Purveyor of GIFs and dad jokes.