Ahoy

• robert
• May 22nd, 2008
• 03:22:26 PM
• 3 Comments

So, it would appear as though I am the other coder on this Feisty Piranha Project! We are about one week into the project, which has been quite interesting (Muaha, I know what the project is, and you do not!).

I am new to Ruby on Rails (I worked on Java more in the past - my previous project was revamping a Minesweeper solver for the Constraint Systems Laboratory at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln).

In April Dusty and Kevin sent me 3 books (The Ruby Programming Language, Agile Web Development with Rails, and The Pragmatic Programmer). Although these books where helpful, you can only get so much from reading. So my friend Michael Gubbels (I know you are reading) suggested I code something to jump right into it!

The initial plan was to make two versions of my website. A “PHP” version and a “Ruby on Rails” version (Much like how you see “HTML” and “Flash” versions of some websites).

Although this “Ruby on Rails” version of the site is not on my public web-space (My host has Ruby on Rails issues), it is there on my localhost!

Though, that was only to prepare for the Ruby on Rails that is now my internship.

The Ruby on Rails Rant:

Working with Ruby on Rails all day can only get me one thing; ANGRY. So this section of (hopefully) each blog post of mine will be dedicated to ranting about something related to Ruby on Rails.

Yesterday, I was creating a mailer. I figured queuing mail would be a good idea. You know, so it does not crash the server. So I decided to look into mail_queue, though the readme is horrible!

“I, Robert Woodward, officially nominate mail_queue for the worst readme in the world.”

Why? I’ll tell you why: it does not say how to use it. Sure, it tells you how to setup the database, process the queue, deliver_something, blah blah blah.

But, it is completely misleading! It says, “Want to send out your mail asynchronously without having to touch any code that uses the Action Mailer?”, so I think to myself, “So, I do not have to use the Action Mailer, great! I don’t know how to use Action Mailer.”

Well, guess what? You need to use Action Mailer! Yes, that’s right. You do not have to touch any code that uses the Action Mailer, yet you have to create a model that extends ActionMailer::Base!

“Looky ma’, I’m touchin’ ActionMailer!” Yes, that’s right, mail_queue just overwrites the deliver methods, so if you wrote all your code to use ActionMailer, you can switch to mail_queue very easily. Well, that’s great! Just let us know in the readme!

</End Rant>

So, if you made it this far, thanks for reading. I’m going to go back to coding on the project you, still know nothing about

One Week Down

• kevin
• May 21st, 2008
• 04:27:43 PM
• 2 Comments

Today was the end of the first official week of the FPP Internship. Erin #2, Allyn, and Robert are moving along quickly. We already knew Erin #2 was really talented, but the Allyn and Robert were fairly unknown quantities when we pulled the trigger on hiring them. Fortunate for us, they’re both kicking arse, taking names, and hacking away at Ruby like fiends.

For those of you just showing up here - we still have not officially announced the details of the application that the interns are creating - it’s fairly super-secret and under wraps. We can tell you that the project is being written in Ruby on Rails and that we’re really stressing the importance of great design and usability - a concept that is seemingly overlooked by a lot of software development companies, at least around here.

A few observations after one week of activity:

The ramp-up time for the design of the app is taking longer to finalize and get rolling than the programming. This is probably mostly due to the fact that the design process requires a much greater deal of initial brainstorming and planning. Nevertheless, Erin #2 has done a sweet job of getting all of our ideas and concepts for the app out of our heads (well, mostly Dusty’s) and onto physical paper.

We promised to provide paid lunch every day for the duration of the Internship. While Dusty and myself budgeted for it, we really didn’t plan things out beyond that. So, for the first few days, we’d get a conversation started in Campfire at 11a.m. to (hopefully) figure out what we’d be having for lunch by noon time. What ended up happening? We’d chat for an hour about all this awesome food we could get, but we’d never come to any concrete decisions. Then people start getting hungry. Then chaos ensues!

While we could alleviate this problem by writing an application, Erin #1 came up with a seemingly workable solution: she planned out our lunch schedule for the next few weeks. Whew! It’s so much easier to be told what/where we’re having lunch than trying to decide for ourselves. It’s kind of like lunch back in Elementary school. I’m hoping we have square pizza day soon

..hi.

• allyn
• May 20th, 2008
• 08:26:59 AM
• 2 Comments

Who?
As you may have guessed from my cleverly disguised user name, my name is Allyn. Yes, with a y. I’m a junior computer science major at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Feisty Piranha?
Yeah, I’m a little confused about it too. On our first day, Dusty proudly informed us that he had decided on a name. The Feisty Piranha Project. Dictionary.com defines feisty as:

1. Full of animation, energy, or courage; spirited; spunky; plucky: The champion is faced with a feisty challenger.
2. Ill-tempered; pugnacious.
3. Troublesome; difficult: feisty legal problems.

Piranha, of course, is that fish with teeth and stuff. So we have either:

1. The animated, energetic and courageous fish with teeth project
2. The ill-tempered fish with teeth project
3. The troublesome and difficult fish with teeth project

We are making a new website. A web 2.0 website, full of sweet “wowww” moments. An energetic website, that hopefully many people will be apt to visit frequently. Thus, I propose we apply the first definition for “The Feisty Piranha Project”. Of course, it could be argued that the “troublesome and difficult” definition may also apply. It’s a good thing all of the interns Dusty and Kevin hired are awesome.

Welcome to the Feisty Piranha Project!

• dusty
• May 15th, 2008
• 08:12:02 PM
• 1 Comment

Welcome to the newly minted Feisty Piranha Project website! We’re a little late getting the project site up and going, as we’re already two days into the internship! There’s still some kinks to work out, and some functionality to finish up, but all in all, I believe that this site is ready for the world to see!

What exactly are you going to *see* here you ask? Well, hopefully what you will see, will be a peek into the lives of the interns, as they spend their summer at BrightMix, hacking (and designing) away at a brand new web app. You’ll hopefully see some of the thought processes behind the code and designs. You’ll hopefully see some of the fun things that we do as a team. And maybe, if you’re lucky, we’ll tease features of the forth coming web app

We’re all very excited to have everyone here, and if today is any indication, it’s going to be an awesome summer.

Subscribe to the blog, and check back often…

Cheers,

Dusty