Creating a Gem from Source

As it is becoming more commonplace to distribute new functionality via gems rather than plugins (thanks in large part to the Merb community's prodding), here is a quick guide to packaging and installing a gem directly from it's source (presuming the source has not already been packaged into a gem).

I will use Brian Smith's gem source for the merb authentication gem, can_has_auth_core:

1. Clone ("checkout") the git folder you want.

git clone git://github.com/BrianTheCoder/can_has_auth_core.git

2. Change to the root of the directory you just downloaded/cloned.

3. Run `rake package`

This will create a gem for you and place it in a new subdirectory, /pkg

4. Run gem install pkg/can_has_auth_core-0.1.0

This should install the gem for you.

Six Hour Startup :: Starter App

This last week I had the pleasure of joining the Six Hour Startup, a new Seattle based venture project dedicated to developing rapid startups in six hours or less.

I arrived at about the 5th hour and was amazed at how quickly I was able to just jump in and get my hands dirty in the code. There were about 10 people around a table broken into groups of two or three, each of them working on a specific aspect of the startup: database, e-commerce, branding, pr, social network tie-ins, etc. I jumped into the branding end of things and worked on some CSS since it seemed the best place to jump in.

They had chosen Django (a python framework) to start this app. Unfortunately there was only one person there that really had any experience on the platform so I decided to have my fun and port the application over to Rails. It only took 30 minutes or so and it was fun to see how long it would take.

I thought more about it and figured that it would make sense to just create a starter app that would serve as a beginning point to jump from in these six hour projects. So I created a Google Code site and posted a Rails starter app which includes basic authentication and an e-commerce solution out of the box. This will save a good hour or so of whipping it all together.

Here's the new site...

http://code.google.com/p/sixhourstartup/

Great Quotes from George Patton

- borrowed from here:

“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.”

“If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you’ll be amazed at the results.”

“Battle is an orgy of disorder.”

“Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.”

“I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.”

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”

“Nobody ever defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.”

“Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.”

“Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.”

“The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!”

“Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.”