Lessons Learned: Migrating Ruby on Rails Apps from Linux to Windows

I spent 8 hours last weekend getting Dressr to work on my Windows laptop. This was way too long. Even if none of the issues were major, they just added up to a lot of time, so I wanted to document them here.

I was using InstantRails, which I was cursing, but in retrospect only 1 of my issues was an InstantRails issue.

1) Make sure your SCGI port configuration is a different port than the applications installed with InstallRails by default. (You may not be using them, but that doesn't mean they aren't running.... I wasn't getting any messages in my Rails log because it was all writing to another app's log!)

2) Make sure you install all your mixins. You'd figure this one out pretty quickly on your own.

3) Change all the paths pointing to Ruby. This one actually takes a while to figure out, and the path shows up in a number of places:
public/dispatch.fcgi:#!/usr/bin/ruby18
public/dispatch.rb:#!/usr/bin/ruby18
public/dispatch.cgi:#!/usr/bin/ruby18
script/console:#!/usr/bin/ruby18 -w
script/destroy:#!/usr/bin/ruby18 -w
script/generate:#!/usr/bin/ruby18
script/breakpointer:#!/usr/bin/ruby18 -w
script/server:#!/usr/bin/ruby18
script/runner:#!/usr/bin/ruby18
script/process/spawner:#!/usr/bin/ruby18
script/process/spinner:#!/usr/bin/ruby18
script/process/reaper:#!/usr/bin/ruby18
script/performance/benchmarker:#!/usr/bin/ruby18
script/performance/profiler:#!/usr/bin/ruby18


4) If your files have tabs in them, they need to be removed. (Yes, I know, bad programming style.... I'm now using RadRails, so that isn't a problem anymore.) You can use something along these lines to replace the tabs:
sed -e 's/\t/ /' test > test

After working through these, my app finally worked. Ben and I had a discussion on whether it would have been better to just have checked out the "app" directory, without all the other directories. (Would have had to copy those directories from the sample apps, but I suspect there would have been fewer changes. Hard to tell at this point.)

(Non) dieting trick I'm going to try to integrate into my life:

Think on a scale of 1 to 10. One is "I'm starving to death." 10 is "I'm stuffed." When you are at a 5 or 6, you are satisfied. Don't go up to an 8.

From via Dr. Steven R. Hawks, via Latina Magazine

Women on Rails

This is the running list I'm keeping of women working in the Rails community. Who knows, maybe one day we'll meet in the ladies room at some conference.

Amy Hoy -- Amy's Part III
Anna Chan -- contributor to Rails (ActiveRecord stuff)

Two kid related businesses that someone (not me!) should start in Austin:

• Bohemian Baby


• Baby Loves Disco

Flower Glowering

In New England in the fall, it's leaf peeping. I've christened the Texas in the springtime rite of driving around looking at the wildflowers "Flower Glowering."

We spend last Sunday driving around Washington County, looking at the bluebonnets and other assorted wildflowers and taking pictures. We got some good ones of J. in the flowers, as well as a family portrait. Austin doesn't have as many flowers this year -- too little rain.

And yes, this post was entirely so I could use the phrase flower glowering. :)

Grups, kids, and passion

There's an article from NY Magazine about parents who don't want to grow up -- who listen to the same music and dress in the same fashion as teenagers, and who dress their babies the same way. Despite the fact that the article quotes Neal Pollack, my current favorite writer-I-love-to-hate, there are some pieces that resonate with me.

Now, I'm not particularly cool, but I would argue that what separates grown ups from chidren is not fashion or music, but rather "responsibility." Used to be, you had to wear a suit in order to get the sort of job that would provide for your family. These days, creative jobs exist that allow us to continue to express our personal style even as we assume more responsibilities.

I also think we have a responsibility to our children to show them and teach them how best to live in the world. For me, that means that having my daughter a year ago has fired up my latent entrepeneurial drive. Working for "the man" is not what I want to model for her, realizing that the ownership my entrepeneur parents modelled for me has made a huge difference in how I interact in the world.

The same feeling was echoed in the article:

“It’s really important for us to be whole people, and not feel like our kids have . . . look, we love our kids,” says Hermelin. “The point isn’t to raise cool kids. We want passionate kids. And I think that by us doing the things that we love to do, that models that passion for our kids.”

Later, when I talk to Andy Chase, the dad–slash–rock star, he says almost the exact same thing. “How great for a child to see their parents loving what they’re doing? It’s a delicate balance to strike, but when you maintain that balance, its a great thing to teach your children—that they can look forward to doing something they love doing.”

Because of this feeling, I'm working really hard at Dressr -- finding passion in my side work, hoping that one day it can be a business, and not just a project.

I'm presenting at the next Austin on Rails meeting (April 11th, 7-9 PM, Frog Interactive at 8th and Congress). I'll be showing off my work in progress -- Dressr -- with technical highlights on how easy ActsAsTaggable gem and the script.aculo.us library are to use.