Pariah?

Rails
1

Or just invisible? Or posting issues that are too hard?

I’ve posted a handful of interesting/challenging questions the past
couple weeks and received nary a reply to any of them. I’m just
wondering if I’m being ignored, or if the issues are just too hard/too
fringe.

Ahh well.

-Danimal

2

On Mar 30, 2009, at 4:53 PM, Danimal wrote:

Or just invisible? Or posting issues that are too hard?

I’ve posted a handful of interesting/challenging questions the past
couple weeks and received nary a reply to any of them. I’m just
wondering if I’m being ignored, or if the issues are just too hard/too
fringe.

Ahh well.

-Danimal

Perhaps your questions don’t seem interesting to anyone else?

Is the subject line appropriate and descriptive? I know that I’ll
delete a message without looking at the body if the subject doesn’t at
least sound like the poster has (a) made a good post and (b) is
talking about something that is interesting to ME. It’s interesting
if I think I can help (in a reasonable amount of time) or I think that
I’ll learn something myself.

Note that what is considered a “reasonable amount of time” is highly
dependent on the quality of the posting (and possibly of subsequent
responses).

-Rob

Rob B. http://agileconsultingllc.com
[email protected]

3

Yay! Someone replied! :slight_smile:

Thanks, Rob.

And BTW, I know that the posts I’ve made recently are very specific
and since most people, like you mentioned (and I operate this way as
well), tend to ignore posts that don’t concern them or things they are
working on, I am not surprised.

I was just feeling a little put out that I hadn’t gotten ANY responses
to any of the 5+ posts I’ve made in the past week or two.

I’ll stop whining now and get back to coding.

Hehe.

-Danimal

4

Danimal wrote:

Or just invisible? Or posting issues that are too hard?

Try adding “Rails sucks” to the subject line.

It works for certain bloggers we could mention…

–
Phlip

5

:smiley:

Or maybe: “X framework kick’s Rails’ ass”
(with anything for X).

But I can’t do that. I love Rails too much. It’s just too much fun to
code in! And I’ve been at it since pre-1.0… one example of which is
still running in pre-1.0 code on lighty and has been for going on 3
years now. Woo hoo!

The only problem is getting decent rails projects… too many of them
end up being simple websites that don’t deserve/need the power of
Rails.

-Danimal

6

Bill,

Always good to keep that in mind. I tend to get so tunnel-visioned
that I think “here’s my very specific problem in my very specific
instance, now who can help?” Perhaps generalizing more or appealing to
it in a different way will help.

-Danimal

Oh, and for the record, not that it matters, I’ve been here a good
long time… just not very active. I got side-tracked on some boring
PHP projects for the past few months and only recently dove back into
Rails (thank the Lord!)

7

On Mon, 2009-03-30 at 16:22 -0700, Danimal wrote:

I’ll stop whining now and get back to coding.

And maybe re-post your question(s) with an eye to: besides the
possibility I might be working on something new, how might I pose the
question so that it interests others.

Trust me, you ain’t been here long enough for it to be personal :wink:

Best regards,
Bill

8

Hi Bill!

I must be lying down in the dirt then. My recent project has broken
some really new ground for me:

  1. ActionMailer emails with multiple formats AND multiple attachments
  2. ActionMailer global layouts with over-ride for Plain emails
  3. Delivering iCalendar files for events, including as attachments to
    emails
  4. Customizing ar_mailer and Spawn to provide a table-queued, auto-
    flush email delivery that doesn’t “block” the Rails app
  5. Time zone inclusion and integration with iCalendar
  6. Ajax-y attachments ala Basecamp (been meaning to figure out how to
    do that for a LONG time)
  7. Local mail testing on OSX via postfix overrides and a local pop
    server
  8. PDF auto-generation via HTMLDOC hooks and template renders
  9. Beast hack to provide custom forum capabilities, including 3-tier
    management levels
  10. Got my git+cap+mod_rails all working swimmingly now, even though
    it’s just me on this project.

And that’s just off the top of my head. It’s been quite a project. And
I just passed it off for final client approval today.

So, whew! Time for a breather! (and to start looking for the next one)

:slight_smile:

Oh, and you didn’t offend at all, Bill. For two reasons: (1) I’m thick-
skinned (except when ignored completely), and (2) you responded TWICE!
That puts you on the short list of good guys (IMNSHO).

-Danimal

9

Hi Dan,

On Mon, 2009-03-30 at 20:12 -0700, Danimal wrote:

Hi Bill!

I must be lying down in the dirt then. My recent project has broken
some really new ground for me:

And that’s just off the top of my head. It’s been quite a project. And
I just passed it off for final client approval today.

So, whew! Time for a breather! (and to start looking for the next one)

:slight_smile:

Congrats and best of luck on landing your next one real soon!

Best regards,
Bill

10

Danimal wrote:

I must be lying down in the dirt then. My recent project has broken
some really new ground for me:

  1. ActionMailer emails with multiple formats AND multiple attachments
  2. ActionMailer global layouts with over-ride for Plain emails

etc. One thing that happens with Rails is folks might graduate from
“HTML
Designers” to “Software Engineers” using it.

So, whew! Time for a breather! (and to start looking for the next one)

However… “Software Engineers” have different job systems. Someone at
the
“glass ceiling” of HTML Design might find themselves looking in the
wrong places
for their next gig…

11

Phlip,

That is so true! And something I struggle with often. I’m much more a
programmer than a web designer, but as I’m self-employed, it’s often
the “build me a website” projects that come my way, which tend to be
80% design / 20% programming. It’s very hard to be self-employed (i.e.
not part of a team/company) and still find interesting, challenging
“build me a web-based application” projects.

I’ll be looking differently this time around. :slight_smile:

-Danimal

12

Hi Dan,

On Mon, 2009-03-30 at 18:43 -0600, Dan Sharp wrote:

Bill,

Always good to keep that in mind. I tend to get so tunnel-visioned
that I think “here’s my very specific problem in my very specific
instance, now who can help?”

We all fall prey to the same (often self-inflicted) pressures. I know I
do.

Perhaps generalizing more or appealing to
it in a different way will help.

I’ve found that it help sometimes. Sometimes I find that just thinking
about whatever problem I’m working on in that light takes me to a
solution I couldn’t see before. It’s also true that sometimes, given
what I can Google up, it looks like I’m the pioneer. You can spot them,
you know. They’re the ones face down in the dirt with arrows in their
backs :wink:

Seriously hoping I haven’t offended!

Bill

13

Pariah? no… anathema maybe… :wink:

I hadn’t replied 'cause I have no experience with ActionMailer, etc, but
I read most everything (kind of a ‘first thing at work while getting
started’ habit).

But that doesn’t mean you should stop posting. The resolution of your
‘sticky wicket’ may just save me, or other folks, time and/or confusion
in the future.

So keep 'em coming.

14

On Mar 31, 7:41 am, Ar Chron [email protected] wrote:

Pariah? no… anathema maybe… :wink:

:smiley:

But that doesn’t mean you should stop posting. The resolution of your
‘sticky wicket’ may just save me, or other folks, time and/or confusion
in the future.

Actually, this is a good reminder for anyone here, myself included. I
will sometimes post a question here but eventually figure it out
myself (or find some blog posting or such that deals with it). It’s a
great idea to come back and post a reply to my own question with the
solution. I do that on occasion, but I should do that more,
particularly for people like you who may be just browsing that thread
and yet be helped by the solution.

So keep 'em coming.

You got it! :slight_smile:

-Danimal, the Anathema.
grin