Lenart Rudel lenart

Zero downtime deploys with unicorn + nginx + runit + rvm + chef

Below are the actual files we use in one of our latest production applications at Agora Games to achieve zero downtime deploys with unicorn. You've probably already read the GitHub blog post on Unicorn and would like to try zero downtime deploys for your application. I hope these files and notes help. I am happy to update these files or these notes if there are comments/questions. YMMV (of course).

Other application notes:

Our application uses MongoDB, so we don't have database migrations to worry about as with MySQL or postgresql. That does not mean that we won't have to worry about issues with the database with indexes being built in MongoDB or what have you.
We use capistrano for deployment.

Salient points for each file:

Originally published in June 2008

When hiring Ruby on Rails programmers, knowing the right questions to ask during an interview was a real challenge for me at first. In 30 minutes or less, it's difficult to get a solid read on a candidate's skill set without looking at code they've previously written. And in the corporate/enterprise world, I often don't have access to their previous work.

To ensure we hired competent ruby developers at my last job, I created a list of 15 ruby questions -- a ruby measuring stick if you will -- to select the cream of the crop that walked through our doors.

What to expect

Candidates will typically give you a range of responses based on their experience and personality. So it's up to you to decide the correctness of their answer.

PageObject + SimpleDelegator = Awesome Capybara Helpers

I've always liked using the Page Object pattern to write concise, namespaced, and composeable capybara helpers:

When /^I register as a new user$/ do
  NewUserPage.new(self).tap do |page|
    page.visit!
    page.form.fill

page.form.submit!

In Rails 3

NOTE: This post now lives (and kept up to date) on my blog: http://hakunin.com/rails3-load-paths

If you add a dir directly under app/

Do nothing. All files in this dir are eager loaded in production and lazy loaded in development by default.

If you add a dir under app/something/

#Ruby on Rails Office Hours - Session 2 ##Brewing your own server with Chef and Capistrano on Digital Ocean

Google hangout: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W4kXyZWDJA
Real time chat: http://tlk.io/ror-study-group
Chef Notes: https://github.com/intercity/chef-repo

Code Along

Create a droplet on Digital Ocean

Thoughts about Rails Presenters

This is a collection of links, examples and rants about Presenters/Decorators in Rails.

The "Decorator" pattern slowly started gaining popularity in Rails several years ago. It is not part of core Rails, and there's many different interpretations about how it should work in practice.

Jay Fields wrote about it in 2007 (before he switched back to Java and then Clojure): http://blog.jayfields.com/2007/03/rails-presenter-pattern.html

Hello, visitors! If you want an updated version of this styleguide in repo form with tons of real-life examples… check out Trellisheets! https://github.com/trello/trellisheets

Trello CSS Guide

“I perfectly understand our CSS. I never have any issues with cascading rules. I never have to use !important or inline styles. Even though somebody else wrote this bit of CSS, I know exactly how it works and how to extend it. Fixes are easy! I have a hard time breaking our CSS. I know exactly where to put new CSS. We use all of our CSS and it’s pretty small overall. When I delete a template, I know the exact corresponding CSS file and I can delete it all at once. Nothing gets left behind.”

You often hear updog saying stuff like this. Who’s updog? Not much, who is up with you?

	# encoding: UTF-8
	class ActiveRecord::Base

	# Class method to add destroyable paperclip attachments.
	#
	# Example:
	# has_attached_file :image
	# has_destroyable_file :image
	# attr_accessible :image_delete
	#

	# lib/tasks/deploy.rake
	namespace :deploy do
	desc 'Deploy to staging environment'
	task :staging do
	exec 'mina deploy -f config/deploy/staging.rb'
	end
	end