nEvill

So I’m never happier than when I’m creating a cheeky Nant script to automate our database builds, deploy to test, etc…   Now my ruby skills are improving I’m hoping that Rake will be my ruby Nant

Colleagues who have to endure my sense of humour also have to enjoy my appreciation of Nant, the .net developer’s best friend.  Recently I’ve been using it to build databases during CruiseControl.net builds to enable a very complicated upgrade project to progress with some degree of order. Nanting the database build using Ruby on Rails style migrations is a great way to tie code builds to database builds.  I’ll dig out the generic nant script for reference as it’s a very handy technique. So what can’t you Nant?  Well, not a lot and that’s my point… if it moves, automate it.  The only thing distracting me from my enjoyment of Nant is Watir, another cracking product which I’m using all day every day to drive my web application testing… now if I can only hook up Watir with Nant. 

So I’ve had a cms project called Firework in progress for a number of years.  We use this CMS for our 2 main websites, WDC and Wakeboard UK. 

Originally we used ASP with Sql Server and MySql, we then migrated onto ASP.NET with SqlServer, and most recently we have switched to Ruby on Rails.  This switch was born out of the requirement to reduce after-hours programming, and to increase the enjoyment of any such coding I get to do.  Ruby on Rails gives you a certain freedom to cut code without the overheads of ASP.NET, and with that freedom comes fun

I’ve finally got round to setting up the Firework homepage after wrestling with setting up an Ubuntu VPS for the purpose configuring Apache, MySql, Ruby, Gems etc from scratch… ah the joys of deployment.

See what you think and any suggestions on Firework tweaks are most welcome.

If you’re a loyal Textmate user on the Mac then editing ruby on rails apps on windows can prove a bit of a pain. Enter e Text Editor, a textmate-a-like editor for windows which hooks into the growing assortment of TextMate bundles using Cygwin.