News

Andrew Birkett has stumbled across an interesting side effect of using SVN checkouts for deploying Rails applications in that, without adequate protection, SVN metadata is made available for all to see. In many cases this means you can see the revision number, the username of the last person to commit or update, and information about the SVN repository used. Andrew links to SVN files found at 37signals.com, Penny Arcade, and StrongSpace, which, at the time of writing, are all still viewable by the public. Luckily this problem is easily fixed by using svn export or a mod_rewrite rule. (I haven't tested this yet, but in theory I think this rewrite rule could work: RewriteRule ^.*.svn.*$ [F] )

Robert Dempsey, Founder of Rails For All, Inc. (a new Rails advocacy group), and Gregg Pollack, CTO of ADS, will be presenting a one-hour session for managers and developers at DeVry University's Orlando campus on Thursday, March 15 as part of the Orlando Ruby Group. There will be a free dinner, provided by Rails For All, so they suggest you arrive hungry! They say the session will focus on the business advantages behind Ruby on Rails and is particularly ideal for managers as well as developers looking for work. More details about the session can be found here.

Heiko Webers writes:

A month ago, Pat Eyler (On Ruby), Apress, and I launched a Ruby blogging challenge with the question, "How Has Ruby Blown Your Mind?" .. There were 18 solid entries, and one late entry by Sean Hussey that I think would have won if it hadn't come late. The eventual winner was Ruby Blocks as Closures by Gabe de Silveira, and he wins three Apress books of his choosing. Well done Gabe!

Josh Susser is reporting on Mark Carey's announcement that the "SDForum Ruby Conference" (informally known as the Silicon Valley Ruby Conference) is now requesting papers for the conference taking place between April 21-22, 2007. Interested parties can submit their proposals to proposals2007 [at] rubysf [dot] net. All proposals submitted before February 4, 2007 will be given consideration, and those submitted after then may not, so if you want a chance to give a presentation, you need to be quick!

No editorial on this, as I want to get it out quick, and I know some readers aren't subscribers to the official Rails blog.. but.. Rails 1.2 has just been released! Or, more accurately, Rails 1.2.1, as the obligatory bug-fix release followed on a little more quickly than usual :) You might want to get it straight away before the servers melt down with the rush tomorrow. Just use gem install rails --include-dependencies as usual.

Tattle is a project from Chad Fowler, Jim Weirich, and Bruce Williams that allows you to submit information that would be useful to the RubyGem developers and, ultimately, developers of other Ruby gems. You can see charts showing the data submitted so far here.

Given the audience that Ruby Inside has, I think there's a potential for us to make some big changes in the Ruby world. I propose accepting some advertising and sponsorship on Ruby Inside, and in return I will publicly disclose the amounts and give all of the money back (minus any forced costs, such as tax) to the Ruby community as donation to Ruby-related projects, offered as bounties, and/or pay for even better articles and tutorials. Rest assured, it will not be money that will sit in a big pot waiting for decisions to be made. The choice of where the money will go will be influenced by Ruby Inside readers, naturally.

Exactly one year ago David Heinemeier Hansson and the rest of the Rails core team (smaller back then!) unveiled Rails 1.0, the first 'production quality' release of Ruby on Rails. Alongside the release came an entirely new Rails Web site, the same as the one we're familiar with now. The next day, December 14, DHH followed up with some brief insight and wondered: "I can't wait to see where this will all go in 2006."