Category: software development

ssl_requirement is a Rails gem by DHH to declaratively redirect requests to SSL.  It is useful, for example, to ensure all access to a checkout page is secure.  SSL encryption, however, is usually handled by a webserver such as Nginx or Apache, and these are not typically used in Rails test mode.  It appears most developers simply disable SSL redirects during testing, but this allows certain defects such as correct handling of flash messages to go undetected.  To test SSL redirects I’ve started using a lightweight, secure reverse proxy called pound. The pound configuration file can be kept to a bare minimum to forward requests from port 8443 to 3000 and encrypt the response:

ListenHTTPS
  Address 127.0.0.1
  Port    8443
  Cert    "pound.pem"
  AddHeader "X_FORWARDED_PROTO: https"
  Service
    BackEnd
      Address 127.0.0.1
      Port    3000
    End
  End
End

To run pound:

pound -vf ./pound.conf

One year since I picked up ‘Agile Web Development with Rails’ and coded my first Rails model/controller/view: seems so long ago now.

Things I’ve mastered in the past year:

• Test driven development using unit and functional tests.
• Master-detail forms using Ajax to add and delete rows, fetching product details in JSON for codes entered into a line item.
• Prototype and jQuery, including jQuery UI datepickers.
• Loading and parsing XML data files using Nokogiri.
• Building complex reports using nested views in PostgreSQL, maintained using rails_sql_views.
• Creating formatted, multi-tab Excel spreadsheets using Spreadsheet gem.
• Creating pixel-perfect PDF reports using JasperReports loaded using Java-Ruby bridge.
• Hosting using Apache with Passenger, Mongrel, Thin and Unicorn.
• Monitoring using ScoutApp.
• Upgrading a production app from Rails 2.3.4 to Rails 3.0.9.
• Switching from ERB to HAML.

There are multiple ways to add date-pickers to a Rails application. Searching for a date picker online I came across one Prototype based gem called calendar_date_select that was featured by Ruby Inside, and another one called Calendar-DatePicker-for-Rails.  On closer inspection, however, calendar_date_select was last updated in 2008 and is looking for a new maintainer: the demo still uses Rails 2.2.2: it does not work with some later versions.

Apart from using a date-picker specifically packaged for Rails it is not that difficult to use a free-standing Javascript solution: I found a nice looking solution called unobtrusive-date-picker but it appears to have limited support. There are also Javascript widget libraries like AUI and jQuery UI.  Finally I came across a Railscast that mentions calendar_date_select but goes on to recommends jQuery UI.  jQuery can be integrated with Rails 2.x using jRails or Rails 3 with jquery-rails and/or jquery-ujs or you can simply forgo the integration and just use jQuery directly. In my case I linked to the libraries hosted by Google like this:

 <%= javascript_include_tag "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.4/jquery.min.js", "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.7/jquery-ui.min.js" %>
 <%= stylesheet_link_tag "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.7.2/themes/humanity/jquery-ui.css" %>

The remaining details of using a jQuery UI datepicker with Rails are covered in the Railscast.