Always Initialize to Nil
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Here's an excerpt from a great blog post on why you should always initialize your variables to nil.
“Always initialize your object variables to nil, no matter what, because some day they may be captured by a block and if they contain junk when the block is copied you’re going to crash.”
It's just good practice, but this really sums it up. Thanks for the write up Ryan Perry!
Open Source is Rewarding
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I released SSToolkit awhile ago. It's an open source library for doing common things in iOS. It's the overflow of stuff that I use on a daily basis. It's pretty much everything I've ever written that is iOS related that is reusable, open sourced, and released for free.
I recently received this email from a developer using my framework.
Dear Sam
Thank you for SSToolkit. I'm using it to display images from a folder.
your code is easy to use and the instructions to import it into an Xcode project, on your website, are clear and simple.
Regards Ehab
My Deploy Script
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Here's my basic rake task I use to deploy my blog:
Notice I run rake assets:precompile after I deploy to Heroku. I am using asset_sync to host my assets on S3 instead of Heroku. There is a known issue with Heroku and this gem, so that's my workaround. Having it in my little rake task means I won't forget any more :)
How to Install Ruby 1.9.3
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I'm a fan of living on the edge. Ruby 1.9.3 just came out today. It's apparently really stable as well!
We've been running it in all our 1.9 deployments for GC tuning + require speed fix.
Installing Ruby 1.9.3 is easy. My preferred approach is using rbenv and ruby-build by Sam Stephenson (great name, I know). rbenv makes it easy to have multiple versions of Ruby on your system (and in a much cleaner way than rvm).
Genius Launch
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Everlane is a new startup that started here in San Francisco. They've done some ridiculously smart things with their launch.
With Everlane we've set out to build a new kind of retail experience, one that exists 100% online and bypasses all the middlemen to create beautiful designer goods, always under $100.
It's basically super high quality designer goods (clothes, ties, bags, etc). I kinda want all of it.