Noel Rappin Writes Here

So, as threatened on Twitter, I decided to overreact to Vim users by trying out BBEdit for my Rails development. Expect a write up soon, but the first pass is that it’s clearly a very powerful program, but it also clearly was developed in response to a set of needs that are not completely congruent with my needs. 1. Contains Me I’m very excited to mention that I’ll be doing a day-long training session at Lone Star Ruby Conf.

I’ll say up front that I’m skeptical of claims of “distraction-free” writing environments, especially the super-precious over the top ones, for all the reasons that Merlin Mann has laid out in various easily findable places on the internet. That said, I think I really like iaWriter for Mac. And I say that even though I’ve basically abandoned iaWriter/iPad in lieu of somewhat more functional options, like Nebulous and Textastic. But on the Mac, I already have more functional options, and although I was originally skeptical of when I might use iaWriter, I think I have found a niche for it for quick writing tasks like blogging and taking notes.

1. Today’s News: Github for Mac Odds are you heard this one already, but the fine folks at GitHub announced a Mac desktop client. It differs from, say, GitX in that it attempts to be a front end to your entire GitHub account rather than one particular repo. I haven’t used it a ton yet, but a couple of quick impressions: I think we can now definitively say that Tweetie and Loren Brichter is to the current set of Mac applications what Delicious Library was to the batch a few years ago – the source of a widely used design aesthetic.

I’d like to pretend there was some thread connecting these things, but you and I both know there just isn’t… 1. Actual News: Cucumber 1.0 Starting with something approaching a real news story, Cucumber 1.0 was released today. According to that post from Aslak Hellesøy, the project has had nearly 750,000 downloads. Oh, and there’s a native JavaScript port in progress. I didn’t know that. Anyway, Cucumber 1.0 adds Rake 1.

Hey, twice in one week. I might be actually getting back on a pattern here… 1. Popular Crime Catching up on books, I started off last month with Bill James’ Popular Crime. James, known mostly for his writing about baseball, has written a labor of love book about, well, popular crimes. There’s a whole ‘nother essay to write about how the way James approached both writing about baseball and what you’d have to call the scientific method warped my brain way back when.

1. Annnd… We’re Back Okay, I’m trying the semi-regular daily links post again. Two changes from the last time I did this: a wider range of links beyond just Ruby, and it probably won’t quite be daily, but more when I build up five things that I have a short opinion on. Mostly, though, I need to get back in the habit of actually finishing posts, and realizing that I don’t need to write a 2000 word essay on something for it to be posted here.