Cheers!

Cucumber is the hot new testing tool that can execute plain-text documents as automated functional tests.   Cucumber basically consists of features and steps with some handy-dandy support files.  Watir is an open-source library for automating web browsers.  I am finding huge productivity gains when combing the two.

Install Cucumber / Watir and execute ruby script/generate cucumber inside your Rails app.

This will generate the below features folder.

Now open the support folder and add the watir configuration code to your env.rb.

Ok now that we are all configured let’s take a look at some code, starting with my sample security.feature.

Notice Line 4 “Given I am on the login page“.  Cucumber takes this line and treats it as a regular expression.  It will try and find a match in either the step_definitions and/or support folder.  “the login page” portion can be found inside paths.rb in my support directory under the “path_to(page_name)” method.

So now any feature steps that end in “the login page” will send the browser to the url “http://deploy.visualcv.com/login”, thanks to watir.

But what about the “I am on” portion?  Well, that can be found in the page_steps.rb under the step_definitions directory.

See how “.goto” watir method points to the (page_to(page_name)) method found in paths.rb.  That is how “Given I am on the login page” gets executed properly from the security.feature.

Good news?  That is as complex as it gets.  Now for the easy steps.

Let’s take a look at Line 5 of the security.feature And I click the link “Forgot Your Password?“.  Under the step_definitions directory I have a link_steps.rb file.

All I am doing here is passing in the text “Forgot Your Password?” into the watir hash via the block(|text|).  I can pass in any link text I wish to this one line of code.  Talk about Refactoring your code.

So, I’ve decided to keep the same concept with buttons, assertions, text_fields, etc…

This makes scripting very fast, very organized, very easy and very English.
Enough code talk, let’s see some action in a ScreenCast!

Check it out!

Then I saw this tweet yesterday from DHH.

“Merb gets merged into Rails 3: http://is.gd/dbnC — what a great day for the community! Read also Yehuda’s take: http://is.gd/dbnP“

I was pretty excited and shocked at first.  Not sure how often this happens in other camps, but now that I think about it…it is classic Ruby.  You see, Ruby is not just a fantastic language but the people involved are all about collaboration.  We focus on community and not about self-interests.  For example, I received an email last week from Chad Fowler, asking me to review his next book.  I attended one of Chad’s trainings back in March and bumped into him at a couple conferences.  I was not expecting to be honored with such a favor.  But hey, this is the Ruby Community.  This is what it’s all about.

the entire article:

Improving your e-mail marketing results doesn’t have to cost thousands of dollars. When every penny counts, basic, lowcost optimization techniques can yield significant improvements.

Here are a few tricks of the trade.

Capture audit We all lose track of the countless places we gather e-mail addresses. It’s time to take a good, hard look at correcting this problem. Audit each of your online and offline e-mail capture methods. Create a matrix with column headings that refer to each source (SEM landing page, Web site, POS). Complete the matrix by pulling e-mail metrics from the past six months and segmenting the results based on source of e-mail capture. Then, determine where your most profitable e-mail acquisition occurs. Focus optimization efforts there and lessen efforts in the least profitable categories.

Capture forms Optimize your forms to capture only the most profitable subscribers. Sign up for Google analytics and run it on every form page. You need to know your completion rate versus impressions. What do people click on and what do they ignore?

After evaluating the data, it’s time to test: Test copy, both its tone and length. If subscribers feel they have either insufficient or too much information, they’ll leave. Test the number of fields. Fewer are better. Test imagery. The addition of e-mail examples (expandable in a pop-up screen) could alleviate subscribers’ fears about content and relevancy. Test layout. Many researchers concur that a one-column design brings the highest number of conversions.

Remarketing opportunities Before you dream up a new and costly campaign, examine previous campaigns and see where you might harvest new opportunities. Market to individuals who opened but didn’t click and to individuals who clicked but didn’t convert. Market to “loiterers”: those who opened or clicked on eight of your last 10 campaigns but still haven’t purchased.

Optimize e-mail creative With mobile rendering now the biggest concern, it’s time to face the problem of unreadable e-mails. Reduce the imagery in the top three inches of your design and set the heights and widths on all images. If your call to action is an image, provide viewable text links. Forget open rates. Readers should be able to get the message without having to download images or click on a web version. Make your imagery complement, not carry, the message. Focus on conversions instead. Don’t pay for a complete redesign to spice up your template. Instead, test the addition or placement of one element and discover how it can impact your click-through rate. Here’s to optimization, and to a higher ROI in 2009.

Ok, so here it goes.
Rails would have to be compared to the most important part of the meal, the sandwich.  The sandwich not only held the other items in place but came in a that saran wrap baggie, keeping the bread and deli meat DRY(Rails Helpers).  Ofcourse, mom had to pack a piece of fruit, which I would have to compare to Test::Unit.  Good for you but would always cause pause before eating.  Desert?  Little Debbie on a good day.  Enter Scriptaculous and Prototype(who doesn’t like Ajax)  And finally, Ruby => Potato Chips.  The “Salt” of the Framework.

Voila! ~ RubyonRails in a Lunchbox

First up!

Grockit ~ Jeff’s current employer which recently went Beta.  Together we dissected the different layers.  Pretty sophisticated stuff, yet ridiculously easy to maintain when implemented properly.  We talked about how he refactored the database (personally, never considered that).  Also reviewed Grockit’s monster MVC Javascript repository. Talk about taking the fat out of “fat models”.

Cucumber ~ Is a tool that can execute feature documentation written in plain text. Cucumber targets non technical business analysts, interaction designers, domain experts, testers (for the plain text part) and programmers (for the steps, which are written in Ruby).  Slick Stuff!

Pivotal Tracker ~ Very cool.  Created by Pivotal Labs and open to the developing public.  Haven’t spent a lot of time in here yet but looks very promising for future projects.

Extreme Programming Explained ~ Just ordered it myself.

That my friends is a Tag Cloud.  Tag Clouds have been around for a little while now.  However, now that Twitter has scaled , the power in the above display is rather absurd.  The size of the word clearly displays the gravity of the topic.  Meaning, the bigger the word the more it has been tweeted on.  Click that word and you are instantly viewing the latest and greatest relevant tweets made across the GLOBE.  Seriously, does it get any sexier then that!

]]> http://www.rudyonrails.com/?feed=rss2&p=271 1 http://www.rudyonrails.com/?p=270 http://www.rudyonrails.com/?p=270#comments Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:59:41 +0000 rudy http://www.rudyonrails.com/blog/?p=270 Purchased a new SLR Digital Camera over the weekend. Had fiun breaking it in this eveninng.

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