🪩 Newsletter #43: the framework war, optimisation with Ruby, being promoted...
A bi-monthly newsletter about Ruby on Rails and the web.
In this issue we talk about being promoted when we don’t want to manage, we learn about Docker in Rails, we prepare ourselves for difficult discussions, we get help from an AI…
😚 French version (version française) | 🤌 Italian version (versione italiana) | 🤝 Spanish version (versión española)
Web News 🗞️
Tamagui is not a beta anymore, version 1 is out. Astro has a version 2. Netlify acquired Gatsby. Angular has been roasted.
As we say:
Ruby and Rails News 🛤️
🚀 Optimisation for the win
In this article, Abiodun Olowode gives us a refresher on code optimization and lists the resources to help us optimize applications with Ruby on Rails (slash those N+1 queries). Then, she focuses on memoization (in Ruby: ||= ) and explains when it is interesting to use it.
✨ A Guide to Memoization in Ruby - Abiodun Olowode
🤏 News in Brief
Ruby will turn 30 at the end of the month! To celebrate, there will be a live event (in Japanese), and we love the design of the website made for this occasion!
Andrea Fomera, Senior Developer, wrote a book: Ruby for Beginners.
Do you have needs in BI (Business Intelligence)? There is a gem for that: blazer, Ana Nunes da Silva shows us how it works with a tutorial.
Rails is opinionated but had no opinion about how it should be deployed. Well, that was before, because now we have Docked, to ease the deployment in containers 🐳 And Rails 7.1 will ship with a Dockerfile.
For more security, now to deploy gems on RubyGems, you will have to show your token.
Code Tip 💎
VSCode Window ColorsWhat if you could differentiate the different projects you have in VSCode by colors? It is possible with the Window Colors extension!
You can personalize the colors by codebase, and differentiate active and non-active windows. If you want you can have “la vie en rose” 💖.
"workbench.colorCustomizations": {
"activityBar.background": "#13332E",
"titleBar.activeBackground": "#19423B",
"titleBar.activeForeground": "#F6FBFB"
}On the Web 🕸️
✋🏽 Let’s Stop Appropriation
The Apache Software Foundation is one of the most known organizations in the tech industry. With its free and open-source web server, the work of the foundation is present in 46% of websites worldwide. Last month, Natives in Tech published an article urging them to change their name. Chosen by Brian Behlendorf in 1995 after watching a documentary about Geronimo, it contributes to the appropriation of Native American culture — which goes against the values that the foundation says to defend.
✨ Apache® Appropriation - Natives in Tech
🗣 We Need to Talk
At some point in our careers, we will all have to manage a complicated event. And to be prepared for a difficult 1:1 with a colleague or a manager, there are specific techniques that you can apply. Morgan Smith shares them with us.
✨ Microsoft exec: My 2-step rule for having hard conversations at work - Morgan Smith
📈 The Theory of Evolution
You are about to live another promotion cycle and you hope to get promoted. Except that you are not interested in the management path. How to continue to evolve when the leadership roles give you the same enthusiasm as a meetup “NFTs and disruption” in Baizieux (yes it is in France, no, you don’t want to go)? Hopefully, there are other ways and Camille Fournier explains how to grow your network to get the promotion you want.
✨ The secret to getting to the Staff+Level? Leverage - Camille Fournier
Some Code 💻
👩✈️ Let Me Drive
Artificial Intelligence is your friend… maybe. Truth is, yes, it is possible to find some useful applications, like the ones Rizel Scarlett shares with us with GitHub Pilot. This feature can help you exit Vim!! Just for that, it’s amazing!
✨ 8 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do with GitHub Pilot - Rizel Scarlett
🌤 The Weather Channel
In an ever-changing, hyper-reactive, and global world, being able to answer all your customer’s needs (and future needs) is very complicated. The systems that manage the forecasting also need to scale properly to be able to handle the large amount of data coming from everywhere. Molly Zhu describes in this article how they did it at Shopify.
✨ How We Built Infrastructure to Run User Forecasts at Spotify - Molly Zhu
🤸♀️ Flexible Design
No matter if we look at a website on an iPhone 5 or a monitor 4K ultra-wide, we want our users to have a consistent UX. That doesn’t mean they all should see the same thing, the design needs to be flexible. How to know if the content has to be hidden, or if an image should be enlarged, …? Michelle Barker helps us decide.
✨ Developer Decisions For Building Flexible Components - Michelle Barker
Fun 🎉
🪩 Fans of the 80s
The 80s nostalgia is not only in music on TV shows like The Last of Us or Stranger Things. We get back to it with the design, the typography, the grain of pictures… And it might inspire you!
✨ The ‘80s are back, baby - Elizabeth Goodspeed
Events 🎡
🏗 Women of Color in Tech: They Share their Experiences - February 8th
The panel will share their experience and advice to progress in your career. You will hear about subjects like money, micro-aggressions at work, inclusivity, and the hiring process. This event will be in person and live-streamed.
✨ The Experiences of Women of Colour in Tech, London
📕 Women in Science and Technology - February 9th
An evening about the book “She’s In CTRL” and the author Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE. A panel will talk about the role of women and diversity in tech, and most importantly how to be part of the decision maker group and then lead it. This event will be in person and live-streamed.
✨ She's in CTRL by Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE
☕ Buy us a coffee to support the newsletter 🍰 Thanks Magalie for your support!
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Editors: Aurelie, Camille, Lucille and Juliette
English version: Aurelie
Italian version: Paola
Spanish version: Kattya