Blog

The RayHightower.com blog is built on Octopress and hosted on GitHub Pages. Recently, after I deployed a site update, GitHub emailed me a Page build warning message. Since this was just a warning, I ignored it while I attacked more...

The current team of ChicagoRuby organizers assumed leadership in August 2007. Back then, typical monthly attendance was about five people and the group’s Meetup.com database contained 78 members. The previous organizer was swamped with work at his day job, so...

Developers of Git are making a serious effort to improve intuitiveness for first-time users. Of course, all users benefit from intuitive tools. When our tools just work, we spend less time sifting through documentation and more time solving problems for...

Last week, Coraline Ehmke and Liz Abinante met with three members of the WindyCityRails organizer team: Kevin Zolkiewicz, Alonda McCree, and me. Good dialog. End result: The updated WindyCityRails Code of Conduct.

Dotfiles, the configuration files used by Unix-like machines, can become disorganized over time. Entropy rules! This article describes my recent attempt to bring order to dotfile chaos. The steps can be summarized as follows: Move the non-private dotfiles (dotfiles that...

To iterate is human, to recurse divine.   ~ L. Peter Deutsch Recursion is available in many high-level languages, including Ruby. Recursive solutions can be joyfully elegant. At the same time, the pursuit of elegance can lead to unexpected performance...