align=center
Sometimes it's the simple things that escape our attention. I actually spent my day today converting someone else's PHP templates into Rails views. Everything was going pretty smooth except that there was the occasional element in the new template that didn't line up with the others and just looked odd.
I didn't think too much of it at first because the CSS styles that came with the template were using Float's like they were candy pouring out of a freshly crushed pinata. However as the day progressed and I removed (read fixed) more and more of the CSS styles without seeing those elements pop into place - I began to be a little perplexed.
Ten minutes later I realize that dingle-dorfs have also been shoving inline styles randomly into the some of the areas of the template I wasn't paying attention to in my haste to convert all 35 of them. One project wide find and replace all "align=center" with "" and suddenly my pages snapped back into place.
I swear somedays looking at other peoples code makes me want to rip my own eyeballs out.
Code Quality
Interviewed
Last week I got to do something new by being interviewed about the new book on the Dr. Dobbs Journal podcast. I was fairly nervous and so was worried about how it came out.
Well that interview was posted on their website today and you can check it out yourself at http://ddj.com/linux-open-source/204600757
We talked about the book, how I came to be a Rails developer and the near imminent Rails 2.0.
I can haz positive reviews
Well the Practical Rails Projects 
Just stopped by to say I’m really enjoying your book!
Started reading your book last night, Eldon. good stuff!
The book has been really good so far. Even with my ~1 year of Rails development, I feel like I have learned some neat little tricks and gained more insight into Rails and even some of the tools that come with it
I have finished the my first quick read, and now with the required source code online I have made it through the first 5 chapters of excercises, and I am impressed with the breadth that is covered in 621 pages.....I strongly recommend it as an addition to any rails advanced beginner/intermediate programmer.
All of these nice comments have definitely been much appreciated and I'm very thankful for such kind words
RailsProjects.com is up
Should have posted this over the weekend but the discussion site for the book is now up and running at railsprojects.com.
The discussion site is running a lightweight ruby on rails forum application named Beast and I'm pretty happy with its "out of the box" functionality. Of course as more and more people join the site and we get some discussions going I may have to dig into it and make some custom modifications to it.
Finally in other news - once i finish bundling up the last of the support stuff for the book - I've got a few enhancements in mind for this blog. Including re-considering my stance on comments (for the record - I don't allow them mainly because I don't want to keep up with removing comment spam).
So nows the time to let me know if think I should allow comments or not. Just shoot me an email at my gmail address (alameda.eldon) and let me know what you think.
The Book Has Arrived.....
Came home today to two wonderful things.
1. My Upgrade to the new Leopard version of Mac OS X
2. My Author copies of my Book
Here's the first glimpse at the final copies of the book
The final book is 648 pages - so here's a little perspective. It only takes four copies of my book to be taller than a can of soda.
Ding dong the book is done!!
Well the book is done and going off to the printers tomorrow.
Woot!!
And just got the final page count for the book -- 648 pages!!
So it'll fill up a bit of space on your bookshelf if you buy one.
