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RSpec Pattern for Testing Permissions
Brady Ouren writes about a pattern we developed to more easily test user permissions in Rails controllers with RSpec. [READ MORE]
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Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in vim
TLDR: If you don’t want to have to deal with vim’s non-Perl-like regular expressions in substitutions, you can easily enable Perl support and use :perldo <substitution> to get the job done. Substitutions in vim are immensely powerful with regular expressions; I use them constantly. When I first began to use vim exclusively and saw the basic syntax of substitutions, I happily went about my way doing simple things like /s/cat/dog/ and :%s/^\w+\s+/ with only needing my past regex experience. I went on like this for over a month until I came across a need to have some really complex regex... [READ MORE]
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Upgrading to OSX Yosemite
After a bit of time to let the dust settle and important libraries and tools catch up to support OSX Yosemite, I decided to give an upgrade a go. Here’s some collected information about what it took to get my machine back up and running; hopefully it will save you some time. This is mostly useful for Ruby developers. Pre-installation warning: Apple’s upgrade process moves around your /usr/local directory across your disk - depending on what you have there, (namely, Homebrew uses /usr/local and it has a lot of small files). I didn’t know this ahead of time and it... [READ MORE]
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Git Unleashed
You’re quite comfortable with Git. You know all the major commands and perhaps even use it professionally every day. Now take the next step to becoming a rockstar of efficiency. A talk about enhancing your Git workflow by bypassing some of its verbose syntax and customizing it to do more for you. [READ MORE]
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Programming Easter Eggs
Perhaps these shouldn't be called Easter Eggs - 'programming novelties'? - but the little additions in projects which don't necessarily need to exist are always satisfying and amusing to me. There are a number of them that my colleagues or I have stumbled upon. Here's a little collection I curated. [READ MORE]
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Off to Our Nation's Capital
My wife Emily was accepted into the PA program at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. - and we’re excited to say that she has accepted and we’ll be relocating out east towards the end of April! Leaving home is hard in some ways, and very easy in others. This is a life-changing opportunity for Emily and we’re eager to start something new and experience life outside of the Twin Cities for a while. I’ve always liked the East Coast and I’m pretty pumped to be able to stay there for a longer period of time. I’m also happy to... [READ MORE]
Chris Arcand
Principal Engineer building Terraform at HashiCorp 👨💻 Formerly: Red Hat, NBC SportsEngine, RubyMN organizer. Once played the clarinet for a living, now making a living to play hockey. I make pointless connections to Minnesota as a Minnesotan does.
St. Paul, MN