Peter's Ponderings
Musings of a busy mind
How to fix drb connection refused errors with Guard, Spork and Rails
May 16th
Recently, I was re-setting up my Ruby on Rails development environment to use Guard and Spork on my new MacBook Pro and ran into a bit of problem. Upon starting up Guard using “bundle exec guard”, the specs would be run without error. However, I noticed that, when changing a model or its corresponding spec file, Guard would attempt to run the tests again but, in this case, I would see an error in terminal window as follows:
/usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p318/lib/ruby/1.9.1/drb/drb.rb:736:in `rescue in block in open’: druby://127.0.0.1:8988 – #
from /usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p318/lib/ruby/1.9.1/drb/drb.rb:730:in `block in open’
from /usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p318/lib/ruby/1.9.1/drb/drb.rb:729:in `each’
from /usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p318/lib/ruby/1.9.1/drb/drb.rb:729:in `open’
from /usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p318/lib/ruby/1.9.1/drb/drb.rb:1191:in `initialize’
from /usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p318/lib/ruby/1.9.1/drb/drb.rb:1171:in `new’
from /usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p318/lib/ruby/1.9.1/drb/drb.rb:1171:in `open’
from /usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p318/lib/ruby/1.9.1/drb/drb.rb:1087:in `block in method_missing’
from /usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p318/lib/ruby/1.9.1/drb/drb.rb:1105:in `with_friend’
from /usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p318/lib/ruby/1.9.1/drb/drb.rb:1086:in `method_missing’
from /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p318@anaf/gems/spork-minitest-0.0.3/bin/testdrb:5:in `
from /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p318@anaf/bin/testdrb:19:in `load’
from /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p318@anaf/bin/testdrb:19:in `
After a few false starts, I found the solution was to modify the .rspec file and simply remove the following line: “–drb”.
So, if you see this sort of a stack trace in your terminal window, you now have something to try!
An interesting development within the Spring Framework, Cloud Computing and Distributed Data Grid sectors
May 7th
Today, I noticed an announcement of an acquisition within the computer software industry with ties into the Spring Framework, VMWare/Cloud Computing, Distributed Data Grids and even the Smalltalk communities. It appears that SpringSource has decided to purchase GemStone Systems!
GemStone, for those not familiar with this company, is a key player in the Distributed Data Grid space. GemStone also has deep ties to the Smalltalk community and within the Object Oriented Database space. SpringSource is the main driving force behind the infamous java-based Spring framework and is operated as a division of VMWare. This is a very interesting acquisition and leads to the possibility of GemFire (GemStone’s flagship distributed data grid product which competes with Oracle’s Coherence product) becoming better integrated with the Spring stack.
If you are not yet acquainted with Data Grids, at a basic level they are in-memory, real time, managed caches used to increase the performance of intensive processing tasks such as real-time data analysis and computations and parallel transaction processing. Distributed Data Grids take this concept to the next level, distributing the data and processing amongst a number of machines. While support for and adoption of Data Grid computing techniques is on the rise, in my opinion, it has not yet become part of the mainstream developer's toolbox.
I believe that this acquisition will be a very good thing for our industry. With the backing of and associating with SpringSource, GemFire may finally get some quality airtime and finally be recognized as the most powerful, versatile and technically superior solution within its category. It may also accelerate the adoption of Data Grids within the industry which would be a welcome development.
This news is particularly interesting to me as, previous to joining my current employer, I was an architect with GemStone Systems for many years. I am thus well-versed in the underlying principles and technologies used in distributed data grids such as GemFire and Coherence. I am very excited about the potential benefits this acquisition may bring to both SpringSource and Gemstone as well as to java developers in general and I wish all of my good friends at GemStone the best of luck in capitalizing on this fantastic opportunity.
The announcement of this acquisition is currently featured front-and-center on the SpringSource home page. For more details, here is the official announcement, an entry on the SpringSource blog and the official announcement on GemStone's website.
Google releases “Translator for Animals” beta
Apr 1st
This is rather cool, I think. Google has released a beta of a translator program that runs on your Android-enabled device which translates the "spoken word" of animals. Apparently this is the culmination of a lot of research and development effort on Google's part and they should be commended for it.
Here is the link to the announcement:
http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/landing/translateforanimals/
I actually installed this app on my phone and, after setting it to "dog" mode, did my best to imitate what I remember my dog sounding like this past weekend. The Google animal translator hesitated a second as it processed this input and then it displayed its best guess at what my dog had been saying:
"My Goodness, I am looking hot today."
If you know my dog, you will undoubtedly realize that this app works flawlessly!
‘God mode’ on Windows Vista and Windows 7
Apr 1st
Windows "God" mode is an interesting way of pulling together most of the useful Windows tools that you might need into one place. All of these functions are available to you in various panels and menus, but it is nice to have a consolidated array of them.
To enable this, you simply:- Create a new folder somewhere on your desktop or hard drive
- Rename this new folder as "GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"
- Open the newly renamed folder by double-clicking on it.
Note you do not have to name it “GodMode” as any name you enter will work as long as it ends with the {} suffix. Alternatively, you can just use the registry entries in the attached zip file which I provide here but credit and thank the folks at http://www.askvg.com for.