From Floor to Ruby

A talk on how we at AirPOS made the transition from PHP to Ruby and how it has helped us better develop our product. Made for the inaugural Belfast Ruby meetup and also my first ever public speaking gig.

Transcript

1. from floor to ruby From floor to ruby making
2. kieran graham @kierangraham github.com/kierangraham Tuesday, 31 January 12
3. I work at airpos we
4. WHY HAS IT WORKED? Why has it worked FOr us? http://www.flickr.com/photos/squirr3l/6049132262/sizes/l/in/photostream/ Tuesday, 31 January 12
5. PHP in
6. We just didn’t want to waste time anymore. Tuesday, 31 January 12
7. We wasted time fixing other code. deploying. testing. migrating data. building basic tools. Tuesday, 31 January 12
8. Some PHP projects have virtually zero concept of these basic ideas. Tuesday, 31 January 12
9. PHP isn’t so much a language as a random collection of arbitrary stuff. -
10. 4,916 global functions in the PHP core Tuesday, 31 January 12
11. abs() acos() acosh() addcslashes() addslashes() aggregate() aggregate_info() aggregate_methods() aggregate_methods_by_list() aggregate_methods_by_regexp() aggregate_properties() aggregate_properties_by_list() aggregate_properties_by_regexp() aggregation_info() apache_child_terminate() apache_get_modules() apache_get_version() apache_getenv() apache_lookup_uri() apache_note() apache_request_headers() apache_reset_timeout() apache_response_headers() apache_setenv() apc_add() apc_cache_info() apc_clear_cache() apc_compile_file() apc_define_constants() apc_delete() apc_fetch() apc_load_constants() apc_sma_info() apc_store() apd_breakpoint() apd_callstack() apd_clunk() apd_continue() apd_croak() apd_dump_function_table() apd_dump_persistent_resources() apd_dump_regular_resources() apd_echo() apd_get_active_symbols() apd_set_pprof_trace() apd_set_session() apd_set_session_trace() apd_set_socket_session_trace() array() array_change_key_case() array_chunk() array_combine() array_count_values() array_diff() array_diff_assoc() array_diff_key() array_diff_uassoc() array_diff_ukey() array_fill() array_fill_keys() array_filter() array_flip() array_intersect() array_intersect_assoc() array_intersect_key() array_intersect_uassoc() array_intersect_ukey() array_key_exists() array_keys() array_map() array_merge() array_merge_recursive() array_multisort() array_pad() array_pop() array_product() array_push() array_rand() array_reduce() array_reverse() array_search() array_shift() array_slice() array_splice() array_sum() array_udiff() array_udiff_assoc() array_udiff_uassoc() array_uintersect() array_uintersect_assoc() array_uintersect_uassoc() array_unique() array_unshift() array_values() array_walk() array_walk_recursive() ArrayIterator::current() ArrayIterator::key() ArrayIterator::next() Tuesday, 31 January 12
12. abs() acos() acosh() addcslashes() addslashes() aggregate() aggregate_info() aggregate_methods() aggregate_methods_by_list() aggregate_methods_by_regexp() aggregate_properties() aggregate_properties_by_list() aggregate_properties_by_regexp() aggregation_info() apache_child_terminate() apache_get_modules() apache_get_version() apache_getenv() apache_lookup_uri() apache_note() apache_request_headers() apache_reset_timeout() apache_response_headers() apache_setenv() apc_add() apc_cache_info() apc_clear_cache() apc_compile_file() apc_define_constants() apc_delete() apc_fetch() apc_load_constants() apc_sma_info() apc_store() apd_breakpoint() apd_callstack() apd_clunk() apd_continue() apd_croak() apd_dump_function_table() apd_dump_persistent_resources() apd_dump_regular_resources() apd_echo() apd_get_active_symbols() apd_set_pprof_trace() apd_set_session() apd_set_session_trace() apd_set_socket_session_trace() array() array_change_key_case() array_chunk() array_combine() array_count_values() array_diff() array_diff_assoc() array_diff_key() array_diff_uassoc() array_diff_ukey() array_fill() array_fill_keys() array_filter() array_flip() array_intersect() array_intersect_assoc() array_intersect_key() array_intersect_uassoc() array_intersect_ukey() array_key_exists() array_keys() array_map() array_merge() array_merge_recursive() array_multisort() array_pad() array_pop() array_product() array_push() array_rand() array_reduce() array_reverse() array_search() array_shift() array_slice() array_splice() array_sum() array_udiff() array_udiff_assoc() array_udiff_uassoc() array_uintersect() array_uintersect_assoc() array_uintersect_uassoc() array_unique() array_unshift() array_values() array_walk() array_walk_recursive() ArrayIterator::current() ArrayIterator::key() ArrayIterator::next() $wtf; Tuesday, 31 January 12
13. PHP is very confused. Tuesday, 31 January 12
14. if (true == “false”){ echo “true is false”; } // If you run this you will actually see // “true is false”. I swear to god... // Tested on PHP 5.3.6 For Example Tuesday, 31 January 12
15. pear and pecl are simply bullshit. Tuesday, 31 January 12
16. Secretly... Some of our best PHP tools were written in Ruby. Tuesday, 31 January 12
17. ruby and
18. Ruby is well designed. Born from a labour of love. Tuesday, 31 January 12
19. Ruby was designed specifically for programmer happiness. Smile.
20. Happy coders are productive coders. Tuesday, 31 January 12
21. We could better structure our app by not worrying about our tools. Tuesday, 31 January 12
22. Our app became lean and focused as a result. Tuesday, 31 January 12
23. gem  “rails” gem  “airpos” Let’s talk about gems. Tuesday, 31 January 12
24. So is the hype justified? 0 25 50 75 100 2009 2010 2011 2012 Tuesday, 31 January 12
25. http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/magical+trevor/ Tuesday, 31 January 12
26. RAILS? rails? http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2179203080/sizes/o/in/photostream/ Tuesday, 31 January 12
27. it’s not what you might think Tuesday, 31 January 12
28. There’s a Ruby way to do things http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/6760135001/sizes/l/in/photostream/ Tuesday, 31 January 12
29. Quality Tuesday, 31 January 12
30. Quality reusability Tuesday, 31 January 12
31. Testing Quality reusability Tuesday, 31 January 12
32. Community Testing Quality reusability Tuesday, 31 January 12
33. giving a shit Tuesday, 31 January 12
34. is a deal BIG giving a shit Tuesday, 31 January 12
35. Wait, caring? http://www.flickr.com/photos/andynor/3582120797/sizes/o/in/photostream/ Tuesday, 31 January 12
36. you guys care lol,
37. Love what you do ruby
38. want to switch? and
39. we can help we’ve
40. we’re hiring come
41. one small example then
42. Example time class Kieran def self.drink!(what, how_many) # implementation... :) end end Kieran.drink! :beer, :all_of_them Tuesday, 31 January 12
43. thanks :) Tuesday, 31 January 12