skatIt's been months since we started having weekly gatherings with @lucian . It was inevitable that we would start some project together.
Since we both love Ruby, we've decided to write a book about our favorite programming language.
We believe that having second pair of eyes is the best way to improve quality of production code. Automated linting aids code review process, it removes thousands of small issues and allows reviewers to focus on most critical parts of code.
Yeat, many teams don't take full advantage of amazing linting tooling available in Ruby ecosystem. Other teams obsess over things that don't really matter that much.
There is a healthier and more productive way to use these tools. And we're going to write about that.
Interesting fact:
Term “lint” comes from the name of the first lint tool, which was developed in the early 1970s by a team of Bell Labs researchers led by Stephen C. Johnson. The original lint tool was designed to analyze C source code for potential errors and stylistic issues.
The term was derived from lint, the name for the tiny bits of fiber and fluff shed by clothing, as the command should act like the lint trap in a clothes dryer, detecting small errors to great effect.
Nowadays, “linting” term is almost synonymous with “static code analysis”. A method of computer program debugging that is done by examining the code without executing the program.
I'm not a fan of this limiting synonym, but we will not go against the grain.
We'll be writing how to start eliminating thousands of possible issues from production code auto-magically. And we need your feedback to write a really useful book - because we're doing it live.
Want to join us? Subscribe https://lintingruby.com!
timtilberg@skat Haha. I have so many feels about this 🤣. First, the meme in this most recent post was hilarious to read after getting off a thread with @codefolio, @joeldrapper, @searls and friends (and being on the general side of “opinionated linters frustrate me!”). Second, the notion of writing _any_ book about Ruby is delightful! I love the niche subject rather than a general learn Ruby (Nothing against those either!). Finally, doing it live??? Sick! Good luck!!! Looking forward to following along.
@skat Okay, after visiting the page, it looks like I may need to temper my joy by 4 ounces. I thought I was about to get invited to some super weird “watch two people awkwardly negotiate how to write some technical stuff on twitch”. Not gunna lie, I think I’m a target audience for that. Regardless, signed up. Haha. And I hope you guys do it live for reals lol.
@timtilberg haha, would be awesome to have a public debate on every subject. But I'm not sure, that i'll be able to moderate this before everything turns into a fist fight. :)
I do agree, that most of the opinionated linters feel frustrating. And it seems that linters get a bad rap because of that...
But I feel, that there is a more balanced approach, without all the opinionated stuff, and I need to write about it.
@skat Hah! That _would_ be terrible! I wouldn't expect audience participation. For years I've wanted to work on a book on data processing, bringing light to how great Ruby is at wrangling data, and also talk about Kiba. Inspired by "Text Processing with Ruby" and "Build Awesome Command-Line Apps in Ruby". I've enjoyed @davetron5000's and @strzibnyj public postmortems on their respective books. Watching the sausage get made would be like some cool/weird/creepy/inspiring unboxing-video thing. 😆