It was far easier for me to host on Github than to set things up on a private company server. It was far easier for me to generate a gem with Hoe and have Github autobuild it than to write an ad-hoc script and email it around.

My initial laziness will keep paying off, too: I have built-in channels for pushing upgrades, receiving code contributions, and upgrading my project infrastructure. Bangpow.

So Rails is officially on GitHub. This is great if you’re a contributor: No more tracking unofficial repositiories (or maintaining your own), keeping backlogs of patches, or any of the million other frustrations that come along with not having the keys to the kingdom. Get over there, fork Rails, and integrate your awesome feature hotness!

Here’s how I’m tracking the Rails repository:

First, I forked rails/rails on GitHub. No GitHub account? They’re out of beta, you know.

git clone git@github.com:yournick/rails.git

git remote add upstream git://github.com/rails/rails.git

git fetch upstream

git checkout -b upstream upstream/master

Now I have my own forked master, from which I can branch features as I work on ‘em, plus I have an upstream branch, which tracks the Almighty Official Rails Tree. I can pull on the upstream branch and easily merge it into my forked master.

One quick note: I have branch.autosetupmerge set in my global configuration, which means that my upstream branch will automatically track changes. A little Google work should tell you whether you need to add --track to your incantations.

Have a different method for tracking? Think this is dumb? Hit the comments. I’ll update this article if a generally acclaimed Better Way emerges.

http://git.geeksomnia.com/rails

Check out the activerecord/test subdirectory in the ar-test-cleanup branch if you’re interested in seeing what I’m trying out.

What used to be:

# rake invoke COMMAND=foo
task :invoke do
  puts "Invoking #{ENV['COMMAND']}
end

Can become:

# rake invoke[foo]
task :invoke, :command do |task, args|
  puts "Invoking #{args[:command]}"
end

If your task has prerequisites, they come after the parameter names in the declaration:

task :invoke, :command => :prerequisite do |task, args|
  # ...
end

Looks like the args are comma-separated and purely positional, no named or default arguments. It’s possible that there’s a better way to access argument values than this, too: I haven’t run across any documentation yet.

Download the new release. Installation is a drag-and-drop to your Applications folder. If you haven’t used Greedy before, just set it as your “Default RSS Reader” in Safari’s preferences.