James on Software

I'm a huge fan of screencasting. It's a great way to learn about software development. Screencasting is also starting to be used to teach general daily computing topics. Nevertheless, it remains something of a niche. The general public still doesn't really know about screencasting.

There certainly isn't a whole lot of screencast content aimed at kids, except maybe a programming tutorial or two. There's nothing (I can find) aimed at young girls.

Hailey Hacks aims to fill that void in the market. Hailey is a savvy pre-teen girl. She's fun — and a little bit rebellious. You might think of her as a cross between Bart and Lisa Simpson.

In the first episode, titled April Fools, Hailey teaches you how to play pranks, low tech and high. First, she suggests that you fill your father's shampoo bottle with ketchup. Later in the episode, she recommends using wakerupper.com to incessantly ring your father's phone while you're at school. I'll let Hailey show you the rest of them.

So far, we've got one other episode up there, in which Hailey teaches you to make your own lolcats. Lots more are coming. Hear first by following @HaileyHacks or subscribing to Hailey's blog.

Despite the fact that this is web 2.0, we're selling the videos for 2$ each over at the Hailey Hacks site. We'd love to hear what you and your kids think of them!

So, I'm sitting there on Friday evening working on a screencast introduction to attribute_fu, when Fabio Akita sends me an email to tell me he just created one for resource_controller! It was like he'd read my mind.

Fabio was nice enough to agree to let me put some title screens on his r_c screencast, but I couldn't seem to get it to export while still looking decent. So, here's the first episode of GiraffeCasts (for those of you who don't know, my company is called GiraffeSoft), and Fabio's awesome resource_controller introduction.

Episode 1: attribute_fu

Episode one is a quick walk through the basics of attribute_fu. Get it here.

As promised, here is the code from the screencast:

## _task.html.erb
<p class="task">
  <b>Title:</b><br/>
  <%= f.text_field :title %>
  <%= f.remove_link('Remove') %>
</p>

## _form.html.erb
<div id="tasks">
  <%= f.render_associated_form(@project.tasks, :new => 3) %>
</div>
<%= f.add_associated_link('Add Task', @project.tasks.build) %>

class Project < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :tasks, :attributes => true
  
  private
    before_save :remove_blank_tasks
    def remove_blank_tasks
      tasks.delete tasks.select { |task| task.title.blank? }
    end
end

To get attribute_fu:

$ piston import http://svn.jamesgolick.com/attribute_fu/tags/stable vendor/plugins/attribute_fu

Fabio's resource_controller Screencast

Fabio Akita gives an excellent tour of resource_controller, in screencast form. Get it here.

See Ya Next Time

That's all for today. Check back for more GiraffeCasts!