Derple Derp: the hot new social network

Have you heard of Derple Derp? It's the hottest new thing to hit the social networking scene.

Not really.

Really, it's the title I gave the Hartl Rails Tutorial Sample App on the version of it that I made so that it didn't say "SAMPLE APP" in huge, giant, letters on every page load while I was working in coffee shops or the Wix lounge. I decided to keep it that way... everything else is exactly the same as the canonical Sample.

It was definitely a kick in the ass towards the end... I really should have studied up a little more on basic HTTP and maybe taken some looks through the Rails Guides before tackling it, but it was an immensely worthwhile thing to do. Not only do I have a general overview of a huge swath of rails's built in functionality, but it was just plain good practice jumping around directories and getting used to the structure of a good app- rails or otherwise. Test driven development was completely new to me, and I can totally see the benefit of goal driven workflows especially when you might be working with multiple people. Not so sure I like rspec much, though... but that just could be because I'm not very good at it yet.

In a way, the whole tutorial provide a sort of mirror to itself by illustrating a large "goal" to be pursued by a n00b dev. I have a much clearer picture in my mind of what the framework is capable of and generally how it goes about doing things, even if a lot of the specifics are a little bit foggy- and I have been using the guide as a reference if I want to try to implement something that I remember being covered in it.

You can see it here- hell, you can even sign up for an account. It does actually work.