Honeybadger Developer Blog

Understanding and Implementing Bubble Sort in Ruby

You'll probably never need to implement bubble sort from scratch. Just call Array#sort! But sorting algorithms are a popular interview topic for a reason. They ask a bigger question: "Sure, you know what your code does, but do you know how it works? Do you understand the subtle ways that choices you make can impact performance?" In this article, Julie Kent will walk us through the famous Bubble Sort algorithm, demonstrating how it works, how to implement it in Ruby, and how to predict its performance.

By Julie Kent
Jul 1, 2020

Honeybadger Actions

Have you ever wanted to update all your errors at once, or set defaults for incoming errors? Well, we are releasing some helpful tools for error management that we call Honeybadger Actions.

By Kevin Webster
#honeybadger
Jun 29, 2020

Troubleshooting Encoding Errors in Ruby

Text encoding is fundamental to programming. Web sites, user data, and even the code we write are all text. When encoding breaks, it can feel like the floor is falling out from under you. You're cast into a dimension of bitmasks and codepoints. Logs and backtraces are useless. You consider trading your text editor for a hex editor. But there's hope! In this article, Jose Manuél will show us how encoding errors happen, how they're expressed in Ruby, and how to troubleshoot them. So the next time one of these errors lands on your desk, you'll be in a better position to handle it.

By José M. Gilgado
Jun 24, 2020

Evaluating Go's Package Management and Module Systems

When you're evaluating a language for your next project, few things are more important than available third-party libraries and the package manager that ties them together. While early versions of Go lacked a package manager, they've made up for lost time. In this article, Ayooluwa Isaiah introduces us to go's module ecosystem to help us decide if go is "a go" for our next project.

By Ayooluwa Isaiah
Jun 16, 2020

Taming Legacy Code With Characterization Tests

Developers make fun of legacy systems because we're scared of them. We're afraid that the tiniest change will cause the app to break in unexpected ways. We're afraid we won't realize it until a customer complains. One way to combat this fear is through testing. In this article, José Manuel shows us how to retrofit legacy systems with acceptance test suites so we can maintain them with less fear and more confidence.

By José M. Gilgado
Jun 11, 2020

WTF is a Convolutional Neural Network?

If you are a software engineer, there's a good chance that deep learning will inevitably become part of your job in the future. Even if you're not building the models that directly use CNNs, you might have to collaborate with data scientists or help business partners better understand what is going on under the hood. In this article, Julie Kent dives into the world of convolutional neural networks and explains it all in a not-so-scary way.

By Julie Kent
Jun 3, 2020

Speeding up Rails with Memoization

Whoever first said that "the fastest code is no code" must have really liked memoization. After all, memoization speeds up your application by running less code. In this article, Jonathan Miles introduces us to memoization. We'll learn when to use it, how to implement it in Ruby, and how to avoid common pitfalls. Buckle up!

By Jonathan Miles
#ruby
May 20, 2020

Neural Networks in Ruby: A Not-So-Scary Introduction

Building a neural network isn't *exactly* like building a human brain, but it's the closest any of us are going to get. In this article Julie Kent introduces us to neural nets as a concept and shows us how to implement a simple one in Ruby.

By Julie Kent
#ruby
May 12, 2020

Building a Toy Programming Language in Ruby

Few projects are as enticing or as rewarding as creating your own programming language. It's impractical, sure. But as an exercise, it strengthens muscles that most of us don't get to use very often and makes us better all-around developers. In this article — the first in a series — Alex Braha Stoll shows us how to get started building our own toy language and interpreter from scratch using Ruby.

By Alex Braha Stoll
#ruby
May 6, 2020

Why Rubyists Should Consider Learning Go

These days fewer and fewer web developers get to specialize in a single language like Ruby. We use different tools for different jobs. In this article, Ayooluwa Isaiah argues that Go is the perfect complement to Ruby. The developer who knows both is in a great position to handle almost any back-end challenge.

By Ayooluwa Isaiah
#go
Apr 29, 2020

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