Talk Description
Every Ruby developer uses the Rake program all the time, whether to run the database migrations in their Rails project or to just execute their tests. Some might have even written their own rake tasks to help them perform some menial development task.
But Rake has capabilities far beyond just simple task automation. Rake is a fine grained, dependency driven, build tool that knows how to transform files, walk directory trees, and serve you supper. And it does it with the minimal possible effort. (I might have lied about the supper.)
In this talk we will cover the "hidden" features of Rake that are not typically used by the casual Rake user. We will learn about the convenience of file lists, dynamic generation of tasks, rule based file generation and more. Come learn about Power Rake.
Bio
Jim Weirich first learned about computers when his college adviser suggested he take a computer science course: "It will be useful, and you might enjoy it." With those prophetic words, Jim has been developing now for over 25 years, working with everything from crunching rocket launch data on supercomputers to wiring up servos and LEDs on micro-controllers. Currently he loves working in Ruby and Rails as the Chief Scientist at EdgeCase, but you can also find him strumming on his ukulele as time permits.