Meditation is not...

about 2 years ago | Riju Kansal: Riju's Thoughts Captured...

1. Meditation is not about doing:

It is easy to be in meditation, but it is extremely difficult to do meditation.

Imagine how difficult it would have been if we had to do breathing. Like all natural processes, meditation is spontaneous and effortless.

2. Meditation is a state:

It has a very great advantage of being a fact and not a fiction

- Socrates

Meditation is the state of silence where we can introspect without either guilt or pride. In the state of deep meditation, we can correct even the fundamental flaws of our personality effortlessly.

Meditation is a state that extends much beyond mere relaxation. It is the experience of a state called as ‘thoughtless awareness’ where we are not hindered by the thoughts arising from the worries of the past or the anxieties about the future and being in the present where we experience our true nature.

3. Meditation is not an exercise:

Breathing exercises or stretching exercises do not constitute meditation. They are merely techniques that can be used to enter into meditation.

4. Not all who talk, know:

Stop thinking and talking about it and there is nothing you will not be able to know

- Zen Koan

People who talk about meditation sometimes have never actually experienced it. And even if someone has experienced it, it is of little value to us unless we can experience it ourselves too.

5. Meditation has no prerequisites:

It is not mandatory to have a silent room or peaceful settings to meditate. If there is noise outside, meditation will make you silent inside. It is possible to meditate even in a crowded train or during a crisis.

6. Meditation is not giving up on life:

We don’t need to renounce our day-to-day activities in order to meditate. Instead, meditation helps us to do things better. Proper meditation does not make us passive; instead it makes us dynamic and energetic.

7. Meditation is not for sale:

Look and you will find it - what is unsought will go undetected

- Sophocles

You cannot buy meditation. You cannot sell meditation. You cannot do meditation. You cannot force meditation. Like all natural processes – like flowers blooming and seeds sprouting – meditation is spontaneous, effortless and always born out of the individual’s desire.

While it is easy to believe that more you pay, better the product/service you get, it is often untrue with meditation. People who spend millions usually learn nothing of value. Nowadays, a lot of ‘commercial yoga’ techniques are available in the market that promises extraordinary things but usually is observed to deliver nothing of much significance.

8. Knowing is not the same as being:

The story is about you

- Horace

Listening to lectures on meditation is not the same as the actual meditation itself. No amount of books can teach you to swim unless you jump into the water.

A second’s experience is worth more than years of study. Direct perception is worth more than hours of listening to second-hand knowledge. To be is much greater than to know.

9. Abnormal behavior is not meditation:

It is no proof of a man’s understanding to be able to confirm whatever he pleases; but to be able to discern that which is true is true and that which is false is false, that is a mark of character and intelligence.

- Emanuel Swedenborg

Mind going blank, losing consciousness, doing weird things are things that are neither spiritual nor meditative. Many believe that anything that is paranormal is spiritual. However, from my experience, I have come to understand that true meditation is not something abnormal. It is a profound state of inner silence that helps us understand ourselves better. It is natural and uncomplicated. And has no price tag associated with it.

10. Meditation, a fashion statement?

The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved

- Victor Hugo

The ability to love oneself and other human beings equally is the most beautiful and attractive quality a human being can have. Meditation has the capacity to trigger this beautiful quality and thus is an eternal fashion statement. Meditation can never go out of fashion as long as humans desire for love and compassion.

Testing Framework Review

about 2 years ago | Riju Kansal: Riju's Thoughts Captured...

(TR0112) There isn't enough memory available

about 2 years ago | Abhishek Dharga: Learning and sharing

Error:
(TR0112) There isn't enough memory available.

Reason:
"Enable Mutli-Processing" enabled on datasources and the addition of the new datasource appears to push the limitations of this feature based on the size of the data being pulled.
Remove multi-processing from datasources


1. Open the model in Transformer
2. Right click the datasource and select "properties"
3. Click on the General tab
4. Uncheck "enable multi-processing" and click OK
5. Repeat steps 2 through 4 for all data source entries
6. Test / Build


Also ensure that there are enough system resources available when building the cube. This includes plenty of free memory, diskspace, and processor time. For example, if your database is using up 90% of the memory while you attempt to launch rsserver to build cubes, the cube build will fail at some point due to lack of memory available. Lack of memory in this case can also seen via monitoring the syslog (on unix system only) file.

TR1907 Transformer cannot gain access to database

about 2 years ago | Abhishek Dharga: Learning and sharing

When a cube is automated to rebuild on a regular basis, transformer fails to create the cube due to the failed authentication. Transformer prompts for user password even if the prompt for password box is unchecked in the Signon Property Sheet and Include Access Manager auto-access in the model is checked in the authentication tab of Model Property Sheet.
Error Details:
(TR1907) Transformer can't gain access to database 'Database Name' with signon information 'username'. [->Cancel] PowerPlay Transformer
Reason:
The Database signon is not recognized by Transformer via Access Manager due to an incorrect database name. Database name specified within transformer needs to be exactly the same as the one set up within Access Manager. This is also case sensitive.

Use Access Manager to record the database authentication and set the auto-access to access manager's signon. Cognos common signons are set to flown from Access Manager user class as well as the database signon

Steps:

1. Create the data source in Access Manager Admin Console
2. Add user signos into the user class Administrator
3. Uncheck the box against Prompt for Password in the user signon property sheet
4. Within datasource property sheet, specify the datasource name, which should be exactly the same as the one in Access Manager. The datasource name is case sensitive.
5. Activate "Include Access Manager auto-access in the model" from Authentication tab of the Model Property Sheet

Interesting article……

about 2 years ago | Abhishek Dharga: Learning and sharing

Interesting article……

Blogging direct from email client

about 2 years ago | Riju Kansal: Riju's Thoughts Captured...

Drive Towards Excellence

about 2 years ago | Riju Kansal: Riju's Thoughts Captured...

Generate Models from Tables - Legacy Data Gem

over 2 years ago | Alex Rothenberg: Common Sense Software

Today I'd like to announce the release of a gem I've been working on Legacy Data

Getting started on a Rails project with a large existing database can be daunting. How to you extract all the information that's
encoded in the database? Do you have to understand the entire data model before you get started? The models_from_tables generator
in the legacy_data gem can help! This generator looks into your existing database and generates ActiveRecord models based on the
information encoded in it.

How to use it

• 
  
• To generate an ActiveRecord model for each table in the database just type
  script/generate models_from_tables
  
• 
  
• If you don't want all tables in the database tell it which table to model
  script/generate models_from_tables --table-name comments
  This uses any foreign_key constraints in the database to spider the database and model the comments table and all associated tables.
  
• 
  
• If you really only want the comments table tell it not to follow any foreign_keys
  script/generate models_from_tables --table-name comments --skip-associated
  
• 
  
• If you use factory girl (and everyone should) it will generate a simple factory for each model it generates
  script/generate models_from_tables --table-name comments --with-factories
  
• 
  

(You do need to install the plugin gem install legacy_data as long as http://gemcutter.org is one of your gem sources)

Examples

Several examples come with the gem source in the examples folder on github. These include

• 
  
• A simple blog database tested with MySQL and Sqlite3
• 
  
• The Drupal 6.14 database tested with MySQL
• 
  
• The J2EE Petstore example tested with MySQL, Sqlite3 and Oracle
• 
  

What kind of information can it extract from the database?

Associations

If the database contains foreign_key constraints it uses them to build has_many or belongs_to associations
in your ActiveRecord models

Validation constraints

It will generate the following types of validation constraints in your models

• 
  
• validates_uniqueness_of - For columns where the database has an index that enforces uniqueness
• 
  
• validates_presence_of - When the database column is non-nullable
• 
  
• validates_inclusion_of - For non-nullable boolean columns and custom constraints with a SQL rule flag IN ('Y', 'N')
• 
  
• validates_numericality_of - For integer columns (nullable and non-nullable)
• 
  
• custom validation - For custom SQL validation rules in the database it puts a placeholder in your model with the original SQL for you to translate into Ruby
• 
  

Non-Rails naming conventions

Since the database is existing it's likely that it doesn't follow Rails naming conventions. Not to worry as the generator will
put the non-standard name into the generated models if it needs to.


What kinds of non-standard names can it generate?

Let's look at a sample output

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base

  set_table_name  :tbpost
  set_primary_key :postid
  
  # Relationships
  has_many :comments, :foreign_key => :postid

  # Constraints
  validates_presence_of :title, :body
  
end

• 
  
• Class Names - It named the model Post instead of the Rails convention Tbpost. The generator could not do this itself but knowing the conventions will often not apply to legacy databases it pauses after spidering the database giving you a chance to override the table to class name mapping. It generates a yaml file app/models/table_mappings.yml where you can verify or change any class name before proceeding to generate the models.
• 
  
• Table Names - It overrode the table name since the actual name tbpost does not match the Rails naming convention posts
• 
  
• Primary Keys - It overrode the primary key since the actual column postid does not match the Rails naming convention id
• 
  
• Foreign Keys - It overrode the foreign key on the comment table to be postid instead of the Rails naming convention id
• 
  

Generate Models from Tables - Legacy Data Gem

over 2 years ago | Alex Rothenberg: Common Sense Software

Today I'd like to announce the release of a gem I've been working on Legacy Data

Getting started on a Rails project with a large existing database can be daunting. How to you extract all the information that's
encoded in the database? Do you have to understand the entire data model before you get started? The models_from_tables generator
in the legacy_data gem can help! This generator looks into your existing database and generates ActiveRecord models based on the
information encoded in it.

How to use it

• 
  
• To generate an ActiveRecord model for each table in the database just type
  script/generate models_from_tables
  
• 
  
• If you don't want all tables in the database tell it which table to model
  script/generate models_from_tables --table-name comments
  This uses any foreign_key constraints in the database to spider the database and model the comments table and all associated tables.
  
• 
  
• If you really only want the comments table tell it not to follow any foreign_keys
  script/generate models_from_tables --table-name comments --skip-associated
  
• 
  
• If you use factory girl (and everyone should) it will generate a simple factory for each model it generates
  script/generate models_from_tables --table-name comments --with-factories
  
• 
  

(You do need to install the plugin gem install legacy_data as long as http://gemcutter.org is one of your gem sources)

Examples

Several examples come with the gem source in the examples folder on github. These include

• 
  
• A simple blog database tested with MySQL and Sqlite3
• 
  
• The Drupal 6.14 database tested with MySQL
• 
  
• The J2EE Petstore example tested with MySQL, Sqlite3 and Oracle
• 
  

What kind of information can it extract from the database?

Associations

If the database contains foreign_key constraints it uses them to build has_many or belongs_to associations
in your ActiveRecord models

Validation constraints

It will generate the following types of validation constraints in your models

• 
  
• validates_uniqueness_of - For columns where the database has an index that enforces uniqueness
• 
  
• validates_presence_of - When the database column is non-nullable
• 
  
• validates_inclusion_of - For non-nullable boolean columns and custom constraints with a SQL rule flag IN ('Y', 'N')
• 
  
• validates_numericality_of - For integer columns (nullable and non-nullable)
• 
  
• custom validation - For custom SQL validation rules in the database it puts a placeholder in your model with the original SQL for you to translate into Ruby
• 
  

Non-Rails naming conventions

Since the database is existing it's likely that it doesn't follow Rails naming conventions. Not to worry as the generator will
put the non-standard name into the generated models if it needs to.


What kinds of non-standard names can it generate?

Let's look at a sample output

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base

  set_table_name  :tbpost
  set_primary_key :postid
  
  # Relationships
  has_many :comments, :foreign_key => :postid

  # Constraints
  validates_presence_of :title, :body
  
end

• 
  
• Class Names - It named the model Post instead of the Rails convention Tbpost. The generator could not do this itself but knowing the conventions will often not apply to legacy databases it pauses after spidering the database giving you a chance to override the table to class name mapping. It generates a yaml file app/models/table_mappings.yml where you can verify or change any class name before proceeding to generate the models.
• 
  
• Table Names - It overrode the table name since the actual name tbpost does not match the Rails naming convention posts
• 
  
• Primary Keys - It overrode the primary key since the actual column postid does not match the Rails naming convention id
• 
  
• Foreign Keys - It overrode the foreign key on the comment table to be postid instead of the Rails naming convention id
• 
  

Introducing Spectie, a behavior-driven-development library for RSpec

over 2 years ago | Ryan Kinderman: kinderman.net :

I'm a firm believer in the importance of top-down and behavior-driven development. I often start writing an integration test as the first step to implementing a story. When I started doing Rails development, the expressiveness of Ruby encouraged me to start building a DSL to easily express the way I most-often wrote integration tests. In the pre-RSpec days, this was just a subclass of ActionController::IntegrationTest that encapsulated the session management code to simplify authoring tests from the perspective of a single user. As the behavior-driven development idea started taking hold, I adapted the DSL to more-closely match those concepts, and finally integrated it with RSpec. The result of this effort was Spectie (rhymes with necktie).

The primary goal of Spectie is to provide a simple, straight-forward way for developers to write BDD-style integration tests for their projects in a way that is most natural to them, using existing practices and idioms of the Ruby language.

Here is a simple example of the Spectie syntax in a Rails integration test:

Feature "Compelling Feature" do
  Scenario "As a user, I would like to use a compelling feature" do
    Given :i_have_an_account, :email => "ryan@kinderman.net"
    And   :i_have_logged_in

    When  :i_access_a_compelling_feature

    Then  :i_am_presented_with_stunning_results
  end

  def i_have_an_account(options)
    @user = create_user(options[:email])
  end

  def i_have_logged_in
    log_in_as @user
  end

  def i_access_a_compelling_feature
    get compelling_feature_path
    response.should be_success
  end 

  def i_am_presented_with_stunning_results
    response.should have_text("Simply stunning!")
  end
end

Install

Spectie is available on GitHub, Gemcutter, and RubyForge. The following should get it installed quickly for most people:

% sudo gem install spectie

For more information on using Spectie, visit http://github.com/ryankinderman/spectie.

Why not Cucumber or Coulda?

At the time that this is being written, Cucumber is the new hotness in BDD integration testing. My reasons for sticking with Spectie instead of switching to Cucumber like the rest of the world are as follows:

• Using regular expressions in place of normal Ruby method names seems like a potential maintenance nightmare, above and beyond the usual potential.
• The layer of indirection that is created in order to write tests in plain text doesn't seem worth the cost of maintenance in most cases.
• Separating a feature from its "step definitions" seems mostly unnecessary. I like keeping my scenarios and steps in one file until the feature becomes sufficiently big that it warrants extra organizational consideration.

These reasons are more-or-less the same as those given by Evan Light, who recently published Coulda, which is his solution for avoiding the cuke. What sets Spectie apart from Coulda is its reliance on and integration with RSpec. The Spectie 'Feature' statement has the same behavior as an RSpec 'describe' statement, and the 'Scenario' statement is the same as the RSpec 'example' and 'it' statements. By building on RSpec, Spectie can take advantage of the contextual nesting provided by RSpec, and rely on RSpec to provide the BDD-style syntax within what I've been calling a scenario statement (the words after the Given/When/Thens). Coulda is built directly on Test::Unit. I'm a firm believer in code reuse, and RSpec is the de facto standard for writing BDD-style tests. Spectie, then, is a feature-driven skin on top of RSpec for writing BDD-style integration tests. To me, it only makes sense to do things that way; as RSpec evolves, so will Spectie.