Codedrop™ Weblog

Neat way to pre-initalize something in capistrano before a task is run
on :start do verifyParametersAndInitialize()end
callback options:

:before, triggered before a task is invoked
:after, triggered after a task is invoked
:start, triggered before a top-level task is invoked via the command-line
:finish, triggered when a top-level task completes
:load, triggered after all recipes have [...]

After working in a rails environment for the past year I found it terribly difficult to go back to traditional database deployment / upgrade practices.
Migrations are a beautiful way to properly version, co-ordinate and apply the changes you need to your various database environments.  I never knew of a way to do this in a [...]

I keep coming across instances of ant build files where developers have hard coded a usage target that outputs target actions.  This is not required and should be avoided as it is often not maintained.  Instead, properly maintain the description attribute of each target and use a default target as below:  

<project name=”foo” basedir=”.” default=”usage”>

…

<target name=”usage”>
        [...]