Sönke Rohde » General

Connecting Pivotal Tracker with GitHub

Sönke — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:56:18 +0000

GitHub with Pivotal Tracker is the killer agile combination.
With the just release Tracker v3 API update it is now easy to connect them.

You only have to configure GitHub Post-Receive Hooks so you can automatically deliver stories/bugs by providing the Tracker ID in the commit statement like: Fixes #TrackerId

How to set it up:

Create a Pivotal Tracker API token: Login to PT -> My Profile -> Create New Token
GitHub -> Project -> Admin -> Service Hooks -> Post-Receive URLs
Paste https://www.pivotaltracker.com/services/v3/github_commits?token=YOUR_TOKEN_FROM_STEP_1

Now that was easy!

GIT Tips and Tools

Sönke — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:05:53 +0000

If you don’t know GIT yet it is a software version control system like Subversion, CVS or Perforce. It was primary developed by Linus Torvalds for Linux kernel development. I have started using GIT in the beginning of 2009 and I must say that after a not so small learning curve I really like it and see all the benefits especially when it comes to collaboration.

There are alternatives but GitHub is currently the best service to use GIT. You can host open source projects for free and the pricing for private projects is not too expensive. Check out my GitHub profile with my open source projects here.

To get started you should first install GIT on your machine and read the docs.

The tooling support around GIT is perhaps not as extensive like for other VCS yet, so if you are afraid of using the console GIT might not be right for you. However, there are already great tools around but for many things I am still using the Terminal.

Custom Bash Prompt

I am using a custom bash prompt which indicates on which branch you are and further color highlighting helps to keep track:

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Eclipse Plugin

My main IDE is Eclipse with Flash Builder or FDT so the Eclipse EGIT plugin is really a must have:

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Merge Tool

Merging is an important task when working in a team. GIT is really flexible and you can configure it to use 3rd party apps for merging. I am not a big Perforce fan but the free p4merge tool is really great. Check out the blog post by Andy McIntosh for a detailed explanation how to set it up.

GitX

GitX is maybe the best tool to visualize the branch history but I must say that I don’t use it in my daily work. It can also be used to create commits and revert changes etc.

Links

Commands

If you are new to GIT it is hard to remember all the different commands. Here a list of commands which I use very often also as a reference for me

Create a local repository:

# clone an existing repository
git clone [GITHUB_CLONE_URL]
 
# or do it the long way:
mkdir [PROJECT_DIR]
cd [PROJECT_DIR]
git init
touch README
git add README
git commit -m 'first commit'
git remote add origin [GITHUB_CLONE_URL]
git push origin master

Changes and Commits:

# To see which files are changed and maybe not added yet to the repository use
git status
# Add a file to the repository
git add [FILE]
# or to add all untracked files
git add .
 
# revert a change
git checkout -- [FILE]
 
# when you are ready with a change
git commit -am "[CHANGE_DESCRIPTION]"
# a commit is only local so when you want to push it to the server
git push origin [REMOTE_BRANCH_NAME]

Branches:

# Create remote branch
git push origin master:[REMOTE_BRANCH_NAME]
# Checkout and track remote branch
git checkout --track -b [LOCAL_BRANCH_NAME] origin/[REMOTE_BRANCH_NAME]
 
# local branch list
git branch -l
# remote branch list
git branch -r

Tags: Every time you make a release or reach a milestone creating a tag is a good idea.

# Create tag
git tag -a [TAG_NAME] -m "[TAG_DESCRIPTION]"
# Push tag
git push --tags origin master

Merge: You should work on a branch when implementing a new feature or story. If you are done you should merge this into the main branch.

# Switch to feature/story branch
git checkout [STORY_BRANCH]
# make changes and when done
git commit -am "[DESCRIPTION]"
# switch to master
git checkout master
# get all changes from master
git pull
# switch to story branch
git checkout [STORY_BRANCH]
# rebase story branch with master changes
git rebase master
# maybe solve conflicts
git mergetool
# switch back to master
git checkout master
# finally we can merge it in and there should be no conflict
git merge [STORY_BRANCH]
git push

Stash: When you have changes in your working directory and want to switch to another branch you can stash your changes.

# Create stash
git stash
# Apply
git stash apply

When you migrate a project from SVN to GIT this comes in handy:

find . -name .svn -print0 | xargs -0 rm -rf

btw: GIT has only one .git directory and not one for every directory like SVN

If you have some commands which are important on a daily base please drop a comment so I can extend this post.

High level AS3/Flex library for OAuth with Twitter from AIR

Sönke — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:22:03 +0000

Recently I have played again with the Twitter API and finally have OAuth working. When I have first played with the Twitter API I have used the example from Tour de Flex. The example loads up the friends list and uses the Twitter AS3 API. The API is not really my taste but offers the functionality to build a Twitter client application. However when you want to have your client application to show up as the source of tweets you have to use OAuth for user authentication. It adds another step to get started but is a good decision to force developers to use OAuth which should provide more trust into the client app because users don’t like to enter their Twitter credentials into a 3rd party application.

After a bit of research a came across the awesome open source library oauth-as3. There were no examples yet but I remembered an Email from my friend Claus with a link to this github project. The example application uses the oauth-as3 library and demonstrates how to integrate the library.

To use OAuth in your Twitter application you need a consumerKey and consumerSecret which you can get after the registration of your client app: http://twitter.com/oauth_clients/ or go to your settings and select the “Connections” tab for an overview and further links.
However, the github example doesn’t work anymore because Twitter changed their API recently and implemented a PIN mechanism for desktop cients which should provide even more security.

So how does it work?

Get the request token with your consumerKey/Secret
Open the browser and pass the request token
User authenticates on the Twitter site and gets a 6 digit pin code
User enters pin code in the AIR app which you need to get the access token
Save the accessKey/Secret in the EncryptedLocaleStorage for all further requests/sessions

I have build a high level AS3/Flex library for OAuth which is hosted on github. The library is licensed under Apache License, Version 2.0.
Check the inline comments of the IOAuth interface which should already explain the basics.

Here a little semi pseudo code example:

// create OAuth
oauth:IOAuth = new OAUth(consumerKey, consumerSecret);
 
// get request token
var loader:URLLoader = oauth.getRequestToken("http://twitter.com/oauth/request_token");
loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, requestTokenHandler);
 
function requestTokenHandler(e:Event):void
{
	requestToken = OAuthUtil.getTokenFromResponse(e.currentTarget.data as String);
	var request:URLRequest = oauth.getAuthorizeRequest("http://twitter.com/oauth/authorize", requestToken.key);
	// opens website where user has to login on Twitter and gets 6 digit pin code
	navigateToURL(request, "_blank");
}
 
function getAccessToken(pin:int):void
{
	var loader:URLLoader = oauth.getAccessToken("http://twitter.com/oauth/access_token", requestToken, {oauth_verifier:pin});
	loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, accessTokenHandler);
}
 
function accessTokenHandler(e:Event):void
{
	accessToken = OAuthUtil.getTokenFromResponse(e.currentTarget.data as String);
	// TODO store accessToken.key and accessToken.secret in EncryptedLocalStorage for all further requests
}

Instead of opening the Twitter authorization page in the browser the library also contains OAuthLoader which is a wrapper around HTMLLoader which enables to directly show the authorization page within an AIR window:

// use this in the requestTokenHandler instead of navigateToURL
var loader:OAuthLoader = new OAuthLoader();
loader.load(request);
loader.percentWidth = 100;
loader.percentHeight = 100;
var w:Window = new Window();
w.width = 800;
w.height = 400;
w.title = req.url;
w.addChild(loader);
w.open();

The OAuth library is not only considered to be used with Twitter but this was the first thing I have tested from AIR. When you build a web client there will be no pin mechanism but I haven’t tested this yet. If you have it working or see problems/bugs for web clients please drop a comment a or better file a bug.

Big thanks to Shannon Hicks for his core oauth as3 library and to Masayoshi Sekimura for the example which got me started.

Links

Agile with Pivotal Tracker

Sönke — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:51:24 +0000

I have used a few project management tools in the past and the one which really convinced me is the award winning Pivotal Tracker (PT). It is hosted in the cloud and is for free so you can start using it right away.

The first thing you and all project members should do is activating the email notification in your profile settings. I don’t understand why this is off by default though. Another thing I also change for every project is using the Fibonacci Point Scale Fibonacci to have a more flexible point system. The points of a story have to be set by the story owner during planning or at least when he starts with the story and should represent the difficulty of the task. PT then “learns” how much story points you are able to achieve in a week which results in a velocity. According to your velocity the stories are then divided into weeks:

So you can already have a schedule without estimating how much hours you’ll spend on a specific story which is always a pain for a developer. But of course there are deadlines so PT offers two kinds of releases. You can add releases with a fix date or without. To add a release simply add a new story, change the kind to “Release” and add a date if you have a fix deadline. Then drag the release under the last story you want to have done for this specific release.

So in the screenshot above I defined the release Beta 1 with the fix date May 7th and it should include the stories up to “User can upload photo”. “User can send message” will already be part of the next release. In this example we see with the blue indicated release that we can achieve the milestone calculated based on our velocity and the points we have given the stories. When the developer for instance says “User can upload photo” is far more work and he changes his estimation to 3 it and perhaps also other stories got re-estimated and the system detects that the release can’t be reached anymore the release shows up in red so you know that you have to react in some kind of way. Bugs and chores don’t have points by default which can be changed and is explained here.

For me the main advantages are that you have a perfect project overview because you never get lost in any detail pages where you have to navigate back and forth. To change the priority of a stories only drag it to the right position. The story details can be edited when you open the story by clicking the arrow:

You can define the kind of the story which can be Feature, Bug, Chore and Release. The story owner has to estimate points depending on the difficulty. Labels can be added on the fly and so on. The states are Not Yet Started, Started, Finished, Delivered, Accepted and Rejected. When a story is delivered the story requester gets notified to either accept or reject the story meaning doing the quality assurance of the story is implemented correctly.

PT has tons of other features like generating reports etc.. So for further information I would recommend the PT website which has a really comprehensive help part. Ah yes, and PT offers a bunch of RESTful APIs for further integration.

Mac Book Cycle Count?

Sönke — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:26:43 +0000

When you are a Mac Book/Pro user watch your cycle count meaning how often your battery has recharged. You should use your battery here and then otherwise the battery lifetime decreases rough. My wife didn’t use the battery for a longer time and the battery performance was a mess. Apple support wanted to know the cycle count which was low and said: “Of course you have to use it frequently, oh and yes, this is in no manual and you get no exchange”.

System Profiler (Apple->About this Mac->More Info…)->Hardware->Power->Health Information.

My cycle count is 62 and condition “good” though which is ok for my 3 month old laptop.

Bye, Bye Adobe and Hello Brazil

Sönke — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:34:30 +0000

Happy new year for all of you guys!

2009 already began with a big change for me. I have left Adobe to move over to Brazil. I had this plan in mind for a longer time and it was really hard to leave Adobe and my dear colleagues behind. During the two years I worked in the Mobile Device Business Unit and later in the Creative Suite Business Unit on the Device Intelligence Portal:

“Device manufacturers can use the web based Adobe Device Intelligence Portal for worldwide publishing of their device information to Adobe authoring tools.“

It is a B2B software and part of the ecosystem of Device Central and mobile authoring in general. The software is based on Flex and AIR on the client side and Java/LiveCycle Data Services on the server side. My responsibility was driving the client side so I worked full time with Flex/AIR and the integration of LCDS. I worked with a great team and our agile approach with Scrum was really pleasantly and highly productive. I am so thankful I got to know so friendly and professional people in the Hamburg office where I also made a lot of friends. I also had the opportunity to visit the offices in San Francisco and the headquarter in San Jose and meet my US colleagues there which was such a real nice experience. Adobe is really a great place to work and I wish them best of luck for 2009! The experience to work for Adobe is unique and exceeded my expectations so far. May the RIA be with you!

During my time at Adobe in Hamburg I also helped out the Flex Usergroup Hamburg where I meet so kind and talented people from the community. I will miss you guys and the meetings and discussions a lot so please come up with remote access !

So what’s up in 2009?

I started to work as Sr. Flash Platform freelancer at AUPEO! and will team up with my dear friend Claus Wahlers and his company côdeazur which is located in São Paulo. Aupeo is a new platform to discover music with friends and communities. It is still private beta but be sure to sign up!

Besides that I will be contributing to the Swiz framework which is a framework for Flex as much as possible. I started working with Swiz about 4 month ago and can say that it really accelerated my dev speed a lot and feels so good to use. Swiz is “brutally simple” and I will blog about the new extensions for runtime validation soon. Also be sure to follow Chris Scott’s blog who will update on the new changes as well and I just saw Brian Kotek is preparing a Swiz blog series too.

Chuck Norris anyone?

Sönke — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:16:23 +0000

I just came across the Google blog where is a post about the top searches after the election in the US.

Top 10 for political personas:

Obama
Palin
McCain
Tina Fey
Joe Biden
Chuck Norris
Cindy McCain
Bristol Palin
SNL Palin
Colin Powell

Chuck Norris? Come one ! After a small research I read that he did some spots for the republican party where he made a campaign called HuckChuckFacts. If you don’t now the Chuck Norris Facts check them out. Internet legend!

Of course the next step was YouTube where I found some spots. At least funny but not the party I would prefer … However, congratulations USA for this new president and be carefull if Chuck runs for president in 2012. Nobody can beat Chuck Norris!

Google Chrome Browser

Sönke — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:48:25 +0000

Yesterday I posted about Firefox 3 and the new concepts Mozilla Labs is working on and today I came across Google Chrome. Check out the Google Chrome comic book which illustrates the ideas behind in a really nice way. The german news site heise said the beta will be available today 9pm.

News on Google Blog

Update: The browser is now available for download

Firefox 3 and New Concepts

Sönke — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 09:45:59 +0000

Last week I updated from Firefox 2 to 3 and I wanted to share some of my experiences. Most of the time I am a Mac user so I was really happy that the new Firefox now looks like a real Mac citizen with the new chrome design, great! Almost all plug-ins had updates for Firefox 3 available so also no big problem there.

One thing I recognized and I find pretty scary is the thing how passwords are stored. I don’t know if the situation changed with the new version but if you did not set a master password all your log-ins (username/password) can be shown in plain text. So if someone has access to your computer it takes him/her seconds to steal user accounts. So go to the Preferences->Security and click “Saved Password …”. Then click “Show Passwords” and you know what I mean so be sure to set a master password.

Another news around Firefox and Mozilla from last week was that the contract with Google to be the preselected search engine will continue for another three years. This makes Google responsible for around 85% of the total Mozilla revenue.

Firefox 3 ist a great update I think but there is still room for innovation like Mozilla Labs shows. Check out the video with ideas for a new tab concept and if you are interested read the post by Aza Raskin:

Firefox Proposal: A Better New Tab Screen from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Live Concert Streaming

Sönke — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:52:07 +0000

Last week I attended my first online live concert on Ligx.de. The band was Thrice, a post hardcore band which of some of you might know. I was skeptical with the user experience but was surprised positively. Of course it is not comparable with a real live concert but attending the entire show with support band, sound check etc. gives you the live atmosphere. You know things are happening really in that moment and you get no 20 seconds YouTube clip with bad sound quality like there are so many from trillion different concerts.

And not to forget since generally I am only blogging about Flash/Flex stuff, the Ligx website is build with Flex and I am pretty sure the streaming part is done with the Flash Media Server and the backend is done with Ruby and RubyAMF.