Essays on Aaron Norling

Simple GitHub Workflow For Spiker

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

🧪 Simple GitHub Workflow For Spiker

One of the things I love about the Spiker gem is how easy it makes it to spin up a clean, isolated environment for trying out ideas. Whether I’m validating a concept, writing up a quick example for a coworker, or demonstrating technical proficiency, Spiker helps me get there faster. ⚡

And if you’re spiking with the intention of sharing your spikes, one simple addition could transform your spikes from helpful to impressive: a GitHub Actions workflow.

Patterns in Reach

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Patterns in Reach

A case for reflexive, lightweight abstractions in Ruby and Rails development

I’ve recently participated in a few conversations exploring how to strike a balance between simplicity and structure in software development. Structure, in the context of these conversations, has become a sort of dirty word with structure or “patterns” being held synonymous with “complexity.” A cohort of developers has been preaching an attractive, minimalistic gospel: “You Aren’t Gonna Need It!”, “Keep it simple, stupid!”, and so on. These slogans have their place — they’re reminders to avoid premature optimization and needless complexity.

Teaching (and Assessing) With Spiker

Thu, 15 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Teaching and Assessing Ruby Developers — on Their Own Terms

I’m the author of Spiker, a Ruby project scaffolding gem for test-driven exploration. I wrote Spiker in the conviction that the best way to learn is to build. Spiker helps Ruby developers get building fast, with just enough structure to support clean iteration, testing, and discovery.

Recently, I had a job interview where the format was to build code in response to a series of tests added by the interviewer. The idea was solid — test-driven interviewing — but the process was clunky. Tests were added manually. Screen sharing and control-passing slowed everything down. I couldn’t use the tools or editor I was most comfortable with.

A First Step in a Testing Journey

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A First Step in a Testing Journey

I’m writing this essay to my past, testing-skeptical self. This is the essay I wish I had read at the beginning of my Ruby career.

Dear Past Self,

Trust me - I understand. You had every reason to be annoyed by the perpetually broken test suites and the testing acolytes who couldn’t explain > themselves. All you saw around you were wild eyed fanatics who spent their time arguing about matchers and tuning Rspec outputs to have better > colors… but couldn’t explain what was wrong when anything broke in production. You “tested” in IRB and you shipped code. And you shipped it fast! > Which is not to say that you were living a stress-free life. New features were scary, and building new features was slow and getting slower all the > time. Not great.