Thanks. If I can figure out to make my own http request to my canada post account, I can possibly grab the shipping rate if I pass it weight, length, height, and width.
On Tuesday, June 6, 2017 at 5:02:02 PM UTC-4, Jason FB wrote: > > Joe - > > > This (gems having gone stale) is generally par for the course in the Ruby > world. > > This is a good resource that gives you some idea of how popular & active > any given gem might be: > > https://www.ruby-toolbox.com > > Choosing an old gem that is stale (hasn't been updated in a couple of > years) is common. Then again, the team I work with did an exhaustive > internet search for some gem code that had to do with image optimization. > They told me that one or more of the gems they were looking at hadn't been > updated since 2015. We all laughed and thought to ourselves that meant it > was a stale codebase. > > Then upon more digging, we realized that the code from 2015 actually > worked fine, and we just hadn't spent enough time trying to make it work > for us. So in that case, it wasn't that no one had worked on image > optimization since 2015, it was because *that problem was solved* in 2015 > (in that example), and didn't need more work because it continued to work > in 2017. > > > As far as Canada Post, we use EasyPost for our shipping labels ( > https://www.easypost.com), which is NOT a gem, but in fact a SAS service. > (It, incidentally, does have an open-source gem that has the API for > communicating with EasyPost. But you pay them a small fee to generate each > label). > > > Before you email the author of the gem, I'd like to take a small moment to > expound on the nature of open-source software: > > *They said this back in the 90s, but it's so important and so relevant to > you I'm gonna say it again:* > > *"Free as in speech, not free as in beer."* > > > "Free software" (what we called open source back in the 90s) isn't "free" > like you don't have to pay for it. If that's what you think, you are > totally wrong and need to adjust your mindset. It is "free as in speech" — > can be copied, modified, etc, without limits imposed on it. > > So consider that someone — two years ago — wrote some code to interface > with Canada Post. They put their code on Github. Putting OS code on Github > has no guarantee that that author is going to continue to maintain it. > > And take a step back and think about this: Why would they? You have a need > to have Ruby code that works with Canada Post. Maybe they do too, or maybe > they have moved on an work somewhere else now, or maybe they won the > lottery and retired, or maybe they got sick of being a Ruby developer and > got a new profession. Or maybe (heavens to betsy!) they switched to Node.JS. > > It's kind of like Ray Bradbury's great *The Martian Chronicles*: Someone > was here once, they left some artifacts, you get to enjoy those artifacts, > but you don't get to be them or live in their (ancient, bygone) society. > (Ok so that *Martian Chronicles* analogy was a stretch. I'll work on it. > But that is actually the core thesis of the Martian Chronicles — one of the > best books of all time.) > > My point is that unless you are offering to pay him or her, you need to > think about the implicit need-dynamics of emailing him to "get his take on > it." Obviously, there's nothing wrong with that on the face of it. But > "free software" isn't "free" like you don't have to pay for it ("free as in > beer"), it's "free" like the 1st amendment of the US Constitution (sorry > Canadians!), there can be no laws recognized that limit it ("free speech"). > > *This is a crucial and important concept to understand as you navigate the > world of old gems that are no longer usable.* > > Oh and since you're new to the community: Check out that "Fork" button on > Github! > > Fork the Gem, fix it, and submit your changes back to the original > repository — you will then be contributing to the whole community. If you > think the author is gone (like the martians in the Martian Chronicles), > dead (that happens too— in fact I've corresponded with Github tech support > over their policy regarding passed-away authors), or no longer cares, you > can detach your fork from the origin repository and make a "V2" (or > whatever) of the gem, upgraded with your fixes, rename it, and then you'll > be the Gem's author. > > Then in 2 years from now when Canada Post changes their API again, some > aspiring Ruby code will email YOU and say "why doesn't this gem work"! > -Jason > > > > > > > > On Jun 6, 2017, at 4:20 PM, Joe Guerra <jgu...@jginfosys.com <javascript:>> > wrote: > > Yes, I'm going to email the author of the gem. Get his take on it. > It hasn't been updated for over 2 years. Maybe something has changed on > the Canada post side. > > > ---- > > Jason Fleetwood-Boldt > te...@datatravels.com <javascript:> > http://www.jasonfleetwoodboldt.com/writing > > If you'd like to reply by encrypted email you can find my public key on > jasonfleetwoodboldt.com (more about setting GPG: https://gpgtools.org) > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rubyonrails-talk+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rubyonrails-talk/f4803246-7324-4766-989e-2c975a4bda47%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
