Ahmed Nadar

Ruby on Rails enthusiast at heart. I run RapidRails agency focus on Rails development & UI stack. Maker of RapidRails UI component for Ruby on Rails.
Find me on Twitter – @ahmednadar

Pinned post from December 3, 2024

Where Rails Talent Meets Opportunity

"Do you know any Rails developer good at performance optimization?" I've heard this question countless times. As a Rails developer myself, I've been on both sides of this conversation. I've seen the frustration in a lead's eyes when they can't find the right expert for their project. I've felt the pain of fellow developers who, despite...

December 4, 2024

The power of clear deals

Don't you agree that sometimes we struggle with showing our work value? We put lots of effort into our work but aren't sure how to get others' attention to show our abilities. I notice most developers often struggle with marketing their expertise, while businesses struggle to find the right talent at the right time. It's a disconnect t...

November 30, 2024

Implementing Friendly URLs with UUID-Based Models

I want to share a practical solution to a common challenge in Rails development I face it with almost every application I work with: combining UUID-based models with user-friendly URLs. If you've ever wondered how to maintain the security benefits of UUIDs while having clean, SEO-friendly URLs, you're in the right place! The Challenge ...

November 6, 2024

Common Issues with Rails Textarea Whitespace Behaviour

While building a textarea component for RapidRails UI, I discovered an interesting Rails behaviour that affects any textarea rendering, whether in regular views or ViewComponents: Version 1: Adds unwanted whitespace <%= tag.textarea(...) do %> <%= value %> <% end %> Result when value is " Hello ": <textarea> Hello </textarea> Version 2...

September 3, 2024

Patience and Resistance for better ideas

I’m sure I’m not alone in experiencing a flood of ideas and feeling the urge to dive into each one immediately. It’s tempting to get excited, do little research, and spend hours or even days dreaming about potential projects. Sound familiar? In the past, I used to jot down my ideas and, if one lingered in my mind for just a day, I woul...

August 6, 2024

We barely know what we should do!

At some point in our lives, we all seek advice. Whether it’s about a career change, a relationship, or a personal challenge, we often turn to others for guidance and help. When was the last time you asked for advice? What did you ask for? What did you get? Was it helpful? Did you follow it? And, did it work? Every time we ask for advic...

July 30, 2024

Understanding Rails Concerns

Having a debate about better coding practices is a healthy part of growth for any developer, especially within opinionated frameworks like Ruby on Rails. One feature that often sparks discussion is the use of ActiveSupport::Concern. To illustrate, 37signals recently released Writebook, showcasing effective use of controller and model c...

July 22, 2024

Use 3 laws from the 48 Laws of Power to overcome silence and dismissiveness

In the early 2000s, Robert Greene, now a renowned author, faced significant criticism, silence, and doubt. Struggling to find his footing as a writer, he was often told that his ideas lacked value and that his work would never succeed. His unique style and unconventional approach were met with skepticism and rejections, and he was freq...

July 14, 2024

Navigating Difficult People

Working with others, whether team leads or colleagues, can be challenging. We often struggle to understand why some people behave poorly or seem unpleasant. It's only through years of experience and patience that we begin to grasp the reasons behind their actions. Recently, I had a conversation that highlighted this perfectly. A friend...

May 21, 2024

Normalization in Rails 7.1 era

Before Rails 7.1 Once upon a time, way long before the Rails 7.1 era, a smart Rails developer (like yourself) needed to ensure user email addresses were properly normalized (sanitized and formatted correctly). Back then, they used clever techniques such as callbacks like before_save and before_validation, attribute setters, or even the...

May 16, 2024

Create before you measure

Creating a products, services or articles are not easy work. You have to have a strong drive behind that. Put stuff out that you believe in. Do it and don't care about, because time does. Take writing, it has been a human tool to document their life and communicate with others. It is not a new idea. And yet some—I was one—refuse or afr...

May 15, 2024

Ahmed’s Unofficial RailsWorld Guide to Toronto - Getting from the Airport to the Hotel and around

Before diving into today’s article, did you catch what happened on April 30 at 1PM EDT? Ready for this? 1000 RailsWorld tickets were sold in under 20 minutes 🤯😀. Developers were both surprised and delighted. Toronto RailsWorld will awesome. How exciting is it for those coming to Toronto to attend the RailsWorld conference (and those vi...

May 13, 2024

The power of listening with your heart

People want to vent. No solution. No advice. Just talk. I'm sure you've encountered a situation where someone just started to share what was going on in their life, but in a negative way, right? What did you do then? If you’re anything like me, your natural inclination is to solve their problem. This has been my approach for a while. I...

April 30, 2024

Ahmed’s Unofficial RailsWorld Guide to Toronto - Where did all the bricks go?

Hello RailsWorld! You may have heard, there's an awesome event for Rails developers this summer. We're just a few months away from the second RailsWorld, the self-described “avant-garde conference for developers excited about building tools, projects and all things Rails technologies.” Being put on by the dudes at Rails Foundation. Rai...

March 29, 2024

Your true value beyond the job title

Recently, I was inspired by Coby's reflection on channeling his inner Purple Cow, a concept introduced by Seth Godin. It made me reconsider my self-image and how others perceive me. The idea of "being remarkable, in a way that compels others to talk about you", resonated with me deeply. Some time ago, a client engage my services to upg...

March 13, 2024

"Meta or not to Meta" programming in Ruby

In the ever-evolving landscape of Ruby on Rails, how we choose to handle code can be as diverse as the developers themselves. Recently, my exploration into refactoring Rails helper to generate UI component names dynamically, led me down the path of metaprogramming – a powerful, dynamic tool that Ruby handles with elegance. My latest bl...

March 11, 2024

Refactoring Rails Helpers from static to dynamic rendering

Writing code is a journey of continuous improvement, learning, adaptation, and, yes, refactoring. As our applications grow and evolve, we often find ourselves revisiting and rethinking our code to make it more maintainable, scalable, and flexible. Today, I want to share with you the process of refactoring a helper in a Rails applicatio...

November 28, 2023

RapidRails UI for Ruby on Rails with TailwindCSS and ViewComponent

🚀 Exciting News for the Ruby on Rails Community! I'm thrilled to announce the pre-launch of RapidRails UI – a UI kit meticulously crafted for Ruby on Rails developers. This innovative toolkit uniquely blends TailwindCSS's utility-first approach with ViewComponent's component-based architecture, designed to elevate efficiency and style ...