Ready to be productive with test-driven development in Rails? Check out my book
Everyday Rails Testing
with RSpec! Learn how to test your
Rails applications the way I did and test with confidence, by focusing on core technologies and
simple, readable tests that pass. Learn more.
Low Overhead Industries
is my semi-dedicated-but-not-entirely-serious approach to woodworking
within constraints, and/or my attempt to
subsidize ongoing projects. Follow along as I build a simple, functional workshop
with limited space and budget, or just buy something to
support my woodworking habit!
Everyday Rails is a blog for
people who need to build stuff with Rails and get on to their next
project. Sometimes it's still about Ruby and Rails, though these days I
tend to think and write about broader topics there.
Sound Refound is an online gallery
of promotional flyers for concerts. I've collected these over the years,
primarily in the Lawrence, Kansas, and Seattle, Washington areas.
Everyday Rails RSpec Snippets
is a collection of snippets to speed up and simplify writing tests in Visual Studio Code,
as taught in my Rails testing book.
I use these snippets every day to speed up my test-driven development!
Recent posts
- What I'm up to (March 2025)
- Online and socials (2025)
- My take on the Sorta Sortimo small parts organizer system
Now reading
- Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots (James Suzman; Penguin Books)
- Why Tammy Wynette Matters (Steacy Easton; University of Texas Press)
- The Harder I Fight the More I Love You: A Memoir (Neko Case; Grand Central Publishing)
Biography
I'm Aaron Sumner: Hackity-hack woodworker, low-and-slow cooker, tiny-scale gardener, Jayhawk, run/walk/runner, and cat herder, currently residing in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA. Also: A former league bowler and Olympic speed walker.
I still write a lot of code in my role as a Software Engineering Manager at O’Reilly Media. Some of the other times I write about writing software as an independent technical author at Everyday Rails.
Previous stops include Astoria, Oregon; Lawrence, Kansas; Seattle, Washington; and Jersey County, Illinois.
All of the above statements are true.