The truth of the matter is that Software Engineers have to deal with some of the most ridiculous idiosyncrasies in the code we work with. Sometimes, your only options are to cry or laugh. So, why not build a site where we can celebrate the weirdness that we see from day to day?
This app was built on Express running on Node.js 0.6. If you don't already have Node up and running you should check it out here. You'll need to install Node.js, NPM, CoffeeScript, MongoDB, Ruby 1.8 or greater, and RubyGems on your machine before you can run the project.
After you have the basic scaffolding in place we can move onto the higher level stuff.
First, stylesheets are compiled using Compass and Twitter's Bootstrap - so you'll be required to install the requisite gems for the stylesheets to compile. To get Compass simply run:
$ gem install compass
For the Twitter Bootstrap gem, you'll want to clone and build that manually. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a release since a pretty major bug was fixed, so the working version isn't yet on RubyGems. The following commands should square you away.
$ git clone https://github.com/vwall/compass-twitter-bootstrap
$ cd compass-twitter-bootstrap
$ gem build compass_twitter_bootstrap.gemspec
$ gem install compass_twitter_bootstrap-2.0.1.2.gem
After Compass and the Twitter Bootstrap Plugin are installed, npm should be able to do the rest. Just cd into the directory where you cloned this project to, and run:
$ npm install -d
NPM should be able to effectively detect and install all the dependencies without a fuss. After that, you should be able to run the project in development mode by invoking jake which will start Express, the Compass watcher, and the CoffeeScript watcher (for the front end JavaScript).
$ jake
Express server listening in development mode
>>> Compass is watching for changes. Press Ctrl-C to Stop.
At this point, you should be able to point your browser at http://localhost:3000 to see a version of the application alive and kicking.
My name is Matt Farmer. I'm a Software Engineer at OpenStudy where we're working to empower students to give and receive free, high-quality peer-to-peer tutoring. I write about the technology industry, programming, and anything else that catches my fancy on my blog, Farmdawg Nation.
This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. You can review the content of that license here.