README

Description

Simple coding exercise to download an item catalog from an external source (source of truth). Articles within the catalog are downloaded on every refresh of the index page, and locally added or the local copy updated. In addition we allow the visitor to Like an article and these likes are persisted between catalog refreshes.

Installation

Requires Rails 7 and dependencies. Tested with:

$ node -v
v14.17.0
$ ruby -
ruby 3.0.3p157 (2021-11-24 revision 3fb7d2cadc) [x86_64-darwin19]
$ rails -v
Rails 7.0.4.3
$ postgres --version
postgres (PostgreSQL) 14.7 (Homebrew)

Recommend the use of a version manager likerbenv or asdf Used Rbenv.

Rbenv

Install rbenv with homebrew

brew install rbenv ruby-build

then install ruby 3.0.3

rbenv install 3.0.3

Postgres

Taken from here

Install postgres with homebrew

brew install postgresql@14

Start as service

$ brew services start postgresql@14

Confirm it is running

$ brew services list

Project checkout

Once you have checkout out the repository

cd <project_dir>

Set the ruby local version:

project_dir> rbenv local 3.0.3

Install bundler into that ruby version:

project_dir> gem install bundler

Once that is complete install the project specific rubygem dependencies

project_dir> bundle install

Create your database

project_dir> bin/rails db:create project_dir> bin/rails db:migrate

Run all the tests to sanity check the install

project_dir> bundle exec rspec

Launch the project

From the terminal:

project_dir> bin/rails s

then open your browser at https://localhost:3000/articles

project_dir> open https://localhost:3000/articles

Assumptions and design decisions

This is a very lightweight implementation. It's not much to look at.

• Chose not to syncronise every piece of data from the S3 aritcle catalog, just a few basics.
• Lots of testing, at the system test level which hits the whole stack and checks the views
• request specs to cover controller behaviour
• basic model specs for skinny models (shoulda matchers for validations and associations only)
• better unit specs for service classes which do the grunt work and are more solid than the rails boilerplate
• Used rubocop to keep things clean, and added some rule eliminations for rails boilerplate code that conflicts with community style guidelines.
• mostly achieved the fact that no data is destroyed, but we use the S3Download model (where the JSON is stored) as a bit of silver hammer