Weston Ganger BCIS

Rails Software Architect / Web Developer

I am an expert in Ruby-on-Rails, jQuery, and Linux through extensive usage across many projects.

About Me

I am 31 and have a Bachelor of Computer Information Systems (BCIS) from the University of the Fraser Valley since 2014.

In 2014, I started a software development consultancy for myself called Solid Foundation Web Development.

From 2014 to 2021, I was a contractor for BC Hydro developing Ruby-on-Rails applications for internal-use that manage various complex technical processes and business workflows. This involved creating many new applications and maintenance of legacy/existing Rails applications.

From 2020 to 2021, I was a Senior Rails developer with Vericatch building out their suite of seafood reporting software.

Since 2022, I am a Senior Rails developer with Braintree/Paypal working with the 3DS portion of the payments system. The team that I work with engages in pair programming on a daily basis. The collaboration that pairing drives towards is a real delight.

When I am not coding, I enjoy automobile building & driving, outdoors, camping, extreme sports, and socializing with friends and family.

If you want to know more about who I am, you are free to read my manifesto.

Profile Links

In an effort to optimize the use of my time and energy, I will no longer be maintaining boatloads of public and professional profiles. Listed here are the only public profiles I support.

• About Me (You are here)
• My Resume
• GitHub Profile

Hobbies

I used to be very good at skateboarding. You can view a time arranged collection of my skate videos here.

My Articles

I try to document anything notable that I do or come across on my journeys. Here you will find a list of topics that I sometimes post on.

• Software Development
• Automotive
• Food Recipes

My Open Source Software Libraries

Here is a list of open source coding libraries that I have created and maintain. They aid in some part of the software development process. These libraries are publicly available for use within any software development project.

Ruby

Notable	Project	Description	Role	Popularity
	accepts_nested_attributes_for_public_id	A patch for Rails to support using a public ID column instead of ID for use with accepts_nested_attributes_for	Creator & Maintainer
	active_record_simple_execute	Sanitize and Execute your raw SQL queries in ActiveRecord and Rails with a much more intuitive and shortened syntax.	Creator & Maintainer
	active_snapshot	Simplified snapshots and restoration for ActiveRecord models and associations with a transparent white-box implementation.	Creator & Maintainer
	active_sort_order	Dead simple, fully customizable sorting pattern for ActiveRecord	Creator & Maintainer
	axlsx_styler	Build clean and maintainable styles for your axlsx spreadsheets. Build your spreadsheeet with data and then apply styles later. I utilize this gem within my other software, Spreadsheet Architect. I also implemented functionality to the Ruby gem axlsx_styler to be able to add styles after the document has been generated. This is probably the most important missing features of the widely adopted axlsx spreadsheet library. I needed to ensure the projects future so I now handle all maintenance of this library as of 2018.	Project Maintainer since 2018
	capistrano-precompile-chooser	Capistrano plugin to precompile your Rails assets locally, remotely, or not at all provided with a very convenient default terminal prompt	Creator & Maintainer
	minitest_change_assertions	Provides assertions for your Minitest suite to determine if an object has been changed	Creator & Maintainer
	paper_trail-association_tracking	Plugin for the PaperTrail gem to track and reify associations. I spearheaded the extraction of the code for association tracking and restoration of PaperTrail versions. This enables to developers to contribute to the association related code much more easily.	Extractor and Project Maintainer since 2018
	paperclip_utils	A collection of processors and helper methods for easier dynamic processors and styles on your Paperclip uploads. The first gem I ever created.	Creator & Maintainer
	prawn-rails	Prawn Handler for Rails. I utilize this gem within my other software. I wanted to ensure the projects future so I now handle all maintenance of this library.	Project Maintainer since January 2017
	protected_attributes_continued	Protected Attributes for Rails 5. I created this plugin to address a need in upgrading legacy Ruby-on-Rails applications.	Creator & Maintainer
	rails_custom_form_builder	A good example/starter pack for a custom form builder for use with Rails form_for	Creator & Maintainer
	rails_nested_layouts	Dead simple nested layouts for Rails	Creator & Maintainer
	rails_uuid_to_integer_primary_keys	A Rails Migration to convert your UUID primary keys back to integer / bigint primary keys.	Creator & Maintainer
	rearmed-rb	Rearmed-RB helpful methods and monkey patches for Objects, Strings, Enumerables, Arrays, Hash, Dates, etc.	Creator & Maintainer
	rearmed_rails	A collection of helpful methods and monkey patches for Rails	Creator & Maintainer
	RODF	RODF is a library for writing to ODF output from Ruby. It mainly focuses creating ODS spreadsheets. I utilize this gem within my other software, Spreadsheet Architect. I needed to ensure the projects future so I now handle all maintenance of this library.	Project Maintainer since July 2016
	sexy_form.rb	SexyForm is a library for dead simple HTML form builder for Ruby with built-in support for many popular UI libraries such as Bootstrap. This libraries code was originally written for FormBuilder.cr. I decided to port the code over to Ruby because the FormBuilder.cr design pattern turned out so awesome. I believe I have added another great form builder option to the Ruby language.	Creator & Maintainer
	spreadsheet_architect	Spreadsheet Architect is a library that allows you to create XLSX, ODS, or CSV spreadsheets super easily from ActiveRecord relations, plain Ruby objects, or tabular data. I created this to address a need in the Ruby community to create spreadsheets easily. I think I have succeeded in creating the most easily usable plugin for spreadsheet creation in Ruby, by making one simple and unified API for creation of all spreadsheet types. My motivation to create this new Ruby gem was to streamline the spreadsheet creation process for my clients suite of Rails applications.	Creator & Maintainer

Crystal

Notable	Project	Description	Role	Popularity
	form_builder.cr	FormBuilder is a library for dead simple HTML form builder for Crystal with built-in support for many popular UI libraries such as Bootstrap. I created this to address a need in the Crystal community for an HTML form builder. This appears to be the only shard dedicated solely to form building for the Crystal language so far.	Creator & Maintainer

Javascript

Notable	Project	Description	Role	Popularity
	chosen-readonly	Chosen Readonly is a plugin that extends Chosen Selects to add support for the readonly attribute	Creator & Maintainer
	chosen-remote-source	Provides remote data source support for chosen-js selects.	Creator & Maintainer
	cordova-plugin-apprate	A plugin to provide rate this app functionality into your cordova application. I wanted to ensure the projects future so I now handle all maintenance of this library.	Project Maintainer since March 2016
	cordova-plugin-camera-preview	Cordova plugin that allows camera interaction from HTML code. I wanted to ensure the projects future so I now handle all maintenance of this library.	Project Maintainer since April 2016
	input-autogrow	Input Autogrow is a jQuery autogrow plugin for inputs	Creator & Maintainer
	input-case-enforcer	Input Case Enforcer is a jQuery plugin to enforce uppercase, lowercase, or capitalized inputs & textareas	Creator & Maintainer
	js-try	JS-Try is a Javascript implementation of the try method from Rails for safe navigation	Creator & Maintainer
	rearmed-js	A collection of helpful methods and monkey patches for Arrays, Objects, Numbers, and Strings in Javascript	Creator & Maintainer
	select-sync	Select Sync is a jQuery plugin to synchronize selects by selected or disabled options easily	Creator & Maintainer

CSS

Notable	Project	Description	Role	Popularity
	bootstrap-directional-buttons	Directional / Arrow buttons for Bootstrap	Creator & Maintainer
	chosen-bootstrap-theme	Bootstrap theme for Chosen Select that actually looks like Bootstrap	Creator & Maintainer
	chosen-material-theme	Material theme for Chosen Select	Creator & Maintainer
	rearmed-css	CSS Utility Classes for rapid development	Creator & Maintainer

Rails Engines

Notable	Project	Description	Role	Popularity
	pairer	Rails app/engine to Easily rotate and keep track of working pairs. Great for pair-programming teams. I built this as a clone of pairist, with the goal of removing user accounts as we were having trouble with emails not sending and outdated npm packages, etc. So I built this Rails engine/app with an alternative authentication strategy that keeps it simple.	Creator & Maintainer
	rails_i18n_manager	Web interface to manage i18n translations for your apps to facilitate the editors of your translations. Provides a low-tech and complete workflow for importing, translating, and exporting your I18n translation files. Design to allows you to keep the translation files inside your projects git repository where they should be.	Creator & Maintainer

My Open Source Contributions to Other Libraries

Listed here is a summary of various libaries that I have contributed code to. Over my career, I have submitted hundreds of pull requests. On numerous occasions I have submitted 10+ pull requests to a single library.

Software Releases

I have successfully performed hundreds of public software releases. Here is a full list by year.

Public Projects

Listed here are some simple publicly available personal projects I have created. Note: Client applications are not public so they are not listed here.

My Mobile Apps

Here is a list of public mobile apps I have created over the years. I developed all of these for my own usage and to explore the development world of Cordova and Ionic (v1).

These used to be on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. They are no longer available because I lost interest in updating and paying for app store based mobile apps as they are a constant moving target. That being said, I think that Cordova's function over fashion approach is good enough for most business use cases or to simply have a presence in the app stores.

Project	App Description	Dev Story	Live Release Date	Image
Chuck Norris Jokes & Facts	Get a random jokes or facts about the man himself, Chuck Norris.	Chuck Norris is rad and these jokes are funny. While creating Random Joke Generator I thought it might be a good idea to create a more specific version of the application. The Chuck Norris Joke dataset large and perfect for this.	March 2016
Its Your Turn	Simply press a button and the app will tell the next person to take their turn	This application was developed during one evening when attempting to play a slightly boring game. We kept forgetting whos turn it was and who had the dice. I decided it might be interesting to create an app to manage the turns for the game. Once the turn is changed then a sound and/or text-to-speech voice will notify you. I created the application in both React Native and Ionic v2. I settled with Ionic 2.x for the final release.	April 2017
Official Beer Pong Rules	The Definitive Beer Pong Rules app. Contains Word Series of Beer Pong rules, West Coast rules, East Coast rules, House Rules, and Fun Rules.	At every party with beer pong happening there are always people arguing about the rules. I created this app to solve this exact problem. To no surprise, even after introducing it, the arguing didnt stop.	October 2015
Random Joke Generator	Get a random joke at the click of a button. Over 15000 jokes to get you laughing.	I wanted to make an fun joke application to pass the time when in line or bored. So I compiled a source database of jokes from around the web and created and Rails API to access it. I then created a mobile app to download one joke at a time randomly. I use this application all the time when I am bored looking for a quick laugh or joke. Its a hoot.	March 2016
Snow Vision Camera	See the world in snow vision! Use your camera to see an augmented reality with falling snow.	After creating the application Super Mirror HD. I decided if I could actually do something useful or fun. This was the idea I came up with. Very simple and fun project that worked well using only jQuery effects.	January 2016
Sudoku Ultra	Challenge your mind with this fun and addictive game of sudoku.	After the success of my word game, Super Word Twister, I decided people like mind games. I knew my Nana really liked Sudoku so I thought it would be useful to a few people if I created a mobile application with this game.	June 2017
Super Dice Roller	The definitive dice rolling app. Swipe, Touch, or Shake to roll the dice. Visual and Voice responses.	I built this application to address a need. When playing a board game we kept forgetting who had the dice. This way we could leave the phone on the table and use a gesture to activate the digital dice roll.	March 2016
Super Farm Clicker	Build your crew and expand your farm in this extensive incremental/clicker game.	The second most successful app I ever built. The reason for this apps success is that clicker games are highly addictive due to the RPG elements they play on. I have always been a fan of RPG video games so naturally this was a fun project for me.	October 2015
Super Mega Quiz	A fun quiz and trivia game. Over 300 questions to answer.	A clone of my other application, Super Millionaire Quiz, with a new set of questions.	January 2016
Super Millionaire Quiz	A fun quiz and trivia game based on the game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire.	I thought this was a good game idea that would fit well within the idea of an Ionic / Angular application. I found a few data sets to work with and whipped this game up.	November 2015
Super Mirror HD	The definitive mirror to go app. Super Mirror HD allows you to check out your makeup, hair, or face.	One day my Mom and Aunt said to me, "oh my gosh, it would be such a good idea to create an app thats like a mirror." I laughed and replied saying that you could just open the camera app. I then thought it might be a interesting application to create and would be funny to see how many gullible people would download this, which is 5000+ as of August 2017.	November 2015
Super Word Twister	A fun and addictive text twisting game.	The first mobile app I ever built, and the most successful. I recieved a free $500 Amazon App Store ads promotion which provided a bunch of initial traffic and downloads. I built this using Ionic / AngularJS 1.x. I created this application as a clone of a fun text twisting game I used to play a lot on my PSP. This project was really fun for me as I have always enjoyed word games.	September 2015
Tip Sidekick	Simple and Easy Calculator for calculating tip amount and splitting the bill.	This is the first and only application I created to complement my website, calculator-sidekick.westonganger.com The idea was to create a calulator on a webpage and then be able to utilize these within a dead simple cordova mobile application and appear native at the same time. The idea worked perfectly however I lost interest in creating each and every mobile app so I stopped with this one.	April 2017
Word Jumbler	A fun text twisting game. Hundreds of words to spell. Hi-Scores to brag to your friends.	A clone of my first game, Super Word Twister.	December 2015