DEV Community: Cezar Halmagean

How to Send Tailwindcss-Styled Emails With Ruby on Rails 7

Cezar Halmagean — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 04:48:20 +0000

Have you ever tried to create a good-looking email design from scratch?

Or how about using TailwindCSS to write your email layouts?

Well, if you did, you've probably failed. A lot.

And it's safe to say reminding you about it is not a good way to make friends.

But! I'm here to help.

Let me show you how I create beautiful email templates in just a few minutes and how I use them in my Rails projects.

Creating good-looking emails should be easy

Instead of settling for plain-text emails or half-assed HTML designs, we should be able to come up with a good-looking design and not spend ages working on it.

And here's why:

Good design makes you look professional
It's not that hard to create amazing emails if you know how
Your SaaS can sell more products
Your customers will trust you more

Fortunately, this is super easy to do, and you'll be done in no time.

Here are your options for creating good-looking emails across email clients.

Option 1: Do it yourself

I want to mention this option because... well... it's doable. But I wouldn't recommend it.

You basically start from nothing, learn all about email design (and all the little quirks that email client has), build your layout, and test it (with an email testing service).

I don't recommend this option because it takes a lot of time, and you could probably use that time to do other things.

But it's an option. For sure.

Option 2: Done for you

If you ask me, this one is probably the best option if you value your time.

You purchase a done-for-you email kit/template from a design service (or designer) and use it in your Rails project.

The good thing about it is that these templates are already tested, so you don't have to spend your time on that.

Option 3: TailwindCSS design

This third option is a hybrid between the DIY option and the done-for-you.

Just like you would use TailwindCSS to create your browser layouts, you can use it to create email templates.

But this won't work in Rails out of the box. Unless you create your layouts using HTML tables and use something like the premailer-rails gem to inline your CSS (I haven't tried this approach).

The way I've done it is by using Maizzle. They give you a nice starter template, and a Node project, so you can build your template quickly.

When you're done, you can export the HTML and copy/paste it into your Rails mailer layout.

If you want to see the video I've made or read the full article, check out the full guide here.

How to Pick the Right Web Stack and Level Up Quickly

Cezar Halmagean — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 11:13:58 +0000

As a self-taught web developer, I started my career by looking for advice on what to learn on internet forums.

My first programming language was Perl.

Back then, Perl and PHP were all the rage. And I picked Perl because others had recommended it.

You can imagine that wasn't the best choice, but it made perfect sense at the time.

The problem was I used the news to plan my career. Because I could've made better use of that time.

Here's how I would do that now if I were looking to start a career in web development.

First, I'd do some market research by looking at the various job boards. I'd then make a list of all the languages and frameworks that hire junior developers.

That would be the first step.

Then, I'd pick one language or framework with the highest potential and set a goal to learn it.

But I wouldn't learn everything.

Instead, I'd learn the 20% that would get me a job at a company where I could continue learning.

I picked 20% because of the Pareto principle (or the 80/20 rule).

Finally, I'd try to spend the least amount of time possible in this learning phase. Because the more time you spend learning, the more time you're not getting paid.

The quickest (and cheapest) way to learn is to either enroll in a Bootcamp or find a 1-on-1 coach. And if those options sound expensive, you're not factoring in your time.

If you want to know how much your time costs, look up a junior salary and see how much they make per hour.

I hope this helps. And if you want to read the full guide, check out the link below.

How to Pick the Right Web Stack and Level Up Quickly

3 Reasons Ruby on Rails Is the Best Way to Start Learning Web Development in 2022

Cezar Halmagean — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 13:58:23 +0000

With so many new languages popping up everywhere, it's hard to decide which one to pick up or if Ruby on Rails is still a good choice in 2022.

So if you're just starting out with learning how to code, or web development, or if you're leaning towards Ruby on Rails but you're not sure if it's a good choice, I hope this quick video will give you some answers.

My name is Cezar and I've been using Ruby since 2008 to build all sorts of web applications, from simple apps to full-blown multi-million dollar ones.

And today, I'm going to share with you 3 reasons why I think Ruby on Rails is still your best bet in 2022.

Here's the Youtube version if you want to watch it instead.

Reason #1: Ruby Is Easy to Learn

When you're getting started, there are so many unfamiliar concepts thrown at you that your biggest problem will be remembering them all. Not to mention understanding what each one means. So learning a language that has fewer of those is preferred.

But that doesn't mean Ruby is less powerful. It's just that it was designed with the developer's experience in mind.

You have to realize that the big factors at play here are confidence and consistency. If you can stick around and keep learning long enough, you're guaranteed to win.

So what Ruby gives you, and in my opinion it does it better than other languages, is small wins very quickly, fewer unfamiliar concepts, and syntax that looks a lot like english.

Reason #2: Helps You Learn Best Practices

The second reason to learn Ruby on Rails is it holds your hand as you go through the process of figuring out how web development works.

Namely it's a collection of best practices, and a lot industry conventions that are baked in for you to use from day one.

With web development you can do the same thing in so many different ways, but Rails forces you to one tried and tested way that works best as a starting point.

That means you'll be able to build perfectly good web applications even if you don't understand how everything fits together. You can figure that out later.

That's how I learned Ruby. I started building web applications with Rails by copying what others have done, and then I slowly figured out how things work behind the scenes.

Now this might not be the best way to learn programming, but it worked for me.

Reason #3: Plenty of Jobs

This one is probably important to you if you're watching this video.

But rest assured that you'll find a lot of jobs for both Ruby and Rails. And once you get good at building web applications, most of those skills are transferable to other similar languages, like Python, or Javascript.

So I wouldn't worry too much about this aspect because what's really important here is for you to get productive as quickly as possible. And both Ruby & Rails will help you do just that.

I hope this helped.