RailsConf 2007
by Scott on July 28, 2006
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Derailed: The Denver Rails User Group
by Scott on July 28, 2006
I attended the Denver on Rails User Group, aka “Derailed” last night at the Tattered Cover bookstore downtown Denver. There were about 20 folks there in various stages of Rails experience. Some having worked with it from the start and some just starting. Some guys were excited to be working in Rails full time and others were enviously watching from their non-Rails day jobs.
While I just sat quietly and contributed nothing, what struck me most about the group in general was everyone’s willingness to share knowledge and the general excitement over Ruby on Rails. Despite the looks of bewilderment in many IT professionals’ eyes while they scratch their head and wonder what all the fuss is about, I can tell you that people do get excited about the framework and what it means to their work. People are making serious systems with Ruby on Rails. The excitement level is growing at such a fast clip that the next Railsconf is going to be one like never seen before (RailsConf 2007 – May 17-20, 2007 – Portland Oregon) – everyone is going to be wishing they were at Railsconf.
Until then, find a local Rails user group or other Rails conferences and training events. If you are in the Denver area and interested in Ruby on Rails, I recommend joining this fine group of developers. More information at the Derailed google group.
There were two live, hands-on presentations. Both presenters did a good job and the work they put into their talks encouraged me to visit again and hopefully someday have something to present. I will not repeat the presentations here but urge you to visit:
Phil Ripperger’s presentation on Rails and Web Services.
Kevin Williams also gave a talk on What’s New in Rails 1.2. Example code is available here.
Thanks Phil and Kevin.
I plan on being at the next Derailed meeting.
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Ruby for Rails Book
by Scott on July 17, 2006
Ruby for Rails
While you could develop Rails applications without understanding Ruby, to do would completely miss out on the reasons Rails was created in Ruby. Ruby is a powerful and enjoyable language.
For those of you that do not know of David Black, here is a part of the bio from his book: “A Ruby community leader, David Black is the director of Ruby Central, the parent organization of the annual International Ruby Conference (RubyConf) and the International Rails Conference. David is a Ruby core contributor and the creator and maintainer of RCRchive.”
The reasons that I think you must know Ruby to become an effective and efficient Rails programming machine:
1. To understand the Rails source code
2. To make your Rails apps do something beyond pushing data in and out of a database.
3. To take advantage of “Ruby everywhere”
4. To use Ruby for non-Rails tasks (automation).
5. To enjoy developing Rails apps!
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Why You Should Have a Non-Technical Business Partner
by Scott on July 10, 2006
If you are a micro-ISV, you should have a non-technical business partner.
Accountability, Motivation and Focus are certainly over-used words, yet are also hurdles that most likely trip up most technical minded programmers turned business owners. Those with the interest and technical aptitude to design and develop programs will find the design and development tasks easy.
To turn the product created from those efforts into a viable business takes a level of accountability, focus, and motivation that is not expected of the typical programmer in the corporate world.
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