Category: Conferences

  • Another record-setting Ruby meetup

    Last night’s meeting of the Raleigh-area Ruby Brigade set another record for attendance: 44 by Nathaniel’s count. This is 14 more than last month’s meeting. Incredible!

    This was another first for the group in that we were meeting at Red Hat’s headquarters on NC State’s centennial campus instead of our old location at the Brier Creek Panera Bread. This is the same building that BarCamp was held in a few months ago. It’s a VERY nice facility. Open wi-fi, convenient restrooms, and a red motif that goes nicely with the whole Ruby thing.

    Last night’s presentation was given by Stuart Halloway and Justin Ghetland. They introduced their new Streamlined framework to the group, which can be described as scaffolding on steroids. Maybe that’s too simplistic, though. I saw their original demo at RailsConf in June, but they were able to go into more detail tonight which was nice.

    Nathaniel made several announcements before the presentation began:

    • There is a Southeastern Regional Ruby Conference in the works. More information to follow soon.
    • A Ruby hacking night is being organized. This will probably take place once a month on Wednesday at our old meeting location, Panera Bread.
    • The raleigh.rb mailing list is the happenin’ place to be. Join up!

    What, you say you’re not a member of the Brigade yet? There is no excuse not to be. Sign yourself up and start hobnobbing with the ever-growing crowd of local Rubyists.

  • How to avoid skipping BarCamp

    July 22nd’s BarCamp RDU has come and gone, and wouldn’t you know I missed it? I was signed up to attend, but about a week prior to the event I learned I would be occupied that Saturday, and so I had to skip the most exciting geekfest to grace RDU since June’s NFJS. What a devastating shame.

    My only hope is that there will be one next year. Judging from the press generated by the event, that seems likely. Take this RedOrbit article, for example. There are a slew of other articles that have been published as well. Visit the official BarCamp site for the complete list.

    One comfort is that I can at least pseudo-participate by browsing Flickr for photos tagged with “barcamprdu.” I’ve stumbled across a few familiar faces this way. Incidentally, I know what the title of my session will be next year: “How to Avoid Skipping BarCamp”

  • Thursday’s Ruby meetup was a huge success

    Last Thursday’s meeting of the Raleigh-area Ruby Brigade (also known as raleigh.rb, the Ruby Meetup, or the Ruby User’s Group… take your pick) was a huge success. A record-breaking 30 Rubyists were in attendance. Whether that was due to RailsConf or whether it was just a freak occurrence, I don’t know. What I do know is that it was a remarkable experience being part of a group that filled an entire room at Panera Bread.

    Nathaniel Talbott, the founder of the group, was out of town and had asked that I run the meeting. Little did I know what I was in for. Fortunately, there were plenty of RailsConf attendees there who had interesting stories to share. Lots of folks hung around to chat afterwards too. As a direct result of the meetup, I’ve given Mongrel a try and must say that I am very impressed with this well behaved dog. Let’s hope I stay that way.

    You say you live in the Triangle area and aren’t a member of raleigh.rb yet? Sacrilege! Sign yourself up right away. We meet once a month at the Panera Bread at Brier Creek, though the location very well may have to change given the attendance we had this last time around. (This is a good thing.)

  • RailsConf draws to a close

    It’s mid-afternoon here in Chicago and RailsConf has just officially ended. There is a huge line of people out front of the hotel waiting to catch the next shuttle to O’Hare. I’ll need a few more days to properly digest the conference and write a more detailed overview of what happened, but overall it was the most positive experience I’ve had at a conference outside of NFJS. Great speakers, late nights of hacking with friends, and geeky conversation. Well worth the time, money, and trouble to come.

  • RailsConf ho!

    Tomorrow I fly to Chicago for the biggest Ruby bash so far this year: RailsConf 2006! Aside from getting to hear some wonderful keynote speakers and hang out with a herd of fellow Rubyists, many of my buddies from the Raleigh area (and elsewhere) will also be in attendance. It’ll be great seeing familiar faces again, and meeting the owners of some new ones. If you’re planning on being at RailsConf too, consider posting a comment here so I’ll know to look for you.

    Chicagoans, brace yourselves. The geeks cometh.

  • NFJS 2006 wrap-up

    It was with mixed sadness and relief that NFJS 2006 came to a close last Sunday evening. Two and a half solid days of listening to some of the best technical speakers in the country can be draining, but the knowledge and enthusiasm one picks up is priceless.

    The highlights from day three were Andy Hunt’s “Refactoring Your Wetware” and “Pragmatic Learning” talks, along with Jared Richardson’s “Software Tools.” I had heard Andy’s wetware talk at the local .NET Users Group last year, but he has since revised and lengthened it, splitting it into two different NFJS talks.

    The first talk covered how the brain works (it’s a dual CPU, shared pipe architecture) and how developers can make incredible productivity gains by using more of their right brain instead of their left. In the second talk, Andy gave tips on how to learn more effectively.

    One point that struck home for me was the need to write all your ideas down the moment you get them. If you’re not writing your ideas down, you’ll start forgetting you have them. I’ve been using a plain old ballpoint pen (not all of us have enough cash kicking around to buy a Fisher Space Pen) and some index cards. They work quite well, and I get the added benefit of more right-brain activity. I wouldn’t otherwise have that if I were typing.

    Jared’s talk centered around CruiseControl, an open-source continuous integration tool. In a matter of minutes, he installed the tool on his laptop and configured it to build and test a couple of Java classes he had written. I was familiar with CruiseControl before attending his presentation, but the demo was still impressive. I’m sure if I were a newby attending his talk I would be eager to set up my own CI server the very next day.

    Jason posted a comment to my NFJS day 2 post requesting more information on Ramnivas’ demo of Selenium. Selenium is a JavaScript-based tool that can be used to generate and run cross-browser functional tests for web applications. Tests can be defined as HTML tables, Ruby scripts, and so on. Element locators are quite flexible, allowing widgets on the page to be looked up by ID, name, XPath, or directly through the DOM. Selenium also has a Firefox plugin that can be used to “record” interaction with a web app. This is a fast way to generate functional tests for an existing application.

    One tip Raminvas gave was to instruct testers or other people submitting bugs to include a Selenium recording with their report. That way, you as a developer can play back the exact steps they made to discover the bug. Handling of browser-specific code doesn’t seem to be a problem with Selenium. It’s certainly the most promising open source web application testing framework to be produced in a long time. Remember that it’s only at version 0.7 so it will continue evolving and (hopefully) improving over time.

    Next stop this month: RailsConf 2006! See you there.

  • Bring on NFJS day 2

    It’s the morning of NFJS day 2 and I’m psyched about another day of listening to great speakers and hobnobbing with fellow members of geekdom.

    Yesterday’s kick-off was great. The first workshop I attended was Stuart Halloway’s intro to the Spring framework. This was mostly for review since I’ve used Spring before. Well worth the time spent to attend. Next up, Venkat Subramaniam’s talk on refactoring. Again, great stuff. I appreciated how he didn’t recommend memorizing a list of possible refactorings, but going with your gut on what you thought would make the program simpler and cleaner. The last workshop I attended was Raminvas Ladddd’s discussion of strategies for testing web applications. He touched on a few other frameworks, but his focus was on the open-source Selenium tool.

    The day closed with an excellent dinner and the keynote address from Dave Thomas which was cleverly titled “Cargo Cults and Angry Monkeys.” If you have a chance to hear this keynote at another NFJS, I’d certainly recommend it. It was fascinating and quite funny too!

  • NFJS Expert Panel podcast

    I noticed today that the NFJS web site now has a podcast. One of the audio clips available is the entire Expert Panel session from the New England NFJS in March. I’ve started listening and it’s quite good. In fact, it’s making me hungry for more great discussion at the RTP NFJS this weekend. Oops, excuse me. I need to wipe that drool off my keyboard.

  • NFJS in RTP this weekend

    Two acronyms in one title! How much wilder can it get?

    I’ll be attending the No Fluff, Just Stuff conference in RTP this coming weekend (June 9th, 10th, and 11th). I attended my first NFJS last year and it was a truly memorable experience. I’m seriously looking forward to attending again this year. Aside from being packed with great speakers, NFJS events are always a fantastic way to hobnob with fellow geeks. I mean, these folks are passionate about what they do. Who else would give up their weekends to go talk about computer software?

    If you read my blog, I’d love to chat with you in person. I can’t read minds, though, so if you see a guy with my name on his tag by all means walk up and introduce yourself! I’m not mean. Really, I’m not.