CVREG - Home

June CVREG Meeting

2008-06-09T13:19:00Z

On Tuesday, June 10, 2008 come to Strategy Cafe for the June CVREG meeting! The main attraction is Jon Maddox's reflections on RailsConf '08. Register your intention to attend on upcoming.org. See you there!

May Code jam

2008-05-08T14:45:00Z

UPDATE: The May code jam has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We’ll see everyone on the second Tuesday in June!

See you on Tuesday May 13 for a Ruby and Rails code jam. Bring projects and questions for this informal get together.

let us know you are coming here:

http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/609617

Time for the April Social

2008-04-04T14:06:00Z

It’s time for a social!

Join us on Tuesday at Capital Ale House in Richmond’s West End for light banter about Ruby, Rails and Related topics.

Let us know you’ll be there

Notes from the Git and Prototype presentations

2008-03-19T02:06:00Z

Here’s a copy of Matt’s prototype.js presentation

And a few links from Jon so you can learn more about Git without a trip to your local library:

Linus Tolvalds on Git

GIT Peepcode

Git on Rails screencast

Git-SVN Crash Course

Be a man and migrate your SVN repo to GIT

Handy Git aliases

show the current branch name in your prompt

Introducing Blanket

2008-03-07T03:41:27Z

Hey, guys! I’m not going to be able to make it on Tuesday even though I’ll be in the area shortly thereafter.

I’d like to introduce you to Blanket, a library designed to make automated, remote backup easier. I’ve had to set up automated backup before, and I wrote this package to make it more enjoyable for myself and others. I was also experimenting with a lot of new technologies and techniques, which makes it even more rewarding that the end product ending being a preliminary success.

The pitch is: go from 0 to backed up in ten minutes plus transfer time. And you can set up as many blankets as you want, to backup a piece of filesystem, a MySQL database, an SVN repository (or Confluence, but I realize not everyone is into that.) After you get it working, it should take no time at all to put it in a cron job. Get your stuff backed up, people! It’s simple now, and I will help.

An introduction to Blanket is available at the excellent GitHub. There’s also the blanket project on RubyForge which means that I also have my first Gem in the wild.

Install it, kick it around, and if you like what you see, take a look at the development road map and see if you’d like to get involved. I have some GitHub invites if you need them, so please contact me if that’s an issue.

Some tips for speeding up your Mac

2008-03-06T16:10:57Z

Some helpful tips over at Macworld to keep Mac users up to speed: http://www.macworld.com/article/49489/2006/02/softwarespeed.html

March Meeting - Git and Prototype

2008-03-05T16:24:00Z

Show up @ 5:30 to meet and chat. Presentations should start around 6.

This month Jon Maddox will be presenting and introduction to Git.

Also, Matt Overstreet will be discussing the prototype.js library “Ruby on Javascript”.

Presentation will be follow by an Open mic and Jam time.

Head out to upcoming to let us know you’ll be there

Apple adds Rails support for Xcode

2008-03-05T15:00:00Z

Apple continues to encourage the adoption of Rails. First by adding ruby, rails, capistrano, cocoa bindings, etc to the basic Leopard install andRuby support in Xcode. Now they’ve upped the ante by including support for rails in Xcode. This was announcing to the Apple Development world as the main headline on their regular Developer Connection mailer.

Have a look at the artilce here . This is the first in a promised 3 part series intended to cover creation to deployment.

A couple thoughts,

First, while Xcode has rich SCM support it’s agonizingly not available in the “Organizer” interface used for Rails apps. This won’t stop command line users and you could use something like svnx for subversion, but the lack of integration of such a well developed Xcode feature smarts. Not to mention Git…

That said, the design interface is really worth a look. It’s wonderfully simple. The editor supports a file system tree view, basically cloning Textmate. At the top of the window are 4 “buckets” that can be used to hold your own scripts, grouping them to match your coding stages. The tutorial also instructs you on how to add a call to script/server to your “run” bucket. It would be a simple to add Capistrano and testing scripts. Another bucket comes pre-filled with your basic rake tasks. (Maddening, because they are detecting it’s a rails app and adding these, but not bothering to look for a .svn folder.) Still, I could see pulling up a chair and working here in a revision or two.

February Meeting

2008-02-09T16:31:00Z

Join us on Tuesday for a code jam! Bring your projects or questions. Let us know your showing up: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/428759

January Meeting Review...

2008-01-09T04:22:00Z

I would like to, again, thank James Robertson for coming down to Richmond to talk about Smalltalk. I was very happy with the talk - everyone seemed really interested - questions were even asked!

James covered some basic Smalltalk stuff: syntax, reserved words, operators, image-based environment, browsers. He then pulled out a Seaside demo, complete with some in-web-browser debugging. [I'm thinking I should have taken some notes during the talk so that I can write a better review.]

It was nice seeing Smalltalk in action, one of the Grand daddies of dynamic languages. Remember, though Smalltalk is roughly 30 years old, from it came: Refactoring support, SUnit - which spawned JUnit, Edit & Continue - the ability to work with live code in a debugger, and, of course, MVC. I'm sure there are more items.

James brought and left a few CDs with VisualWorks 7.5, non-commercial version, preloaded. Contact either Mel Riffe or Matt Overstreet for information on obtaining a copy; he also sent a few with the visiting Charlottesville crew (thanks for coming out guys - excellent questions)

Feel free to add your review in the comments. Cheers!

Kicking off 2008 with some Smalltalk...

2008-01-02T18:12:00Z

The Product Evangelist for Cincom Smalltalk will be spending the evening talking about developing software in Smalltalk. Topics include general language constructs, team development, web development, debugging and support.
Come join us as we kick off the new year!
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/379603

Our January 8th Meeting will be Smalltalk Night.

James Robertson has been involved with Smalltalk, in one role or another, for quite some time. He's coming down to show off Cincom's VisualWorks Smalltalk offering, including a little bit of Seaside.

On the Cincom Smalltalk site you will also find links to Podcasts and daily Smalltalk screencasts; there's a wealth of information ready for consumption. Helpful Links:

Smalltalk has influenced many programming languages, Ruby in particular. In my opinion it is the premier language for Dynamic languages. Many of the ideas and concepts in Ruby were first implemented in Smalltalk. Come join us for what hopes to be a fantastic trip down memory lane and a glimpse into the future.

Head on over to the Upcoming.org Event and let us know you'll be joining us: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/379603.

February 12th Meeting Preview...

To be announced.

Farewell, CVREG

2007-12-28T15:07:00Z

I can still remember, but only vaguely, when I first sent out the e-mail that ended up rounding up the people that would form the Central Virginia Ruby Enthusiasts’ Group. Since then, we have had a lot of meetings, pizza, and beer. We also helped a lot of people learn things, and we have a strong core membership that knows how to have fun, as well.

The time has come for me, however, to leave the Richmond area. I am relocating to Charlotte, NC to work on a big Ruby on Rails project and, as it turns out, the December meeting was my last that I’ll be able to attend while a Richmond resident. I am upset that I keep missing out on Smalltalk!

At any rate, I’ll be keeping in touch. You should be able to find me in #rubycodejam as well. Take care of yourselves until I see you next, and come to some meetings!

CVReg Open Mic Night...

2007-11-29T15:06:00Z

Got a good joke? Working on a cool project? Know a good pumpkin pie recipe? Come share them at Open Mic Night...

Our December 11th Meeting will be 'Open Mic' Night.

Take 10-15 minutes to talk about any topic you desire. In the vein of the Lightning talks held at Conferences come share your stories.

Need some ideas:

Working with a new tool (i.e. git)?
Starting a new project?
Solved a tricky problem?
Reflect on the year
Working with another technology/language?
Got a Stand-up Routine

Bring a friend and share in the conversation. See you there!

Head on over to the Upcoming.org Event and let us know you'll be joining us: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/335310/.

January 8th Meeting Preview...

Come join us January 8th where James Robertson, Product Evangelist, former Product Manager, from Cincom will give a talk about VisualWorks Smalltalk.

Web Development: The Next Generation

2007-10-22T04:29:00Z

An ex-coworker of mine recently left the software industry to teach high school, and he asked me to come into his web design class and answer students' questions about the industry. It was an interesting, sobering experience. Most of the questions centered around how much money they would make and how to get hired by a big firm, which was a little disappointing. I tried to emphasize my experience with respect to the money issue:

Everything in the industry is constantly changing, so don't base your plans on the industry. I went through college during the dot com boom where kids younger than me were getting BMWs and fat bonuses from employers. Then I graduated after 9/11 where I was lucky to get a crap job in the defense industry. Five years later I ended up right where I'd always intended, and kids graduating now have myriad opportunities. Who knows what the industry will be like when these kids graduate college? Better to hone your skills in many disciplines of computer science (programming in multiple languages, testing, design, debugging, etc.) than to focus on Java because it's big money at this particular moment in history.
If you don't love what you do, you'll suck. This is just obvious from what I've seen in the industry. There are plenty of programmers out there, but a large percentage of them are mediocre or worse. Why? This is a day job to them, not something they're genuinely interested in getting better at, but that they can comfortably make money at. Since they aren't applying themselves fully, they're not developing, and they're not going to catch those awesome opportunities on the bleeding edges of the industry where the unrealized profits lay dormant.
Getting hired by a big firm is not your only option, contrary to what some of the students think. Because there's such competition among employers for technical talent, organizations are finding that they can distinguish themselves by arriving at different kinds of working arrangements with employees. Newer companies, especially start-ups, are likely to be more flexible in how they negotiate working conditions with employees, such as telecommuting, more vacation time, support for community involvement, etc. There's also consulting and launching your own company - I just hate to hear kids, who should be at their most ambitious and optimistic point in their lives, looking forward to working in a dull corporate environment.
Get used to learning constantly. Things move way too fast in this industry for you to learn one language and have that make your career. It's better to challenge yourself by engaging in a wide variety of technologies to hone your general programming, debugging, testing, and other skills. Try out new languages, read blogs, go to conferences, and do your own experimental projects to challenge yourself. Be the guy that can solve any problem with the right tool, rather than "the Java guy" or even "the Ruby guy".

I can't tell for sure, but I think a lot of what I said put their long term career plans in some sort of perspective. The truth is that they can probably be comfortable as a mediocre coder at some mega-corporate conglomerate making a decent living. But they won't be happy, and I kind of feel like it's my role to guide them towards something that will enrich their lives, not put them on hold for fourty hours a week for the rest of their lives.

My teacher friend actually asked me to demo some Rails magic to the class, as he's interested in using Rails with his students. So I gave them a little taste of a Rails project, and since so much of the class were interested in design I focused on giving them a crash course in MVC and how front-ends and back-ends can work together better. It seems like Rails is the perfect technology for kids interested in web development since there's no need for compiling after changes and it's so "english-like". I also made CVREG's presence in the community clear, and I offered any help to the class that may be needed.

My presentation garnered some interest, but it was disappointing to see so little emphasis on the art of programming and so much preoccupation with the scrilla. Oh well, I guess we all think about the bottom line sooner or later, eh?

Encrypting Action Mailer

2007-10-16T18:44:00Z

I’m working with a client who’d like to receive secured emails from their site. Here’s a great lead I found to get me going: How-to Encrypt Ruby on Rails Mail with GnuPG