Please note that this is a non-standard meeting location.

Meeting Details

• Date: Tuesday, November 8, 2011
• Time: 6:00 PM
• Location: Dominion Digital, 4101 Cox Rd, Glen Allen (Google Maps link)

Abstract

Despite our use of frameworks like Ruby on Rails being famous for conventional code, we still find ourselves with complicated and difficult to understand applications. Worse yet, our automated tests often end up just as complicated and slow. We have helpful design patterns to follow, so why does our code become more difficult to understand as our application grows? The cure for our pain is following DCI conventions to separate what our program *is* from what it does and to let our user’s mental model of our programs shine through.

Bio

Jim Gay is the Lead Developer for RadiantCMS and is a prolific contributor to it and many open-source projects. At Saturn Flyer LLC he’s built numerous Radiant sites, custom applications, and award winning graphic design. Jim has been a co-host of the Ruby 5 podcast, speaker at RubyNation, Rocky Mountain Ruby, and ArrrrCamp, is the founder of Arlington Ruby, and has been professionally building Ruby and Rails applications since 2006.

You can find Jim on twitter: @saturnflyer

Please note that this is a non-standard meeting location.

Meeting Details

• Date: Tuesday, October 11, 2011
• Time: 6:00 PM
• Location: Dominion Digital, 4101 Cox Rd, Glen Allen (Google Maps link)

Abstract

The Ruby community is obsessed with testing, supposedly. In my experience about four out of five applications have either zero or completely ineffective test coverage.

Have the courage to change it. Whether your own projects or recovering someone else’s mess, let’s talk strategy:

• Starting with metrics
• Refactoring for understanding
• Comment-driven development
• The unit testing foundation
• Bug reports are your best integration tests
• Focusing on value
• Rescue projects are popping up everywhere, and a strategic testing approach can save the day.

Bio

Jeff started Jumpstart Lab in 2009. He travels the world preaching the good word of Ruby. Lately he’s been pushing an agenda of professional design practices with emphasis on object oriented architectures backed by solid testing. Plus he tell jokes.

You can find Jeff on twitter: @j3 or @jumpstartlab

Instead of our normal meeting in September, we're going to hold a Hack Night.

All levels welcomed

New to Ruby? That's OK! We'll have plenty of people there that can answer your questions. Very Comfortable with Ruby? Super! Come share your knowledge of the language with those just starting out. In-Between? Perfect! Come on out and have some fun.

Need some help

Having trouble getting started with Ruby? We can help.

Stuck on a bug? We can help.

Curious about Ruby, Rails? We can help.

Curious about Cucumber, RSpec, Test::Unit, etc.? We can help.

Curious about TDD, BDD? We can help.

Just wanna "talk shop" and enjoy a beer or two! We can help!

Spread the word

See you there and be sure to tell your friends.

Meeting Details

• Date: Tuesday, September 13, 2011
• Time: 6:00 PM
• Location: Legend Brewing Company (map)

Next Month

Jeff Casimir, from Jumpstart Lab, will be presenting:

There Are No Tests

The Ruby community is obsessed with testing, supposedly. In my experience about four out of five applications have either zero or completely ineffective test coverage...