As 2009 comes to a close, we have one of our own stepping up the plate to talk to us about URI’s and their lifecycle.

Abstract

“Rack::Route301, A rack module to manage old routes”

Moving an existing site from the old and busted to the new hotness involves a million little details. Removing that old table layout, scrubbing the data, selling or sneaking in a new feature or two, etc., etc., all the way down to the zoot. But when all is said and done, where did mysupersite.net/lolfrogz?color=blu&cuteness=-4 go?

URI lifetime matters.

We’ll talk about a few solutions, from .htaccess, to application controllers in RoR, to Rack. And finish with Rack::Route301, an very young Rack based solution that Matt will be releasing as an open source project.

Location

Tuckahoe Public Library, 1901 Starling Drive in Richmond.

Look here for directions: http://www.henricolibrary.org/Libs/tu.html

Be sure to spread the word and invite all you know. This meeting is not to be missed.

In conjunction with the RJUG, Andy Hunt [1], of Pragmatic Programmer fame, will be in Richmond to talk about: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor your Wetware [2].

This session is not exclusively about programming but about how we learn and how best to learn. Therefore, I would encourage you to invite everyone you know.

Please register at the link below so we can have an accurate head count for food and seating.

http://www.richmondjug.com/event/pragmatic-thinking-and-learning-andy-hunt-pragmatic-programmer

If you’re able to I would encourage you to volunteer your time for this event; RJUG is looking for some help with the logistics of this meeting.

Links

[1] Website

[2] Book

[3] The Pragmatic Bookshelf

[4] Andy Hunt on Twitter

[5] RJUG

[6] CVREG on Twitter

Meeting Details

Date: Tuesday, 8 September
Time: 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Place: INM United

Location Change

This meeting is being held in a new location. Parking is a little awkward so visit this image to find out where to park. You’ll want to park behind the INM building in order to get free validation. INM will provide it.

Parking Location

Meeting Abstract

The “midori” generative framework, php flavor. The framework goals are a clean api, generate redundant code, and focus on data centric problems (validation, abstraction, business objects, etc), some form of an application plugin/module system, and of course the hardest part, good documentation. The php flavor includes Boxing Types for values in php so that you can easily chain methods and maintain formatting of dates, etc.

http://github.com/michaelherndon/midori-php/tree/master

Presenter Bio

Youssef Chaker is a software developer at OpenSource Connections, where he’s been helping the OSC team take over the world one web app at a time. Youssef graduated from UVa with a Bachelors in Science in Computer Engineering in 2008 and had his first but brief introduction to Ruby writing an interpreter for a language called COOL (classroom object oriented language, developed in Berkeley). He’s also been using Ruby on Rails since joining OSC and has fallen back in love with programming since. He is also the author of the ZeepIt plugin, an easy way to integrate the Zeep Mobile API into a Rails application.

Michael Herndon is a senior developer at OpenSource Connections, specializing in bleeding edge technology, standards, development tools and software on both the web and desktop platforms. Not much else is known about him, the rest of his bio is evidently sealed in a vault, protected by killer Buddhist monks. If you don’t wish to go up against killer Buddhist monks, you could try his website: www.amptools.net

Sinatra (http://sinatrarb.com) creator, Blake Mizerany (@bmizerany), will be joining us for a special CVREG event on Tuesday August 18th, 2009.

Blake currently works on/for Heroku (http://heroku.com). Heroku is nothing less than a bad ass deployment architecture allowing you to deploy fast and scale fast. Blake is currently doing a tour around the country meeting with local groups to talk about Heroku and show off the awesome stuff it can do.

Join us and make him welcome. If you have any questions about Heroku or Sinatra come out and ask him. He loves nothing more than to talk about both of them.

Please pass this along to any other meetup lists that you follow to get the word out.

Details

Date: 6:00 pm Tuesday August 18th, 2009

INM United Office 101 S. 15th Street St., Suite 102 Richmond, Va 23219

Map – http://bit.ly/8z345

Parking is a little awkward so visit this image to find out where to park. You’ll want to park behind the INM building in order to get free validation. INM will provide it.

http://img.skitch.com/20090812-qdcaatyu6s7q25sndgpb8qq2pd.jpg

Thanks and see you there!

-jon

It’s June Already?

I can’t believe this year is already half over. We’ve been fortunate enough to have speakers since last October; the rest of the year is pretty exciting too. And so without further ado, here’s the current line-up from July to December 2009:

Schedule

Notes

If any of the meetings/speakers change I will send out a notice. Plus, the October meeting will be a joint meeting with the RJUG. As the dates get closer I’ll send out additional details on each speaker and their topic.

See you at the Meetings! Remember, spread the word and bring a friend!

Meeting Details

Date: Tuesday, 9 June
Time: 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Place: Strategy Cafe
Details: Upcoming Event

We would greatly appreciate it if you could go to the Upcoming Event and indicate your intention to attend this meeting.

Meeting Abstract

HotCocoa is a thin Ruby layer that sits above Cocoa and other frameworks. It simplifies the verbose OS X API so that you can programmatically construct user interfaces without Interface Builder.

MacRuby and HotCocoa

MacRuby is an implementation of the Ruby language that runs on the Objective-C runtime under OS X. MacRuby is based on Ruby 1.9 but contains substantial modifications including the merging of object models (every Object is an NSObject), using the Objective-C 2.0 generational garbage collector, moving core types (String, Fixnum, Array, Hash) atop their Objective-C counterparts and replacement of standard libraries to more optimally integrate with OS X. MacRuby also includes a new library, HotCocoa. HotCocoa is a thin, idiomatic Ruby layer that sits above Cocoa and other frameworks.

Cocoa classes have extremely verbose method and constant names. A substantial amount of code is written to just instantiate and configure instances of these classes. Interface Builder is used by most developers because it hides the complexity of manually configuring controls, but at the expense have having to use a GUI builder and the obscuring those configuration options inside the IB user interface. One of HotCocoa’s chief goals is to allow Interface Builder simplicity, but in Ruby code. Buttons, Sliders, Windows, WebViews—the whole works—HotCocoa simplifies this process by creating a mapping layer over the top of Objective-C classes. HotCocoa adds Ruby-friendly methods, constants and delegation techniques that look refreshingly simple, but do not prevent full use of the Cocoa APIs.

This talk with introduce MacRuby and HotCocoa and show demonstrations on how to use them to quickly build OS X desktop applications with Ruby.

Presenter Bio

Richard Kilmer is the founder of Virginia-based software and services company InfoEther, Inc and is a board member of Ruby Central. Rich’s background includes peer-to-peer software, wireless web, workflow, and pen computing. Rich has been using Ruby in production systems since 2002 and has contributed to many Ruby projects over the years including RubyGems and starting RubyForge. Rich’s current Ruby efforts are focused on simplifying OS X development with HotCocoa and is a contributor to the MacRuby project.

Side Note

This will also be the first co-meeting with the local CocoaHeads group. Should be an exciting time.

Summary

Lasting only 30 minutes I believe it was the shortest meeting ever. Next year I promise to schedule either a speaker or panel of speakers to recap RailsConf.

Attendance

I happy to say we had three new members for May’s meeting. I’m not happy to say it was 60% of the total attendance. :-D

Additional Information

• RailsConf 2009
• More RailsConf on Twitter

Next Meeting

HotCocoa and MacRuby!!! Tell everybody! I’m totally psyched that we have Rich Kilmer, from InfoEther, coming into town to school us on some HotCocoa. This is also going to be a joint meeting with Richmond’s CocoaHeads Group. I’m expecting a packed house for the June meeting.

Announcements

JetBrains Winners

• Michael Berdichevsky : RubyMine License
• Will O’Donovan : RubyMine License

Area Conferences

• Developer Day in DC on 30 May
• Ruby Nation 2009 on 12 and 13 June

Meeting Details

Date: Tuesday, 12 May
Time: 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Place: Strategy Cafe
Details: Upcoming Event

We would greatly appreciate it if you could go to the Upcoming Event and indicate your intention to attend this meeting.

Meeting Abstract

The annual RailsConf ReCap wherein we learn about the latest and greatest.

Social in the Making

There is a strong chance this meeting will turn into a Social. I take full responsibility for not properly planning this meeting. I did not schedule a speaker, opting instead, to rely on members attending the conference to come and present their findings. So if you know someone attending RailsConf encourage them to join us and to give us their impressions of the conference.

However, it just might be time for a social anyways. Thankfully we’ve had 7 consecutive months of speakers. And the rest of the year is shaping up nicely too; I’ll be posting the schedule in the next few days.

Presenter Bio

<Your Name Here> or Your friend’s name ;-)