CVREG - Home

February Meeting Postponed

2010-02-05T14:49:00Z

We’re going to reschedule next weeks meeting, we’ll update you all soon.

From Mel:

In light of our recent bouts of actual, real winter weather and the fact that our speaker will be coming from NC, I felt it best to postpone his presentation until further notice. I’m working with Clinton to see when he’s next available and will post details when I have them. Thanks for your understanding. Be safe, stay warm.

January Meeting: Jim Van Fleet and NoSQL Technologies

2010-01-09T03:33:00Z

Time Change

Sorry for the late notice. However, the meeting is now from 6:30 until 8:30.

Meeting Details

Date: Tuesday, 12 January
Time: 6:30 – 8:30 PM
Place: Tuckahoe Public Library

Meeting Abstract

Jim Van Fleet plans on comparing and contrasting three different groups, and talking about what kind of problems match the different kinds of technologies. Unlike MySQL and Postgres, for example, which although they have different feature sets, basically do the same thing at the end of the day, the technologies that are being lumped together under the NoSQL flag in many cases have nothing to do with each other:

Document databases

These include Mongo and Couch. Ilya Grigorik includes Tokyo Cabinet in this category, and I’ll mention why I don’t (with an aside about Tokyo’s other benefits).

Hash tables

There are like a zillion of these. Redis is quite popular, memcached was the first. Talking about benefits and genesis is pretty straightforward, but I’ll mention the points of contrast in the ones that I know about.

The Modern Wonders of the World

Amazon’s Dynamo and Google’s BigTable are an inspiration to many implementers of NoSQL technologies. Even those implementers that aren’t directly working on related technologies know about them.

Dynamo is a lot like a distributed hash table with very particular rules and some backend wizardry.

BigTable is an entirely new way of modeling data and “doing an application”.

Cassandra, in particular, is a technology that uses elements of both, and is a major frontier. I can talk a little bit about what the benefits and costs are for investigating Cassandra today.

Presenter Bio

After catching the Ruby religion from Dave Thomas at a No Fluff Just Stuff in Reston in 2004, Jim Van Fleet has been working with Rails ever since. During his time as a Community Developer at TradeKing, he’s been involved in the dirty business of maintaining a quickly growing web application in Ruby that received a Webby nomination in 2008. He received his Doctorate of Sideburns from Hard Knocks University in 1994.

Announcements

CVREG Book Club will be kicking off this month. Pragmatic Programmer’s Security on Rails will be our first book.

Clinton Nixon of Viget Labs will be presenting next month: “The Joy of Ruby” His presentation does an excellent job of answering the question: Why use Ruby?

Sign up now available for the CVReg Book Club

2009-12-28T15:28:00Z

The Holidays are almost over and the CVReg book club is getting ready to kick off!

Leave a comment here, or contact @omnifroodle if you are planning on joining. Space will be limited for this first book.

CVReg Book Club - Security on Rails from Prag Prog

2009-12-09T20:05:00Z

The CVReg book club kicks off in January with Security on Rails by by Ben Poweski and David Raphael.

We will be meeting weekly somewhere in Richmond (suggestions?), and cover 1-2 chapters per meeting.

Make sure to comment here or send a tweet to #cvbeg or @omnifroodle to let us know you’ll be there.

Keeping up with news...

2009-12-09T14:55:00Z

So you’ve heard about the group (or told someone) but you miss the announcements or you want to know where to go for more information, especially when you’re having trouble with some Ruby code. Hopefully we have enough different channels from which to select. Each channel is different and offers its own pros & cons.

Website

Of course there is the website. It generally gets updated to announce upcoming meetings. It’s also used to announce regional events and to post our schedule. Basically it’s where to go to find information about our meetings.

In the future (we’ll all have jetpacks) we will start including news/announcements related to our Sponsors.

The site does have an Atom Feed for you News Reader Junkies. Here’s the link: http://cvreg.org/feed/atom.xml

Google Group/Mailing List

CVREG uses a Google Group to manage it’s mailing list. The link to the group is in the right-nav, but here it is too: http://groups.google.com/group/cvruby

I try to mirror the content from the website since, I imagine, not everyone follows the site’s Atom Feed. Occasionally we’ll see other posts.

I definitely encourage everyone to post questions (or solutions) to the mailing list. It doesn’t even have to be about Ruby (should have mentioned that earlier).

IRC Channel

We share a channel on freenode.net: #rubycodejam. Now you may wonder at its name. And stop me if you’ve heard this before: Our sister-group in Charlottesville is called the Ruby Code Jam and one of its members created the IRC Channel. I contacted him for details and he felt it best that we share the channel.

Most days it’s low activity but there are some really smart people in the channel every day. I’ve been pimping it out and hoping to grow it (like CVREG) into a more regional mostly Ruby-centric IRC channel.

I most definitely encourage you to join the channel and just hang-out with us. And be sure to tell everyone you know about it.

@cvreg

We have a Twitter account: http://twitter.com/cvreg It’s a cyborg. The bot portion is configured to repost the website’s Atom Feed. The bot portion is also configured to follow my (as in Mel Riffe’s) MeetUp feed (I’m following a few of the Regional Ruby Users Groups). I also occasionally tweet on that account.

Facebook Group

Yes, we have a Facebook Group too: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=7031350324“

It’s currently not used in any capacity. Suggestions welcomed.

Summary

There you have it, the channels CVREG uses to communicate to its members and the public at large. Are there any other channels we should consider?

However, if there is one take away I’d like you to consider, it’s this: Find a way to keep up with the announcements because we have some pretty cool stuff planned for next year.

Ciao, Mel

December Meeting: Matt Overstreet & URIs

2009-12-07T00:35:00Z

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

November Meeting: Joe Meade & Scrum for Kids

2009-11-03T17:33:00Z

Too Much Going On In Your Family?

We all know that Agile helps projects and companies plan and execute work better. And, as Agilists, we have seen how this results in happier relationships at work.

So, why not at home too?

In partnership with the Central Virginia Ruby Enthusiasts Group (CVREG) (www.cvreg.org) Agile Richmond is happy to present a session with Joe and Peace Meade on “Scrum for Kids”. Come find out how you can successfully apply the principals of scrum with your family to get more done, more reliably, and with happier results.

Tuesday, November 10th at 6pm

Location: Tuckahoe Public Library, 1901 Starling Drive in Richmond. Look here for directions: http://www.henricolibrary.org/Libs/tu.html

Joint Meeting with RJUG on 21 October

2009-09-30T19:34:00Z

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

September Meeting: Youssef Chaker, Michael Herndon & Midori PHP Framework

2009-09-04T21:48:00Z

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

Special CVREG Meetup with Sinatra creator and Heroku developer

2009-08-12T20:24:00Z

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

2009 Schedule, the 2d half

2009-06-04T03:26:00Z

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

Date	Topic	Speaker
14 Jul	Creating Mashups w/Ruby	Jess Martin
11 Aug	QA Testing w/Cucumber	Patrick Reagan
8 Sep	Midori, Rails-inspired PHP framework	Youssef Chaker
October	TBA	Andy Hunt
10 Nov	JRuby and Clojure	Keith Bennett
8 Dec	Rack	Matt Overstreet

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!

June Meeting: Rich Kilmer & HotCocoa

2009-06-04T02:45:00Z

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.

May Meeting Follow-up

2009-05-16T01:24:00Z

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

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

May Meeting: Annual RailsConf ReCap

2009-05-05T22:02:00Z

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 ;-)

JetBrains is a new Sponsor

2009-04-22T03:32:00Z

I’m happy to announce, starting with our May meeting, the CVREG will be giving away 2 licenses to some JetBrains products.

Each month, our speaker and one member can choose their prize:

RubyMine Personal License,
ReSharper Personal License,
dotTrace Personal License,
IntelliJ IDEA Personal License,
TeamCity Build Agent (for our Continuous Integration and Build Server)

Overall, JetBrains is working with more than 350 groups globally, and have already given away more than 2000 licenses of ReSharper and IntelliJ IDEA!

I’ll be getting the ‘fine print’ (i.e. how soon a person will receive their license? is there a limit as to how many licenses a person can win? stuff like that…)

So at the start of each meeting if you want to be considered for a license give me your name, email address and desired license. At the end of the meeting I will announce the winner.

Remember, Spread the word and bring a Friend!

P.S. Notice the new logo in the Sponsor’s section? :-D