Abstract

ScrumPad (http://www.scrumpad.com) is Web-based Agile/Scrum project management and collaboration tool. It was developed on Ruby on Rails as Software as a Service (SaaS). Recently, he migrated ScrumPad from Rails 1.2.x to Rails 2.x. It is deployed in the Amazon cloud (Amazon Web Services, a.k.a. AWS). AWS offers a set of IT infrastructure like compute power, storage, and other as a services. As a result, the cost of infrastructure truly becomes a variable cost. The business applications running on AWS can be dialed up and down to match its fluctuating load in real-time. ScrumPad is using Amzon's EC2, S3, EBS, and SQS. He will share his experience using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Rails migration.

Bio

After twelve years of designing multi-faceted IT solutions for financial services companies, Syed H. Rayhan, co-founder of Code71, is putting his skills to the test by leading the company to provide a comprehensive suite of development, maintenance, and support services to a growing list of clients.

Syed holds an MBA from the University of North Carolina, Kenan-Flagler Business School, as well as, an MS in Computer Engineering from the University of Central Florida and an undergraduate degree from BUET (Bangladesh University of Engineering Technology) in Electrical & Electronic Engineering. Syed is a member of the Scrum Alliance and is co-author of Enterprise Java with UML (pub. Wiley & Sons). His current interests is building in Agile fashion Enterprise 2.0 solutions running in the Cloud.

Overview

James Foster of GemStone will be in town to give his talk about MagLev and GLASS[1] for our October meeting.

From his website you can read about, and view videos, of his Road Show. He’s visited the Midwest and he’s in our area for a while before heading to OOPSLA.

Presentation

In this presentation, James Foster will give a brief demo of MagLev, then introduce Smalltalk, GemStone/S (a Smalltalk implementation that has built-in persistence and multi-user, multi-machine scalability), and the web framework Seaside. We will see how Seaside handles the “Back button problem” and provides a rich, component-based approach to OO web development.

James’ Bio

While in junior high in 1971, James Foster discovered computers at the local university and has delighted in building things and sharing his discoveries ever since. He learned Smalltalk in the mid-1990s, and became a passionate advocate for object technologies and agile methods. James is on the Smalltalk Engineering team at GemStone Systems, Inc., and regularly presents on technical topics (last month at ESUG in Amsterdam and next month at OOPSLA in Nashville).

I pulled the presentation and bio details from James’ website. The full article can be found here: http://programminggems.wordpress.com/2008/09/05/september-road-show/ I encourage you to read the entire post if you’ve not heard of Seaside, Smalltalk, GemStone or MagLev.

¹ ”GLASS” is an acronym for GemStone, Linux, Apache, Seaside, and Smalltalk.

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!

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:

• One Page Syntax Primer
• Cincom Smalltalk
• Cincom Smalltalk Downloads
• Getting started in Seaside and Visual Works
• Squeak
• Avi Bryant on TWiT; creator of Seaside
• Google Search on Smalltalk

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.

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Nubyonrails.com has the details…