Abstract:
We have had several requests for some beginner topics lately, so I figured it was time for another Newbie event. This time we will concentrate on Rails persistence. We have three talks arranged. Additional short Rails persistence-related topics are welcomed if you want to propose one. It doesn't have to be strictly about the ActiveRecord.
First, Gray Herter will demonstrate creating a small, but complete and (relatively) realistic database-backed domain model using ActiveRecord.
Second, for an intermediate topic, Arild Shirazi will present an ActiveRecord replacement framework he recently created to wrap a legacy Java-based persistence component. It includes most of the expected ActiveRecord methods providing saves, finds, and validations.
And third, David Keener will present "Rails Tips and Best Practices," a compendium of Rails beginner tips, covering some query optimizations, some migration tactics, a few typical gotchas to watch out for, etc.
Any short topic that you think might pique the interest of someone curious about Rails persistence is fair game.
And don't forget to bring your Rails Newbie friends.
Bios:
Gray Herter is a Project Manager leading a JRuby on Rails project for the US State Dept supporting international export control. Gray has worked with Rails since 2007, and also produces the RubyNation conference. Arild Shirazi is a software engineer at CodeSherpas with a background in Java EE and Rails, and former protein biochemist. David Keener speaks frequently at the NovaRUG. He is currently working on a Rails project for the US State Dept supporting video-based contests.
Where:
FGM, Inc
12021 Sunset Hills Rd, Suite 400
Reston, VA 20175
Call 703 727-1307 to get in (the outside door is locked after 6 PM).
Note: Prior to the main talk, Charles Calvert will give a brief overview of the Independent Computer Consultants Association and its usefulness as a resource for both
consultants and those hiring consultants.
Description: We all experienced how easy it is to get started with
Sphinx and Thinking Sphinx but it becomes complex very quickly with
sophisticated data models.
We will talk about the folowing topics:
Indexing through has_many relationships using multi-value
attributes and the limitations of that solution.
Search filters
Geolocation search
Cross index search
Cross model search
The goal of this presentation and discussion is to give and
illustrate
simple code solutions to solve common search problems using
Sphinx and
Thinking Sphinx.
Speaker: Christophe Lucas is currently the lead software engineer at
VisualCV,
Inc. Prior to VisualCV, he worked at Revolution Health
Group, LLC,
designing and developing web applications using the Ruby on
Rails
framework. He also developed desktop applications using
Java at the
National Institute of Standards and Technology as a guest
researcher
and at Meta Integration Technology. He is a firm believer
in the
Manifesto for Agile Software Development and eXtreme
Programming best
practices.
Location:
FGM HQ,
12021 Sunset Hills Rd, Suite 400
Reston, VA 20190
Call 703 727-1307 (Gray) to get in.
Description: "Workflow" is a generic concept that can mean different things to
different people – a book author is going to think of workflow a lot differently
than a photographer processing images. Whether you are implementing a simple
shopping cart or building a complex system to track the review of legal
documents, there are abstract concepts of states, transitions, actions, actors,
assignments, tasking, concurrency, sequences, and dependencies we can use.
Come learn about tools and techniques for implementing workflow concepts in Ruby
and Rails. From user stories with `shoulda', through state machines, to complete
workflow engines like OpenWFEru, this is a rich space with a lot to learn.
Speaker: David Bock is a founder and principal at CodeSherpas, a software
engineering consultancy in the Northern Virginia area. Prior to falling in love
with Ruby, Mr. Bock spent many years writing custom workflow solutions in Java
for the U.S. State Department. His work in this space protects the borders of
many countries from hazardous imports and exports, and was instrumental in
Poland meeting some reporting obligations for entry into NATO.
Sponsor:
Location:
FGM HQ,
12021 Sunset Hills Rd, Suite 400
Reston, VA 20190
Call 703 727-1307 (Gray) to get in.
Posted by Gray Herter
Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:09:00 GMT
The next meeting of the NovaRUG will be held Wednesday, Apr 15th at the FGM headquarters from 6:30 PM to 9 PM. The presentation will start at 7 PM.
Register:Register Here to RSVP. Please make sure to register since this should generate a lot of interest. I will make sure the HVAC is left on this year!
Topic: We don't know, but with Chad Fowler and Dave Thomas presenting it will be worth your while to attend. I heard that they plan to examine some code in detail.
Speakers: Dave Thomas and Chad Fowler, the famous authors of the Pickaxe Ruby book that we all have on our desk. They are also teaching an upcoming Rails class in Reston, April 15-17.
Sponsors: Food and drink will be provided starting at 6:30, pizza courtesy of CodeSherpas.
Sodas (and the room) from FGM, as usual.
Cookies and brownies from RubyNation (hey, we don't have to buy pizza this time!).
Jetbrains: We will also give out a Jetbrains license, good for ReSharper Personal License, dotTrace Personal
License, IntelliJ IDEA Personal License, TeamCity Build Agent (their
Continuous Integration and Build Server), or RubyMine (new Ruby IDE).
Location: FGM, Inc.
12021 Sunset Hills Road
Suite 400
Reston, VA 20190
Ph.: Call 703.727.1307 (Gray) and someone will let you in to the building.
Posted by Gray Herter
Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:04:00 GMT
The next meeting of the NovaRUG will be held Tuesday, Mar 31st at the FGM headquarters from 6:30 PM to 9 PM. Pizza and soft drinks will be provided starting at 6:30. The presentation will start at 7 PM.
Register Here (just take the poll so we know how much pizza to buy):
Topic: Bryan will review his toolbox for acceptance testing Ruby web applications. This presentation
will be a demonstration of how to get the most out of your acceptance tests. Bryan will talk about Cucumber, Webrat, Webrat with Cucumber, Integrity, his environment and then share a list of other resources.
We have some T-shirts to give out (Radrails/RubyNation), and some Radrails books, too.
Speaker: "Only write code to make your tests pass." A simple statement for many, but a way of life for Bryan Liles. Writing tests and blogging, speaking, and demonstrating everything associated is a passion that Bryan expends way too much time evangelizing. Bryan started his professional life as a Unix admin and has slowly realized that writing code was his passion, so now he spends all his time hacking on the latest and greatest technologies.
Location: FGM, Inc.
12021 Sunset Hills Road
Suite 400
Reston, VA 20190
Ph.: Call 703.727.1307 (Gray) and someone will let you in to the building.
Built on top of jQuery, jQuery UI is a complete set of behaviors and components for building Rich Internet Applications. Drag-and-drop, resizing, sorting, selecting, dialogs, sliders, tabs, trees, grids, toolbars, menus, etc. Each component adheres to a consistent standard across API, design, behavior and theming, minimizing surprise and making learning all of them as easy as learning one. jQuery UI has full cross-browser support, is designed for easy customizing and extensibility, and is fully themable with a widget-ready CSS Framework.
Richard D. Worth is one of the lead developers of jQuery UI, a component framework built on top of jQuery, designed to make Rich Internet Applications as refreshingly simple as jQuery has made Ajax. Richard works at Fulcrum IT on Web services contracts, primarily for the government, and blogs at rdworth.org.
When: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 06:30 PM - 9:00 PM
Where:
FGM, Inc.
12021 Sunset Hills Road
Suite 400
Reston, VA 20190
Directions here
Posted by Gray Herter
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 02:39:00 GMT
CANCELLED: The weather report for tomorrow isn't good, so we will try this one again later.
The next meeting of the NovaRUG will be held Wednesday, Jan 28th at the FGM headquarters from 6:30 PM to 9 PM. Pizza and soft drinks will be provided starting at 6:30. The presentation will start at 7 PM. WARNING: There might be the occasional use of the F word in this presentation (considering that is what the F in TATFT represents). So please bring your sense of humor and leave the kids at home.
Register Here (just take the poll so we know how much pizza to buy):
Topic:You've heard it a million times, "TATFT". So, how do you go from being someone who wants to test, to someone who actually tests all the time? Do you need a spiritual guide who can show you the intricacies of testing, and how it can make your code better? If so, you need "TATFT, the laymen's guide to getting it right the first time."
We have some T-shirts to give out (Radrails/RubyNation), and some Radrails books, too.
Speaker: "Only write code to make your tests pass." A simple statement for many, but a way of life for Bryan Liles. Writing tests and blogging, speaking, and demonstrating everything associated is a passion that Bryan expends way too much time evangelizing. Bryan started his professional life as a Unix admin and has slowly realized that writing code was his passion, so now he spends all his time hacking on the latest and greatest technologies.
Location: FGM, Inc.
12021 Sunset Hills Road
Suite 400
Reston, VA 20190
Ph.: Call 703.727.1307 (Gray) and someone will let you in to the building.
Posted by Gray Herter
Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:05:00 GMT
The meeting will be held Wednesday, Dec 17th at the FGM headquarters (directions) from 6:30 PM to 9 PM. Pizza and soft drinks will be provided starting at 6:30. The presentation will start at 7 PM.
Git is a free distributed revision control, or software source code management project with an emphasis on being fast. Git was initially created by Linus Torvalds for Linux kernel development.
Every Git working directory is a full-fledged repository with complete history and full revision tracking capabilities, not dependent on network access or a central server.
Several high-profile software projects now use Git for revision control[4], most notably the Linux kernel, Samba, X.org Server, Qt (toolkit), One Laptop per Child (OLPC) core development[5], Ruby on Rails web framework [6], VLC, Merb, Wine, SWI Prolog, DragonFly BSD and the Android mobile platform.
The screencast itself is an hour long, and we may interrupt it from time to time for questions, clarifications, etc.
Location: FGM, Inc.
12021 Sunset Hills Road
Suite 400
Reston, VA 20190
Ph.: Call 703-728-5012 (Xandy) or 703-727-1307 (Gray) and someone will let you in to the building
Posted by Gray Herter
Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:07:00 GMT
The meeting will be held Wednesday, Nov 19th at the FGM headquarters from 6:30 PM to 9 PM. Pizza and soft drinks will be provided starting at 6:30. The presentation will start at 7 PM.
Topic:Ramaze (http://ramaze.net) is a simple, light and modular open-source web application framework written in Ruby.
Even though Ramaze hasn't been in the spotlight as
much as Merb and Sinatra, it has a lot to offer:
Like Merb, it lets you select from a variety of ORMs and templating engines
Ramaze is developed in a BDD fashion with specs written in Bacon.
The documentation and examples from the site are very good and the code is easy to dig into.
The community is very friendly and helpful
This talk is an introduction to Ramaze and show why you should consider
it for your next project.
We have some T-shirts to give out (Ramaze and Radrails), and some Radrails books, too.
Speaker: Luc Castera is a curious software engineer, always trying to learn new
technologies and improve his
skills. He is currently the lead-developer behind ShareMeme.com and
has held positions at Verizon,
GE, and Delphi Electronics. He has used many different languages and
platforms such as Java, Tcl/Tk,
C, Ruby, and C#/.NET throughout his career. He discovered Ruby two
years ago and has been a big fan
ever since.
Luc received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering at the University of
Virginia before attending
Georgia Tech to obtain his Masters degree in the same field. Born and
raised in Port-au-Prince,
Haiti, he now lives in the DC Metropolitan area.
Location: FGM, Inc.
12021 Sunset Hills Road
Suite 400
Reston, VA 20190
Ph.: Call 703.728.5012 (Xandy) or 703.727.1307 (Gray) and someone will let you in to the building
Posted by Gray Herter
Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:32:00 GMT
No, it is not a night of progressive Canadian rock music! It's two great ruby talks, one on the rush shell by Nicholas Schlueter and another on cucumber, a BDD framework, by Chris Flipse.
RSVP with the pizza poll (whether you want pizza or not), so we know how much to get and how many are coming.
rush (http://rush.heroku.com/) as defined by the website is a replacement for the unix shell (bash, zsh, etc) which uses pure Ruby
syntax. Grep through files,
find and kill processes, copy files - everything you do in the shell,
now in Ruby.
In this talk you will learn 2 things.
First we will go over some rush basics. Like globbing, search and
replace, naming files, and
processes.
Second we will add rush to common tools, such as, Rake, Sake,
Textmate, Capistrano, and Thor.
The Cucumber talk will be: "a bit of a talk about Cucumber, which will be the replacement for the story framework in rspec." by Chris Flipse. Stay tuned for more details as they arrive, or just show up and be surprised.
The meeting will be held Thursday, Oct 16th at the FGM headquarters from 6:30 PM to 9 PM. Pizza and soft drinks will be provided starting at 6:30. The presentations will start at 7 PM.
Here is the address:
FGM, Inc.
12021 Sunset Hills Road
Suite 400
Reston, VA 20190
Ph.: Call 703.728.5012 (Xandy) or 703.727.1307 (Gray) and someone will let you in to the building
