“If you’re still writing for loops, stop; there’s a better way.” In Ruby, for loops should be the exception. Make sure you know all about the functionality offered by the Enumerable module, which has methods for iterating through, sorting and searching arrays, hashes and other collection-type objects.
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The Evolution of the TSOT Office
It’s been exactly one week since we moved from TSOT’s temporary office to the permanent one on the 11th floor at 151 Bloor Street West. The new digs are pretty sweet, and I thought I’d post some photos showing the evolution of the space.
Here’s what the place looked like on December 7th. You can click the photo below to see the whole photoset on Flickr:
Click this photo to see the “TSOT December 7” photoset.
Here’s how things looked on December 20th and 21st. Once again, click the photo to see the whole photoset on Flickr:
Click this photo to see the “TSOT December 20 – 21” photoset.
And finally, here’s how things looked on “Moving-In Day”, January 3rd. Click the photo to see the whole photoset:
Click this photo to see the “TSOT January 3” photoset.
And while we’re at it, why is Mommy taking off her shirt in front of the webcam?
This promotion for Windows Home Server is done up in the style of “Mommy, Where Do I Come From?” childrens’ books, and it is high-larious. Gizomodo’s got scans of the entire book — check ’em out!
Ooh! Daddy’s going to Mommy a server! Watch for the follow up book, Why is Daddy Sleeping on the Couch?
Last night, TSOT held its first Ruby/Rails Project Night, an evening where Toronto area Ruby and Rails developers can see in-depth presentations by their peers on Ruby, Rails and their current Ruby/Rails projects. We’ve only occupied our new office for four days, so in addition to being our first Project Night, it was also the first time the office has had guests (of which there were at least two dozen).
Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.
We started by giving people food, drink and some time to hang out, chat and meet their fellow local techies. We agree with the TorCamp folks: having a strong developer community benefits all development companies in the area, and we’re only too happy to do our part. (We may have to kick the beer budget up a notch — not only do Toronto developers work hard, they drink hard too!)
Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.
I started the presentation portion of the evening by first introducing Kris White, our CEO, who welcomed the crowd, after which I launched into my Saturday Night Live-style opening monologue, a presentation titled Rant Said Zed: Lessons and Challenges from Zed’s Rant. The basic premise was that as with real-life city neighbourhoods that have made the leap from ghetto to renewed community, it’s going to take the effort of people who are willing to take charge and make positive contributions.
Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.
Next up was Andrew Burke (his company is Shindig), whose presentation was on his current project, S.O.S., short for Sign Ordering System, an application for large retailers who need to order all sorts of in-store signage on a regular basis (it’s a need that is large, complex and something that most people don’t think of). He provided a brief background of the sort of problems his customers had, talked about how where custom Rails applications fit in the business software ecosystem, did a quick demo of S.O.S. and provided a handful of development pointers.
Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.
After Andrew came Unspace’s Hampton Catlin, who presented ZipLocal.com, an app that answers the question “What’s good in your ‘hood?” (it’s local search for restaurants and other businesses). He showed us all sorts of cool things including its clever URL scheme and — because you’re allowed to go as deep as you like in your presentations — actual code. Hampton even managed to throw in some rebuttals to my Rant Said Zed monologue!
Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.
Finally, we had Mike Ferrier, also from Unspace, who presented his project, the iPhone/iPod Touch front-end for TheScore.ca, a sports scores site for the hardcore sports fan. As with Hampton’s presentation, Mike fired up his editor and showed us code, which included his use of Hpricot as an XML parser (because the standard Ruby ways of parsing XML are pretty sad).
Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.
I’m biased, but the night looked pretty successful to me. Many people approached me, our VP Public Relations Corina Newby and VP Promotions Ruth Rankin and told us that not only did they like the event, but that they also had a good time. As of this writing, two people who attended have contacted us, asking if they could do a presentation at February’s project night!
Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.
If you’ve got a Ruby or Rails project that you’d like to show off, or if you’d like to do a tutorial session on some aspect of Ruby, Rails or any of the Ruby-based app frameworks, we’d like to hear from you! We’re looking for presentations that run about 20-ish minutes and we encourage you to go as in-depth as you like. Feel like showing code? We’re cool with that! Email me if you’d like to present.
TSOT’s Ruby/Rails project nights take place on the second Tuesday of every month. The next one takes place on Tuesday, February 12th. We open our doors at 5:30 p.m., with the presentations starting at around 6 and wrapping up between 8 and 8:30 (with breaks where appropriate). We provide food and drink as well.
Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.
I’d like to thank Andrew, Hampton and Mike for their excellent presentations, which provided Project Night with a very auspicious start, as well as all of you who attended. Thanks for coming out, and we’ll see you at the next one!
Click here to see the Flickr set of my photos from Ruby/Rails Project Night.
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TSOT’s Ruby/Rails Project Night
Tonight is TSOT’s first monthly Ruby/Rails Project Night, where we invite the local developer community into our offices to see presentations on Ruby and Rails development and socialize. We’ve got a great lineup of speakers:
- Yours Truly, on the lessons and challenges of Zed Shaw’s rant
- Andrew Burke on the business and technical aspects of his current Rails project
- Hampton Catlin on Ziplocal.com
- Mike Ferrier on The Score’s iPhone application
The event will take place at TSOT’s office — 151 Bloor Street West (on the south side, just east of Avenue Road), suite 1130. The doors open at 5:30 p.m., during which time we’ll serve food. Presentations start at 6-ish, with breaks in between and some time for socializing afterwards. Admission is free, but space is limited — to register, please email joey.devilla@tsotinc.com.
I think both youth and the sort of person attracted to programming both contribute to the tendency to collect shiny new playthings, a syndrome covered in Jeff “Coding Horror” Atwood’s article, The Magpie Developer. I find that having a strong “get outside and away from the computer” lifestyle helps, and if that doesn’t work, growing older should do the trick. I think.
The blogger at willcode4beer says in 17 Thousand Reasons I’m not a Ruby on Rails Developer that the median salary of Rails developers is on average $17K less than that for J2EE developers. I’m not worried — the pay at TSOT for RoR development is on par with the J2EE rates cited.
The article also suggests that “to bring salaries up, they need to drop the ‘easy’ part. Development is hard, and no language or platform is going to change that. We solve complex problems. Complex problems are hard to solve. period. They should focus on the productivity gains in the areas where Rails shines, and try to avoid the areas where it doesn’t.”