Austin On Rails

Greetings Austin Railers!

For June, we will have a RailsConf recap from those of you who attended the 2nd Annual Rails Conference in Portland. Fun times!

We will also have a presentation from Mike Perham on ActiveScaffold, a Rails plugin for generating AJAXy CRUD.

Writing a web-based data entry UI for a complex application is never fun and quite often tedious. One key attribute for a good user interface is consistency but it still takes a knowledgeable and diligent development team to create the web pages which follow through on that design. ActiveScaffold is a plugin for Ruby on Rails (aka Rails) which provides dynamic model-based view generation. Instead of having to create pages by hand which display your models, ActiveScaffold will introspect your ActiveRecord models and dynamically generate a CRUD (create, read, update, delete) user interface for managing those objects.

Mike Perham is a Senior Software Engineer at IBM working on the WebSphere Business Services Fabric. He's a member of the Apache project and has been developing open source software since 1995. He loves racing motorcycles and learning new technologies, especially anything that makes building web-based applications easier.

As per usual, we will meet in the lovely space at Frog Design on 8th and Congress. Thanks Frog!

Lone Star Ruby Conference 2007 will be held in Austin, Texas on September 7-8 and the Call for Papers is now open. The call for papers is open through June 10, 2007.

If you have a special expertise in any aspect of computing that involves Ruby that you wish to speak on, please send your proposal following the instructions below.

We have an estimated 10 slots open for presenters for full papers. Friday night will also have time for those not selected for formal presentation to present at the unconference.

To submit a proposal, please email info@lonestarrubyconf.com with the following information:

Your Name
Your Phone
Your Email
Presentation Title
Abstract (<500 words)
Short Bio

We look forward to seeing you in Austin.

Howdy Austin Railers

We've got a heckuva program for you shaping up in May. Just as the engines of RailsConf start to rev up, we are going to come together once again in the über cool Frog Design industrial creative playspace.

Tim Pope is the creator of rails.vim, a phenomenally popular plugin for Rails development with Vim. He's also a core member of the Vim/Ruby team, which maintains the Ruby and eRuby syntax, indent, and configuration files for Vim. He currently resides in San Antonio and works full time as a programmer for J.M. Waller Associates, an environmental engineering firm.

Tim's presentation will serve as a general tour of Rails development with Vim. Both standard features and plugins will be explored, with a heavy emphasis placed on rails.vim.

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We are also going to be running our first PeepCode screencast, courtesy of Geoffrey Grosenbach, the creator of PeepCode and the Ruby on Rails podcast.

RJS Templates are one of the most exciting parts of Rails. You can manipulate pages and use Ajax to its full extent without knowing Javascript!

This 50 minute Quicktime video tutorial shows you how to use the basic RJS methods from scratch. You’ll be adding to your skills and using RJS to make more responsive and interactive applications.

Includes:

• Using RJS to update page elements
• Communicating with Javascript
• Client and server based RJS
• Refactoring with helpers and templates
• Testing RJS with the ARTS plugin
• Source code for the demo used in the tutorial

Cody Fauser’s RJS Templates for Rails book makes a great companion to the screencast.

Once again, we are meeting at Frog Design at 8th and Congress from 7-9 PM. If we can actually finish on time, we may make it next door for frosty beverages and socialization practice. I look forward to seeing you all come out and join us!

We had an awesome turnout at the Austin On Rails / FiveRuns Happy Hour. I hope that you were able to make it out. I believe that most of you must have because there were hundreds of people there! Thanks for making it a great event.

In April, we've got a delicious mix of local talent showing off new Rails apps under development and a Rails best practices talk that you won't want to miss.

Inside Methods Presents: BrainFlick

A Ruby on Rails based collaborative e-learning authoring and courseware tool.

The presentation will focus on a technology discussion around this Ruby on Rails app that includes support for the Canvas API, SVG, and leverages various Javascript libraries on the browser side, and on the server side is pure Ruby on Rails plus MySQL and RMagick... and more!

George and Ed Cowsar will be there to give you a preview and discuss their new product... which isn't announced yet. Ed (the CEO) will have the floor for a few seconds, then George (chief cook and bottle washer) will give the technology presentation and discussion.

George is a veteran of Apple Computer for 8 years where he was a Senior Engineer in Networking and Communications and System Software, Cisco for 5 years where he was Senior Technical Lead on the IP/TV enterprise streaming video product, Engineering Manager of IP/TV and the ACNS content networking products, and dabbled in some cutting edge VoIP investigations. George was also a co-founder of three previous high tech startups where technology he helped create was integrated in Microsoft, Apple, and Cisco products.

Ed, a BS in Industrial Distribution from Texas A&M, and Principal of Inside Methods. Ed has 25 years of management, sales and consulting experience. For three years he was a consultant and principal at The Complex Sale, and is informed on learning styles and how to best create effective curriculum and accomplish training. He was responsible for professional services for PeopleSoft Public Services in the Central US, and Academic Medical Centers nationally for Oracle Higher Education. He prioritized requirements to address unmet needs of the eLearning for ERP Applications space, and now he is promoting the BrainFlick Beta contest.

The Tao of Rails: Elegant and Efficient Coding Habits

Joyful code makes for joyful coders. Learning Ruby On Rails idioms, patterns, and principles allows us to work with Rails -- rather than against it -- to write joyful, elegant code that shortens development time and keeps coders happy.

Rein Heinrichs has been designing and developing for the web for 3 years. He picked up Rails a year ago and hasn't looked back. He has been working with Rails full-time for the past 6 months and has a passion for elegant code and design.

Please come on out at and join us at Frog Design at 8th and Congress. Socialization practice follows at Hickory Street. :)

See you soon!

Please come out and mingle with all the Ruby and Rails enthusiasts visiting town for the SXSW Interactive Festival. We are taking over The Lodge at Buffalo Billiards at 6th and Brazos. This years party is going to be bigger than last year and all the food and drink is on the house, courtesy of FiveRuns. Please let us know if you are coming by registering at upcoming.org so we'll have an idea of the headcount.

SPECIAL NOTE: If you do not have a badge, you must also email me at [scales] [at] [pobox.com] to RSVP for entrance to the party.