Meeting: Tuesday, July 22nd @ 7-9 pm

Damon Clinkscales — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:23:00 -0700

Greetings Austin Railers

Another hot Austin summer is in full swing and we've got another smokin' meeting for you to boot! Except this time, you are the star. Yes folks, it's true...it's time for another round of lightning talks where you tell us what's up. In addition, we've got some boys from College Station (that hotbed of crackling technological firepower) coming down to give us a preview of their Lone Star talk on Merb, the most popular of the Rails alternative Ruby web frameworks.

Meeting Location

Datran Media - 7th & Brazos (just inside the doors, there is a bank of elevators. head to the 8th floor) Always good to arrive early to get a spot!

Lightning Talks!

For our first segment this month, we are going to open up the floor for lightning talks, so please start thinking about what you would like to share now. :-) We'll allow for 5 minutes or so per speaker, but no more than 10, and we'll fit in as many as we can. Good ideas for a talk might be a tool or technique you've learned recently, a new Rails project you've developed, a brief tutorial on a process or library you've found helpful. Etc! Should be fun.

Merb: The "Came for Rails, Stayed for Ruby" Framework

Merb is the pocket rocket framework that's creating buzz in the Rails community. Merb is fast. Merb is modular. Merb is efficient. And Merb might be the best choice for your next project. And it might not.

This presentation will provide an overview of the philosophy behind Merb, the 0.9 rewrite, where Merb is headed, and how it can compliment Rails. We will quickly dive into checking out Merb's internals, a few Merb plugins, and how you can get involved in the Merb project. Merb is a great example of a ruby project done right, and we'll highlight a few features that Merb knocks out of the park while helping your determine if merb is right for you.

Brian & Ben are partners in software consultancy specializing in Django, Rails, and Merb development. The team has closely followed the progress of both Merb and DataMapper since their respective 0.9 rewrites, contributing to the projects whenever possible. Since April 2008, they have been using Merb + DataMapper on new client applications.

In Other News

I've got some good news on the book front. At RailsConf, I made a connection with Pearson and they've sent me their Ruby Professional Series. This includes The Ruby Way and The Rails Way. So look out for some good book giveaways! I've also got versions for the library, so if somebody wants to borrow one, let me know.

Your monthly socialization practice will follow the meeting at B.D. Riley's pub.

Look forward to seeing everyone at the meeting. Glad to be back!

Upcoming Events

As a side note, there are a couple of Ruby/Rails related events coming up here in Austin that you might want to register for:

Rails Bootup (August 2nd) - if you are newer to Ruby on Rails and would like to get up and running, check out this bootcamp that I am putting on with the help of some of my esteemed colleagues. Why not speed up your learning and spend a Saturday learning Rails?

Lone Star Ruby Conf (September 4-6) - this was a killer show last year and it looks to be a good one this year as well. And they've got Matz, the creator of Ruby, speaking at the conference!

Meeting: Tuesday, April 22nd @ 7-9pm

Damon Clinkscales — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:39:00 -0700

Howdy Austin Railers!

This coming Tuesday will be our first time on our new schedule (4th Tuesdays), which was selected by our membership as the best night for us to gather.

We are are going to bring together two tastes that taste great together, Bootstrapping and Rails. We'll have two of the leaders in Bootstrap Austin (Bijoy and Edward) giving talks on bootstrapping and we'll be discussing how working with Rails can help you get that side project or software startup idea out of your brain and into the browser. We are also fortunate to have two bootstrappers, Damon Flowers and Dave Wolpert, sharing a brief overview of what they are bootstrapping, how it is going so far, and what tools they are using to build up their sites.

Bijoy Goswami develops universal models that help individuals and organizations unlock their fullest potential. He packages these models in stories, books, communities, training and web sites. A consummate evangelist for his various projects, he has been featured in local and national media.

Edward Cruz's day job is working as a grizzled IT veteran specializing in e-commerce implementations. His passion is in finding ways to extend current web technologies into everyday human endeavors in ways that are collaborative, cooperative, and progressive. His latest project, Molecular Thinking (http://www.molecularthinking.com), is an accidental web 2.0 site that enables collaborative online brainstorming and ideation.

Here's the rough agenda for Tuesday (with a little twist on our usual format):

7:00-7:10 Welcome and Announcements
7:10-7:35 Bootstrapping 101 - Bijoy Goswami, Aviri/Bootstrap Austin
7:35-7:45 Damon Flowers, Dwellgo - Overview/Feedback
7:45-7:55 Dave Wolpert, PubMaven - Overview/Feedback
7:55-8:05 BREAK / GIVEAWAY

8:05-8:30 Bootstrapping With Rails - Edward Cruz, Molecular Thinking/Bootstrap Austin
8:30-8:55 Meet and Greet (People Mashup - connect with bootstrappers in Austin)

I'm definitely looking forward to learning more about bootstrapping and how we as a group can help each other and others harness the power of Rails to create!

The meeting will be held at Datran Media at the corner of 7th and Brazos. Please try to show up around 6:30 so that we'll have time to get everyone shuttled upstairs. We'll meet at the bank of elevators just inside the door. Socialization practice to follow afterwards at a local pub.

Looking forward to seeing everybody!

Note: If you are interested in bootstrapping and you haven't yet watched DHH at Startup School 2008, you totally should. Turn comments off, though. You'll see what I mean. ;-)