For April’s meeting we have two fun talks:

• Ryan Stenhouse will be telling us about Rails’ i18n support and strategies
• Alan Gardner will be demonstrating the wonders of TMUX.

We haven’t done a coding session for a while, so March meeting we will tackle a coding problem, in pairs. Bring a laptop if you can and be prepared to test-drive some code.

Usual time (19:30) and the usual place (FreeAgent offices).

Part 1

Part 2

Thanks to Marius for the videoing.

Here is the video from the January Meeting of Sam Elliott declaiming on the less well-known capabilities of core Ruby and the Standard Libraries.

Sam Elliot on the Dusty Corners of Ruby from Edge Case UK on Vimeo.

Here is the video from the January Meeting of Ryan Stenhouse on The Culture of Internationalisation.

Ryan Stenhouse on The Culture of Internationalisation from Edge Case UK on Vimeo.

Phil Roberts has just finished a large rewrite of Float to be a javascript-heavy front-end based application using Backbone.js. Phil will be telling us about the reason for the change, his experiences, and introducing us to Backbone.js.

Usual time (19:30) and the usual place (FreeAgent offices).

Thanks to strategic powercuts and other ridiculous problems, the December ScotRUG did not quite go to plan. But next week we will be back on form. We have 3 (3!!!) talks lined up, plus free (as in beer) beer from FreeAgent. Yay!

• Ryan Stenhouse will be talking about cultural differences when programming people-facing applications
• Sam Elliott will be taking us on a magical mystery tour of the more obscure (read exciting) corners of Ruby’s core classes and Standard Lib.
• Paul Wilson will be giving a quick demo of Mountable Apps in Rails 3.1.x.

You may also sign up on Lanyrd here.

December ScotRUG is being held early and at a different location. It is at Cargo, at 129 Fountain Bridge, EH3 9QG; google map is here.

We will start at 18:00 for Ruby chats, which will include a Ruby Quiz with a special prize. At 19:00 those sufficiently ticketed will join the Edinburgh Startup Christmas party in the same venue. Tickets can be bought here, though at 11:00 on the 15th there was only one ticket remaining. Use the code ‘timewarp’ to get a bit of cash off, if you are fast enough.

Here is the video from the November meeting of Thomas Haggett talking about Puppet and MCollective.

Thomas Haggett on Puppet and MCollective from Edge Case UK on Vimeo.

Brian’s code and presentation are here.

Here is the video from the November meeting of Brian Swan giving us take on faster Rails Tests, but without extracting your model methods into modules.

Brian Swan - Fast Rails Tests - ScotRUG November 2011 from Edge Case UK on Vimeo.

Brian’s code and presentation are here.

November started on a Wednesday, so this month’s meeting comes earlier than expected. This month we have two talks

• Brian Swan will be giving us his take on Rails tests. Expect controversy and challenges to the new orthodoxies.
• Thomas Haggett will be talking about how he has successfully used Puppet and MCollective at FreeAgent, with patterns and suggestions to take away.

Don’t forget that the meetin is in our new venue, the wonderful FreeAgent offices. See the October post for detailed directions.

Updated 15 Nov 2011: added Thomas’ talk.

October’s meeeting is a mixed bag of short presentations:

• Mark Connell’s impressions from the 2011 RubyConf in New Orleans
• Paul Wilson’s further impressions from RubyConf and MagRails
• Matt Wynne on the training wheels coming off cucumber

Do not forget that we’ll be meeting at the brand new venue of FreeAgent’s new digs, 40 Torphichen Street, Edinburgh, EH3 8JB, It is in the glass-fronted building on the right hand side of the road, just before the sharp bend if you are walking away from Haymarket. See the snapshot on Google Maps here. There is no FreeAgent signage, but there is a big 40 on the glass.

Those lovely people at FreeAgent have offered to host Edinburgh ScotRUG meetings at their fabulous new offices, near Haymarket station. They have even said that they may be able to provide us with a beer or two in their offices. The first meeting in this location will be on 20 October, 2011. (If their sofa reminds you of anything, best not to mention it though.)

The new venue is 40 Torphichen Street, Edinburgh, EH3 8JB, or here on Google Maps.

Update: I’ve seen the sofa; it just looks like a sofa.

Suggested by Matt Wynne, September’s meetup is going to be all about making stuff. We will kick off the session with 5 minute presentations by people with project ideas, then we will break up into groups and start working on the project. We’ve already had a few ideas suggested on the mailing list.

• Matt Wynne wants to make a start on a test-based dynamic analysis tool for Ruby, DARTS.
• Sam Elliot wants some helping hands with Ruby Pair
• Drew Neil has an idea of applying Doctor JS, Mozilla’s Javascript Static Analysis tool to Coffeescript.

Come along, bring an idea and/or willingness to help and take part.

The cartoon below may be relevant:

We will be at the usual place, The Edinburgh Training Centre on Thursday 15th September, starting at 19:30.

UPDATE: Sam Elliot won the contest by a long nose with the code here.

Another month, another exciting meeting. This month Robert Chatley and Matt Wynne will be running their Extreme Startup session, first shown at XP2011. Here’s the gen from Robert:

Extreme Startup

In this hands-on workshop we aim to simulate product teams building software and delivering it into a market. Attendees form teams and compete to build the best product. Through the session you can continue to refine and upgrade your software, releasing new versions and testing their performance in the market. Once your software is live it will begin to accrue points, as simulated users use the software and score it against how well it fits their needs. The earlier you release your software, the sooner you will start accruing points, and the earlier you can learn something about the market, which should inform your next iteration. In the lean startup movement, this is know as the Build-Measure-Learn cycle.

Attendees of this session will need to build a very simple webapp, probably as part of a pair or a small team, so you will need at least one laptop per team.

So that we can get started quickly, it would be helpful if participants could do a little bit of preparatory work. Set up a minimal webapp running locally on your machine that handles a GET request, with a request param ‘q’, (e.g. http://localhost:4567/?q=Adam) and returns a plain text response. For example, using Sinatra:

require 'rubygems'
require 'sinatra'

configure do
  set :port, 4567
end

get '/' do
  q = params[:q]
  "Hello #{q}"
end

We will be at the usual place, The Edinburgh Training Centre on Thursday 18th August, starting at 19:30 sharp. Please try and be a little early.

July brings us more international speakers, in the shape of Joe O’Brien from the EdgeCase Columbus office. This time there is a mobile dimension: Joe will be talking about coding for Android in Ruby.

We will be at the usual place, The Edinburgh Training Centre on Thursday 21st July.

UPDATE Here is the video from that meeting.

ScotRUG20110721JoeOBrien from Edge Case UK on Vimeo.

Thanks to Martin for coming all the way from Berlin, as part of the new Ruby User Group Speaker Exchange Programme. You can find out more about the programme here. Also thanks to EdgeCase for covering the flights.

ScotRUG-2011-06-17-Martin-Rehfield from Edge Case UK on Vimeo.

PS The song snippet at the beggining is from Jim Weirich’s _Why day song, Has Anybody Seen My Code?.

The June meeting is going to be a bit special – the first in a new European Speaker Exchange Programme masterminded by the Berlin Ruby User Group. Martin Rehfeld will be talking about the lessons learned developing his new service Assets.io featuring dynamic Javascript and CSS delivery through the Amazon Cloudfront CDN. Other parts include a custom backend using evented Ruby code (Thin/Async Rack/Eventmachine). It promises to be an exciting meeting, and in due course we’ll be catapulting one of our own speakers over the North Sea to Berlin. Martin will be in Edinburgh from June 14 to June 17, so let’s all make him welcome.

We will be at the usual place, The Edinburgh Training Centre on Thursday 16 June.

The speaker exchange programme is looking for some sponsorship, particularly to cover Martin’s cost. If your company can help, get in touch via the Google Group or email paul [{at}] edgecase.com.

Ruby Golf is going the rounds of a few user groups. During the Edinburgh May meeting, we will jump on the band wagon for a 9-hole round. The aim will be to complete the 9 hole course, laid out in RSpec, in as few characters as possible.

If you can’t bring a laptop, don’t worry we’ll be working in teams.

We will be at the usual place, The Edinburgh Training Centre on Thursday 19 May.

As promised, the March meeting will be another Ruby Koans session; this time we will be concentrating on blocks. Bring your laptops if you can, and it would be helpful to have downloaded the Koans and are ready to start. The Ruby Koans website is here

If you can’t bring a laptop, don’t worry we’ll be pairing.

We will be at the usual place, The Edinburgh Training Centre on Thursday 17 March.

The February meeting will be a pub/social meeting at the Holyrood Tavern on Thursday 17 February from 19:30. The Ruby Koans session will be postponed until March.

Talking of March, the inaugural meeting of the Glasgow Ruby User Group is being held on March 5. You can find details here

The January meeting is an experiment to determine scientifically whether Mocks suck or do they rock. This will be done with live coding using a rigid methodolgy which we will make up on the spot. Bring a laptop if you have one. Also get the codes.

Matt Wynne’s Mock friendly code is here. Brian Swan’s Mock Hostile code is here

You can sign up on Bloop, here

Ho, ho, ho. As an early Christmas present here are two videos from the November session:-

ScotRUG Talks-Mark Connell on Websockets from Edge Case UK on Vimeo.

ScotRUG Talks-Sam Elliott talks about Chrome Extensions from Edge Case UK on Vimeo.

The January session will be on 20 January 2011, at the at the usual place: Edinburgh Training Centre, 16 St. Marys Street, EH1 1SU. We do not have an agenda yet, but more lightning talks are a possibility.

To cheer the dismal November days, come along to ScotRUG at 19:00 on Thursday November 18 to be heartened by cheery lightning talks at the at the usual place: Edinburgh Training Centre, 16 St. Marys Street, EH1 1SU.

We have:

• Mark Connell who will delight us with tales of websockets (with Ruby). You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll receive push notifications of events.
• Sam Elliot on Chrome Extensions
• Morgan Prior will be answering questions on The Ruby Mendicant University, a free online school open to anyone looking to improve their Ruby craftsmanship.

Who else would like to tell us something interesting? This month, talks can be up to 15 minutes long. Let us know on The Google Group.

[ Update: Talks added]

Thanks to Tanja Pislar for her new design of the ScotRUG site, with rounded CSScorners and everything. (Our previous design looked it was something knocked up by a programmer,without any particular design talent, in 20 minutes based on an old WordPress theme). Hope you enjoy it.

Two ScotRUG members have upcoming conference talks. Drew Neil is presenting at Arrrr Camp in Ghent on the 29th of October, and Paul Wilson at RubyConf in New Orleans on the 12th of November. At the October ScotRUG meeting they will both present slightly condensed versions of their talks.

• Drew’s talk is VIM – Walking Without Crutches
• Paul’s talk is Automated Acceptance Testing, The Vietnam of Test Driven Development

October’s meeting will start at 19:30 on Thursday the 21st of October, at the usual place: Edinburgh Training Centre, 16 St. Marys Street, EH1 1SU.

I’ve made a small step towards making the ScotRUG site more maintabable, and giving us a little bit of history. I have converted it to Jekyll. It is still not very pretty, but we can work on that. The source is on GitHub here. For now, if anyone wants to make it a bit nicer, please fork and send me a pull request.

By popular demand the next meeting will be an interactive session on Ruby Koans. Bring your laptops for some fun coding. Kickoff will be at 19:30 with a walkthrough. Then we will pair up and code through some more. We will have a debrief at the end followed (no doubt) by a visit to the Holyrood Tavern.

See you at The Edinburgh Training Centre on Thursday 16 September.

Videos of Matt Wynne’s and Brian Swan’s superb live(ish) TDD sessions are up on Vimeo, as our most of our last few sessions.

ScotRUG Talks Matt Wynne Outside-in TDD from Edge Case UK on Vimeo.

ScotRUG Talks – Brian Swan Inside Out TDD from Edge Case UK on Vimeo.