giant robots smashing into other giant robots
Written by thoughtbot
Our Intermediate Ruby on Rails workshop is now available online
We’ve just opened registration for our new online Intermediate Ruby on Rails workshop, which starts Monday, April 1st, 2013 (we’re not kidding).
The workshop is taught by Matt Mongeau, who is an experienced thoughtbot Rails developer as well as the instructor of our Intro to Ruby on Rails workshop.
Over the course of a month you will build a Rails applications alongside Matt, working directly with him on many more complex Rails topics like user authentication, complex data modeling, file uploads, refactoring, and more.
Like all our online workshops, this isn’t just a series of videos; it’s an online workshop where you work directly with Matt getting one-on-one and group support.
Furthermore, when you take an online workshop with thoughtbot, it doesn’t just stop after the initial month. You get ongoing support for any Ruby on Rails questions you may have in the future, from Matt and the rest of the thoughtbot team.
We also have special pricing for groups, so your entire company can take the workshop.
We’d love to have you take this course. You can sign up now and the course begins Monday, April 1st, 2013.
Episode 39: We've been watching you for some time, Mr. Grimm
Ben Orenstein is joined by Avdi Grimm, software developer, author, and podcaster. Ben and Avdi discuss Emacs, Avdi’s personal assistant and delegating work. They also discuss naming and finding implicit concepts in your code, encoding processes as objects in their own right, his publishing and podcasting, the pronunciation of Parley, Ruby Tapas, education resources and the benefits of open source languages, his goals, the most civilized way to travel, and what we got wrong about the Law of Demeter.
Ruby Science: Naming, Decorators, and Mixins
We pushed another update to Ruby Science today which includes five brand new chapters. Current readers can grab the update on Learn.
This week’s updates dive into three important topics. New chapters:
- Smell: Uncommunicative Name
- Solution: Rename Method
- Solution: Extract Decorator
- Smell: Mixin
- Solution: Replace mixin with composition
The first two chapters discuss the importance of naming methods and classes. We discuss how to use class and method names to improve readability and discover classes and methods that need refactoring.
Another chapter demonstrates how to extract concerns in a repeatable, combinable way using the Decorator pattern.
The last two chapters provide tips for identifying and fixing mixin abuse.
The book is a work in progress, and currently contains around 145 pages of content. A $49 purchase gets you access to the current release of the book, all future updates, and the companion example application. In addition, purchasers can send thoughtbot their toughest Ruby, Rails, and refactoring questions.
Episode 38: Standing out from the pack
This week Ben Orenstein is joined by Jeremy McAnally, employee at GitHub, author of Ruby in Practice, Rails 3 Upgrade Handbook, MacRuby in Action, and more. Jeremy and Ben discuss teaching and organizing conferences, remote working for GitHub, the and the company summits, GitHub workflows, their internal tools team. They also talk about standing out from the pack in work, life, and getting accepted to conferences, selecting people to speak at conferences, self-publishing, Jeremy’s writing process and future writing plans, work-life balance, how to get a job at GitHub, and much more.
Ruby Science: Extracting and Using Classes
Today’s release of Ruby Science includes three new chapters. If you’re already reading Ruby Science, make sure to grab the latest version.
This week’s updates include tips on safely extracting classes, as well as a specific example of extracting Value Objects. In addition, we discuss how you can use Ruby’s classes-as-objects attitude to eliminate the need for most abstract factory classes.
The book is a work in progress, and currently contains around 123 pages of content. A $49 purchase gets you access to the current release of the book, all future updates, and the companion example application. In addition, purchasers have the ability to send thoughtbot their toughest Ruby, Rails, and refactoring questions.
