Movin’ on up!

By the end of 2010, thoughtbot’s growth led to a seriously crowded office. In January 2011, we took over the 30-year headquarters of Hair Club for Men and began to envision what thoughtbot’s new headquarters would become! We started tearing down walls, picking up leftover toupées and planning for a cutting-edge expansion on the top two floors of 41 Winter Street, in Downtown Crossing. This past July, we said goodbye to our first downtown Boston location and moved on up to our brand new office.

Not only were we able to expand the number of desks and conferences rooms from what we had previously, we also were able to build a training room that can hold over 30 people for trainings, hackfests, and events. 

Heres are some photos of the remodeling process.

We built walls!

We cut through floors!

Coolest construction job - being able to use stilts! 

Over the next five months, our new space transformed: from a 1970’s hair salon to a demolition site; from a demolition site to two gutted floors that were quickly filled with steel beams, new pipes, paint, and sheetrock. As winter turned to spring, our new office was pristine - a team effort on every level. 

With all our new space, why wouldn’t we brand it with a 15 foot logo of our chief evangelist, Ralph!

Hi Ralph! 

Clearly, we’ve been productive and busier than ever as we’ve settled into our new home.

We hope you’ll stop by for one of our meet-ups, hackfests, attend a workshop, or even become an apprentice.  

Last four photographs, Conor Macdonald. 

Design by Leonardi Aray Architects.

Why I chose apprentice.io

I’m Jason Draper and I’m a developer apprentice here at thoughtbot in the apprentice.io program. Since the beginning of March it’s been a whirlwind of tests, code and agile development.

It’s no secret that Rails developers are in high demand right now. To offset this issue, companies have turned to training developers from the ground up and then hiring them for their own work or helping the developers find a job elsewhere. Living Social started Hungry Academy. There is also Dev Bootcamp and many others.

So why did I choose apprentice.io?

Know the training methods

apprentice.io is heavily hands-on with actual client work. There are no “made up” projects. Sure, as apprentices we all work on our own side projects but during the day, I’m working on client code. Working on code for a client means you must write what the client wants and needs which may not be the same thing. The belief both here at thoughtbot and by myself is that you learn more by actual work.

In addition to hands-on development with client work, thoughtbot offers several workshops throughout our apprenticeship which complement our learning. The workshops give us a chance to go deeper into situations which would not otherwise arise during the course of working with clients. The workshops are immensely useful and an integral part of our training.

Know the code

I’ve been writing Rails code for a while but I wanted to learn better coding skills from people who knew their stuff.  If you’ve done any Rails work at all, you’ve heard of at least one of thoughtbot’s gems or projects. I’ve been using paperclip for a long time and factory_girl is amazing for getting rid of fixtures. So when I decided that I wanted to expand my knowledge, I could crack open their code and see exactly what these guys produce. I knew they had what I wanted to learn.

Know the firm

In Boston and in the Rails community, thoughtbot is well known and respected. I wanted to work for an organization that required a high level of quality in their code as well as their practices, not just a company that had a “one hit wonder” that took them to the top.

Know the program

Though the apprentice.io program is new, for years thoughtbot has had apprentices (not interns) internally and trained outside developers via workshops.

Know the community

Learning doesn’t stop outside the office. Boston has a strong tech community and groups such as BostonRB thrive with experienced and new users alike.

Know thyself (it’s a personal choice)

What I wanted to get out of the apprenticeship was going from a junior developer to the next level. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to work afterwards so I liked that apprentice.io has very loose employment restrictions. I couldn’t be more excited.

Backbone.js on Rails at Boston.rb

On Tuesday I gave a Backbone.js on Rails talk at the Boston Ruby Group. Video and slides are now online.

What’s in the talk

In the 45-minute talk, I discussed:

• Why would you use a client-side framework?
• What are some such frameworks? How might you decide among them?
• An overview of the moving parts of Backbone.js
• Following a page load from the Rails request and response to Backbone initialization, routing, dispatch, and rendering.
• Briefly, the integration points between Backbone.js and Rails such as the asset pipeline and JSON APIs

What’s not

There are a few topics included in the slides that I didn’t cover in the video, in the interest of time:

• How to apply integration and isolation testing for apps with Javascript
• Using pushState with Backbone.js and Rails
• How to keep multiple clients’ data in sync (polling, push)

Find more in the book

We cover all these topics (and others) in more depth in the Backbone.js on Rails eBook.

Any questions from the talk you didn’t get to ask that night? Purchasing the eBook before we release the first edition means you can request particular topics to be covered in the book.

If you’re a little more pressed for time with your question, I’ve found the backbonejs Google Group to be a great place to discuss Backbone and different usage scenarios.

Bring your laptop, get started with Ruby at Tuesday’s Boston.rb meetup

Well, howdy there!

Interested in Ruby?

Have you been…

…interested in building web application, but aren’t sure where to start? We’ve all been beginners once, so let us lend a hand!

…seeking a technical co-founder, but finding it difficult? Investing the time to learn programming will do wonders. You’ll be better equipped to sniff out quality developers, and quite possibly knock out a prototype on your own.

…teaching yourself Ruby or self-studying on Rails and running into questions? Rubber Ducking can help, but it’s not nearly as much fun as meeting your fellow Boston Rubyists.

…programming Ruby or Rails for a little while (or a long while) and are looking to help teach and welcome new folks to the community?

Let’s meet up!

Drop by the thoughtbot office this Tuesday, October 4, at 7pm. We’ll be hosting a structured session on getting your laptop set up for Ruby development. We’ll be following the process described here and be available for debugging:

2011 Rubyist’s guide to a Mac OS X development environment

Please RSVP to the event so we know how much food and how many drinks to get. We’re happy to field questions ahead of time in the comments below, or you can sign up for the Boston Ruby mailing list, mosey over to the email thread for this meetup, and say hello!

Boston Vim Meetup

Calling all vimmers!

Mark your calendars, clear your registers, and follow the leader to the first Boston Vim Meetup.

On October 24th at 7pm, passersby of the thoughtbot office (41 Winter St #8, 02108) will wonder aloud at the audible “Om”ing of programmers in vim nirvana. This enlightened evening will feature talks by Mike Burns, Ben Orenstein, and Gabe Berke-Williams. Attendees will see useful vim techniques revealed, emacs users sassed, and food and drink provided.

Come to learn, or bring your own lighting talk (which must adhere to our strict “no slides” rule. Yes, really.) No registration required. Neckbeards optional.

Questions? Hit the comments.

:qa!