ZenLinux Blog

(That title is a pun on computer languages, btw… )

I was really pleased with the way the first meeting of the NH Seacoast Ruby/Rails User Group turned out. A total of eight of us were there, and we had a good mix of folks who had various levels of experience with Ruby. There seems to be plenty of interest from people who have gone through a tutorial or two but want to bring their Ruby/Rails knowledge to the next level. One gentleman came up all the way from Boston – a self-described “technical user group addict.” What a great hobby!

During the meeting I went over a list of my favorite Ruby and Rails development and community resources, including web sites, books, forums, and blogs. This sparked suggestions and additions from others in the room, creating an enjoyable, interactive discussion.

Next I’ll be working with the Greater NH Linux User Group, which has graciously offered to host a wiki and mailing lists for the group. When that is set up I’ll be sure to announce it on this blog and to everyone who has contacted me in the past with interest in this group. Nick is also helping us find a new meeting location in Portsmouth (much appreciated, Nick!).

Apparently there are a lot of folks in the area who are interested in seeing what a Ruby/Rails user group meeting is like, as I received over a dozen RSVPs for the upcoming event. Unfortunately, that threw a wrench in my plans to host it in a study room at the UNH Library, which can only hold 4-6 people. Fortunately, Rob from the Seacoast Linux User Group agreed to help me out and let me use a conference room in Morse Hall for this month’s meeting. I’m very grateful for Rob’s assistance. So the updated meeting information is:

WHEN: Tuesday, January 16, 2007, from 7-9 PM.

WHERE: Morse Hall, Room 301, UNH Campus. Durham, NH (directions)

WHAT: I’ll be sharing some of my favorite resources for developing with Ruby/Rails and following the community. We’ll also engage in such exciting activities as creating a regular meeting location and schedule, setting up a mailing list, and coming up with an organization name that makes a cool acronym! Contact me for directions and parking information if you’d like attend. All are welcome, whether you’re a Ruby pro or just want to know what all the hype is about. 🙂

I’m rounding up people for the first Ruby/Ruby on Rails user group meeting in New Hampshire. We’re tentatively looking at meeting on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 from 7-9 PM at Morse Hall (Room 301) in Durham.

The meeting topic will be getting the group going, and I’ll be happy to share some of my favorite ruby/rails resources for development as well as following the (sub)culture. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you’re interested in attending – sgarman at zenlinux dot com.

I thought discussing my coding environment when working with Ruby on Rails might make for good blog fodder, so here it is:

• Ubuntu Edgy with the GNOME desktop
• Jedit programmer’s editor
• Jedit plugins ProjectViewer, Sidekick, RubyPlugin, and WhiteSpace
• Firefox v2
• Firefox extensions Firebug, Webdeveloper, and the DOM Inspector
• Subversion for source code version control
• bash shell

I have a dual-head monitor set up at home and give jedit one desktop area and share the remainder between Firefox and several terminal windows. My basic terminal setup includes the following:

• One terminal in the rails project working directory, to run rake or perform svn commits.
• One terminal running script/server.
• One terminal running tail -f log/development.log.
• One terminal running the mysql interpreter so I can poke at the database manually.

I’ve found this setup to be productive as I’m coding, particularly as I keep an eye on the logfile for ruby errors. Also, I keep a bookmark toolbar folder of frequently accessed web and rails development sites, including:

• The Rails API documentation
• A DevGuru CSS reference
• Prototype documentation from the Scriptaculous wiki
• The W3C HTML tutorial, for those times when I need to double-check my basic understanding of HTML

Since ruby is such a concise language, I actually spend the bulk of my time dealing with HTML/CSS issues. Firebug makes it easy to pick elements from a page and analyze their CSS styles or DOM location. Jedit has some nice intellicode-like auto-completion features for ruby, but it slows the editor down quite a bit and so I’ve got most of that turned off. The API docs are easy to use, and I often learn something new by reading them directly.