Posted by Michael Ivey
Tue, 27 Jun 2006 16:39:19 GMT
Amy has posted the slides from her very fun talk on scaffolding addiction.
I hope people didn't skip it because they felt they knew the material already. It was really funny, even if you don't use scaffolding and know how to build more complex apps. It also had kittens. Who doesn't like kittens?
I also picked up an interesting idiom. When you have a select list for multiple members of a has_may, in the controller you can do:
@submitted_kittens = Kitten.find(params[:kittens])
@jar.kittens.delete(@jar.kittens - @submitted_kittens)
@jar.kittens << @submitted_kittens - @jar.kittens
I'm wondering how this compares to
@jar.kittens_ids = params[:kittens]
and may need to fiddle with it a bit to see. Either way, Amy's looks cooler.
Posted in ruby | Tags kittens, railsconf2006 | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Michael Ivey
Sat, 24 Jun 2006 17:34:00 GMT
When RailsConf was originally announced, the dates were listed as June 22-25. I really don't like to travel on the same day as a conference, so I booked my flight for the Wednesday the 21st.
The conference schedule announcement showed nothing really happening on Thursday, though. I was slightly annoyed, but then saw that it was listed as "self-organizing activities". I debated about changing my flight, but decided to give it a shot.
At the Open Scrum Gathering in Boulder, last October, we did the entire event as a three day Open Space. The entire conference was self-organized, and I made more connections with people, learned more, and thought more than at any other conference. So, I was really hoping the RailsConf time would develop into something similar.
It didn't.
The day was basically filled with World Cup, drinking, blogging, and working. Everyone was heads-down in MacBooks. I didn't feel like I connected with anyone. Sure, that's partially my fault, for not being super-outgoing and dragging myself into conversations.
I think, though, that there were 2 things that kept us from really developing something great: there was no framework on which to organize ourselves, and there was nothing to really bring people who didn't know anyone yet into the conversation, especially if those people are more introverted. Not that there are introverted programmers...
It's annoying when people complain without offering suggestions, and it's annoying when people come up with work for other people to do without volunteering.
So I'm volunteering.
I'll facilitate an Open Space event at the next RailsConf, RubyConf or other event. Doing an Open Space would provide the framework for self-organization and help everyone make more connections to other individuals at the conference.
Posted in ruby | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Michael Ivey
Sat, 24 Jun 2006 16:07:00 GMT
It's been a long time since I blogged: over a year, since February 2005. Since that time, lots of things have changed.
I've made the transition to Ruby, completely and whole-heartedly. Ruby on Rails is the web development framework I use for my own projects, and Ruby is the way I've been earning money for the past year. When people ask me what I do, I either say "I'm a Ruby programmer" or "I'm an Agent of Catastrophic Organizational Change" (more on that later.)
I've also made the switch to using Mac OS X as my primary client OS. I've been a Mac fan for a very long time (I have my original Mac 512 in the garage still) but I've also been using Linux on the desktop for ... well, my entire professional life. I still run Linux on my servers, but I am now 100% Mac at the house/"office". This is a huge, but welcome, change.
Perhaps more surprising...shocking, even?...is that I have abandoned vi (vim) as my text editor of choice. I'm using TextMate. This still freaks me out a little, even six months or so after the switch.
Despite all these changes, and the long time since my last blog post, it has been even longer since I posted regularly. The last time I was a "blogger" was at the end of 2003.
The face of blogging has changed significantly since then. Blogging is much more of a communication between authors than in 2002. We used secret IRC servers and mailing lists, and now it's much more about comments and pings and planet-style aggregators.
We've seen Rather-gate, the rise of the law bloggers, the truly insane number of knit bloggers (the Knitting Olympics had more participants than there were actual Winter Olympians), and a general pop culture awareness of blogging as ... well, as lots of different types of communication.
So, you may be asking, "Why start blogging again now?"
After being part of "the scene" when it started, (although I was never an A-lister, or even a C-lister. Camworld did link me on the front page for a while, though) and then being absent from blogging during the huge explosion, why would I want to come back to the party, late?
Two reasons.
Firstly, I miss writing about stuff that's interesting to me. Currently, I shunt links off to Ma.gnolia and they die there. I share thoughts via IM with a few people, and that's the extent of my participation.
Secondly, and the primary motivator today, is the Ruby on Rails community. I'm at RailsConf this week, and it has really pointed out how important blogging is to this community. For me to participate in the conversation, it's time to start sharing ideas, commenting on and pinging the blogs I read every day.
A significant blog-related change: this is the first time (other than the few posts at java.net) I've blogged at something other than my personal site. I'm also not linking to the old entries, but Google should be able to help you out. If you're interested and can't find them, just ask.
Posted in ruby | 1 comment | no trackbacks
