Robby on Rails: Tag canadaonrails

Canada on Rails links and wrap up

Robby Russell — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 16:05:00 -0500

Jeremy and I arrived back to Portland on late Saturday afternoon. I am already looking to schedule some time to go back to Vancouver, B.C. to visit again for a short trip away from work stuff. :-)

I wanted to take a few minutes to post some links that relate to Canada on Rails... and if you have more… email me them or post them as comments. :-)

Bloggers

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

CoR reviewed by Linux Journal

Talks/Slides

Rails Engines, James Adam
Getting started with AJAX on Rails, Amy Hoy
RadRails, Kyle Shank
Less Technology, Alex Bunardzic
Advanced Rails AJAX techniques, Thomas Fuchs
Gruff – graphs for Ruby, Geoffrey Grosenbach
Sneaking Rails through the (Legacy) System, Robby Russell
Globalizing Rails, Jeremy Voorhis

Photos

Flickr – Canada on Rails (192 photos so far!)

It's all about context

Robby Russell — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 04:43:00 -0500

Well… Canada on Rails is over. There was an afterparty… and pictures will be uploaded in the next day. I had the priviledge of meeting many….many… many… talented… bright… and high maintenance people over the past few days. I went out of my way to go and introduce myself to several people and when you’re a speaker it seems to make that process even easier for others to ask you how you use Rails to solve certain types of problems. As Legacy systems, databases are problems that many people are encountering… it was comforting that people at the conference were highly interested in learning more.

The afterparty was alright… it got really exciting when a few of us decided to venture to a pub away from the club where the party was. Within 30 minutes… everybody followed. I got stuck sitting next to DHH and we got to discuss many topics with each other… such as legacy systems and how AR can be bent a little in one direction… but it’s not going to be the perfect solution for older problems. I have some work cut out for me. :-)

While I had him there… I was able to discuss prototyping with him. For example, does 37signals use prototypes that get thrown away? I’m not convinced that he’d agree with me... :but from how he described their process, which I can only assume is far from perfect and is evolving just as much as any of our processes… that they are onto something. It was entertaining and highly educational.

I have much more blogging to do…. and it’s true… Thomas Fuchs is really a direct descendent of Bon Jovi… and David Goodlad is really a Good Lad from Canada.

Sneaking Rails through the (Legacy) system

Robby Russell — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 18:01:00 -0500

I’ll be posting stuff in the next few days about acts_as_legacy. For those not at Canada on Rails... I announced a small project that I’m going to be working on.

Acts as Legacy!

Here are my slides… up til I tried to do a live demo. ;-)


# Inventory model
class Inventory < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_legacy :table_name => 'inventory',
                 :primary_key => 'prod_id',

  has_one :product, :foreign_key => self.primary_key

  column_alias :quan_in_stock, :stock

end

Let’s try something a little different…


# SalesPerson model
class SalesPerson < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_legacy :table_name => 'sales_person',
                 :primary_key 'sales_p_id',
                 :column_alias => 'sales_p_'

  validates_presence_of( :name, :email, :phone ) 
end

# usage....
SalesPerson.find( 7 ).sales_p_name
=> 'Nigel'
SalesPerson.find( 7 ).name
=> 'Nigel'

The Slideshow

Sneaking Rails through the (Legacy) System (quicktime)
Sneaking Rails through the (Legacy) System (flash)

...Jeremy posted his slides as well. :-)

Canada on Rails, day 1... part 2

Robby Russell — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 01:37:00 -0500

It’s late on Thursday evening… I’m fixing a few slides after getting some inspiration this afternoon. Jeremy and I were interviewed by Obie Fernandez for some Rails DVD thing. He asked us about our work at PLANET ARGON.... and right after that we headed back to the hotel with Topfunky… for another interview… which should show up on the RoR Podcast in the near future. :-)

I get to speak in 12.hours.from.now. Then… I can watch Jeremy speak and then relax the rest of my time here. :-)

Hopefully I can get over this cold by tomorrow morning…

Canada on Rails, day 1... part 1

Robby Russell — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 16:44:00 -0500

As luck would have it… half way through my first day here… I start to feel ill. :-/ I’m taking a short break from the conference to catch up on a little rest that was passed up in favor of hanging out with some great people last night. About twenty of us went out last night and of that twenty… ten were speakers! I posted a few pictures on Flickr last nightl

This morning started with DHH giving a hour and a half talk about the next step with Rails… which went rather well and I’m excited to hear that they’re going to clean up some of the extra baggage in Rails Core and push stuff to plugins. Goodbye… Pagination and Web Services!

He also had some kind words for people who don’t get the Rails way of doing things…

Joe O’Brien followed him with a talk about SOA and Rails.

I’m going to catch up on some rest, work on a few slides and head back to the conference shortly. :-)

Check out the lastest pics on flickr from Canada on Rails.

First pictures from Canada on Rails...

Robby Russell — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 21:00:00 -0500

Jeremy and I are flying up tomorrow… but it appears that Rails developers are flocking to Vancouver, B.C.

Check out the Flickr photostream… we created a Canada on Rails group. :-)

If you’re going to be at Canada on Rails... join the group and post your photos! :-)

This first picture was added by Jacob Quinn Shenker.