Robby on Rails: Tag jvoorhis

Agile Interaction Design

Robby Russell — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 14:36:00 -0500

I would like to start some dialogue with all of you…

In a recent post, Jeremy Voorhis said the following about About Face 2.0 in his post announcing his Agile Book Club.

About Face 2.0 isn’t bad; it’s full of some great advice. My biggest gripes with it are the follows:

It declares that programmers are just unfit for interaction design.
It advocates for waterfall development.
Cooper has a defensive tone whenever discussing his beloved discipline of interaction design.
The web chapter is dated.
If you can get over all of those things, it is full of great ideas, specifically about working with personas, and data entry and retrieval.

I disagree with a few of these conclusions. In particular, that Cooper advocates waterfall development. I’ve been hearing a lot of developers throw the word, “waterfall” around… but why?

Take the following excerpt from this great conversation between Kent Beck, the father of XP, and Alan Cooper.

“During the design phase, the interaction designer works closely with the customers. During the detailed design phase, the interaction designer works closely with the programmers. There’s a crossover point in the beginning of the design phase where the programmers work for the designer. Then, at a certain point the leadership changes so that now the designers work for the implementers. You could call these “phases”—I don’t—but it’s working together.”[1]

I’m curious as to how anyone would consider this to resemble Waterfall, which might imply that Cooper’s approach to Interaction Design is incompatible with the principles behind the Agile Manifesto.

Dave Churchville posted an article last year titled, Agile Interaction Design?, which discussed how the role of an Interaction Designer (ID) can be compatible with Agile methodologies. “An ID team probably becomes the voice of the customer in Agile methods, and as such should be working closely with the development team as well as the users. In that sense, the ID role may be more of a liaison between customer and developer.”

So, do you think that Interaction Design as described by Alan Cooper… is compatible with the principles of the Agile Manifesto?

UPDATE It looks like this conversation was picked up on the Joel on Software discussion boards.

¹ http://www.fawcette.com/interviews/beck_cooper/page8.asp

The PLANET ARGON dot ORG project and asset compiling gone wild

Robby Russell — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:17:00 -0500

InfoQ recently unlaunched their new site that is dedicated to “tracking change and innovation in the enterprise software development community.” One of the first articles published on the site was written by Jeremy Voorhis, Lead Architect at PLANET ARGON. Jeremys’ article, Agile Asset Management with Ruby DSLs outlines an approach we took on a client project earlier this year for managing tons of assets for a Rails application. Our development team extracted this work and built asset_compiler, which is now available as a gem on RubyForge and we’ve recently setup a trac so you can post bugs, patches, and all things similar. We’ll be announcing a few more open source plugins, gems, and projects in the near future as well. I know that many of you are wondering when and where acts_as_legacy will show up… keep your eye on the trac. ;-)

To install asset_compiler, run:

gem install asset_compiler

Read the asset compiler documentation.

The PLANET ARGON dot org project

Enjoy!

The Podcast... revisited

Robby Russell — Tue, 23 May 2006 00:11:00 -0500

I saw that you could embed ODEO into your blog… so I figured that I would do it.

If you never got to hear Jeremy and I on the Ruby on Rails Podcast... now is your chance!

We discussed Ruby on Rails, PLANET ARGON, PostgreSQL, and all things in between… enjoy!

Stack trace to speech

Robby Russell — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 19:51:00 -0500

It must be a Friday.

I got a call about 30 minutes ago from a relay service for someone who can’t speak and needs to use a keyboard to type. So, I accept the call and think it could be a hosting customer, development inquiry… who knows. Immediately, I hear the relay operator say, “I have a stack trace for you.”

I then listened to a woman repeat… character by character... the entire stack trace for an error in a Rails application. I listened… the whole way through… just in case it was a person who needs Rails development.

My developer staff then laughs after I hang up after 20 minutes… and I think to myself… how do I get back at them. o.0

Jeremy signs a book deal

Robby Russell — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 17:37:00 -0500

Someone finally snatched him! Since Jeremy Voorhis started working with PLANET ARGON, he’s talked about how a few publishing companies had contacted him about writing a book on this new fancy web framework… Ruby on Rails. Due to being too busy with PLANET ARGON development projects... he would send them away. Yesterday, he announced that he recently signed a contract with O’Reilly to write Rails in a Nutshell.

Congratulations Jeremy!

...does this mean he isn’t as busy with development work? No… it just means he’ll sleep less in the next several months. ;-)

Jeremy and I on the Ruby on Rails Podcast

Robby Russell — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 19:35:00 -0500

While at Canada on Rails, Jeremy and I were interviewed on the Ruby on Rails Podcast!

Check it out.

MP4 format
MP3 format

We talked about Rails development, deployment, hosting, and some of our projects… enjoy!

UPDATE There is now a semi-accurate transcript of the podcast. Read it here

Some of it reads weird… :-)

Ruby on Rails training in London

Robby Russell — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:07:00 -0500

As mentioned on the Ruby on Rails weblog earlier today, EastMedia is hosting a 3-Day Ruby and Ruby on Rails Training course in London. PLANET ARGON was invited to send one of our developers to London as one of the three instructors. We’re excited to announce that Jeremy Voorhis, Lead Architect at PLANET ARGON, will be joining David Black and Matt Pelletier in London as an instructor.

University of East London – Docklands Campus — May 5 – 7 — £1200.00 GBP

A three-day training course which offers a thorough introduction to Ruby and the Ruby on Rails web application framework. Organized by Smartlab/Volks Lab and EastMedia, this course will provide web developers, product managers and entrepeneurs with a solid foundation for understanding the concepts, tools, and real-world tips needed to build robust, scalable, full-featured web applications using Ruby on Rails.

For more information, see here.

Stay tuned for more fun announcements… :-)

Running a Rails development firm is great because...

Robby Russell — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 21:07:00 -0600

you can find yourself saying, “boy, I sure wish that X could do Y.”

15 minutes later… you find that one of your developers has created a solution and then contributed it as a patch to the Rails project.


./script/console
>> reset!
=> []

Yes… this is just a short-cut to Dispatcher.reset_application! ... but it’s saving me a whole 24 characters each time I need to reset my application while hanging out in script/console.

Thanks Jeremy!

Overheard at PLANET ARGON

Robby Russell — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 12:54:00 -0600

Some random quotes from this week:

“It’s fun coming to work and finding a passport form on your desk.” – Jeremy Voorhis, Lead Architect of PLANET ARGON.

“Bright ideas are nearly worthless. Execution is everything.” – Jason Watkins, Lead Product Developer of PLANET ARGON.

Speaking at Canada on Rails

Robby Russell — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 12:00:00 -0600

I love getting good news at 1am on IRC.

Nathaniel Brown notified me last night that my talk, (Sneaking Rails into the (legacy) system) was accepted at Canada on Rails. He then also informed me that Jeremy Voorhis, Lead Architect of PLANET ARGON also got accepted for his talk on Internationalizing Rails. I’m really looking forward to flying up to Vancouver, B.C (for the first time) with my colleague .

List of speakers include:

David Heinemeier Hansson
Thomas Fuchs
Dave Astels
David Black
Joe O’Brien
James Adam
Steven Baker
Michael Buffington
Robby Russell
Geoffrey Grosenbach
Kyle Shank
Jeremy Voorhis
Alex Bunardzic
Sebastian Kanthak
Amy Hoy

For more information and to register, please visit: http://canadaonrails.com.

Early-bird registration ends… today!

Fowler, Voorhis and Travel Clothing

Robby Russell — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 20:22:00 -0600

Martin Fowler has written a piece on his bliki titled, TravelClothing

He goes on to describe some best practices for choosing travel-friendly clothing. While reading this… I was instantly reminded of a trip that Jeremy and I made in November.

This is how Jeremy Voorhis packs for a business trip.

How about you?

Refactoring and the Pacific Ocean

Robby Russell — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 06:59:00 -0600

I am currently sitting in a hotel about 40 miles north of San Francisco. One more day on-site and then I fly home to Portland, so I can drive to Seattle for a day of rest. I might be back down here in a week or so.

I took a photo of the luggage of Jeremy... it was too funny to pass up.

He takes great pride in his packing… just like he does with the code that he designs. It was great that we fit in a few minutes for him to take his first real look at the Pacific Ocean.

I’ve been meaning to post those… so there you have them. :-)

Heading to San Francisco, CA. Meet Up?

Robby Russell — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 20:47:00 -0600

Jeremy and I are flying down to San Francisco (well Petaluma) tomorrow night for some on-site work with one of our Rails consulting clients. We will be driving back to San Francisco on Friday night and will probably have a few extra hours to kill on Saturday before we fly back to Portland at around 6pm. So, pretty much all day Saturday is open.

Anyone interested in meeting up with us on Saturday and talking about Ruby, Rails, or whatever? This will be Jeremy’s first visit to SF. :-)

If you have some pointers as to where two geeks that love free wifi + (coffee|beer) should go… please advise. We will be staying downtown… so things within walking distance of that area would be ideal.

Jeremy comes to Portland

Robby Russell — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 01:05:00 -0600

I announced almost two weeks ago that Jeremy Voorhis was taking the position as Lead Architect at PLANET ARGON.

He’s been here for a week and a day now… and it feels like we’ve worked together for quite a long time already. When he hasn’t been coding in Emacs and working with the awesome Ruby on Rails framework, we’ve been wandering the city…. and yes, he’s been Powells! He claims to like Portland. :-)

I took a picture of him yesterday when he was discussing a clients project that we’re currently refactoring. The project comes to us with an existing schema, codebase, and opinions.

We’ve been working on several of these types of projects together in the past few months… which prompted us to deciding to start our project, Refactoring Rails.

It’s been great working with him in person. He, like some of the other developers that we call upon for some projects, had been assisting us through IRC, IM, and BaseCamp... and being able to be in the same office together… has been very beneficial.

In any event… I thought it would be fun to post a picture of Jeremy. :-)

Stay tuned…

P.S. You can see a drawing that Allison created of Jeremy on the PLANET ARGON about page.

There is a rumor that his mother photoshoped the drawing and put his head on the body of SuperMan. I beg you all to convince him to post ig on his blog. ;-)

...off to get some sleep.

PLANET ARGON Core Team Grows +1

Robby Russell — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 15:30:00 -0600

A week ago today, we launched the new PLANET ARGON web site. That went great! Then, late last week, Jeremy Voorhis and I announced that we were working on a top-secret project, Refactoring Rails. Thought that was it? Guess again.

OHIO TO OREGON

We are exicted to announce that this Saturday, Jeremy Voorhis will be catching a flight from Pittsburg to Portland to come and join the PLANET ARGON Core Team. We’ve been working with this highly talented individual on several recent development projects and it only seemed natural that he play a more active role in PLANET ARGON. So we asked him to pick up, move to Portland and join the team here. Well, Jeremy took us up on the offer and is preparing for the big move as I type this.

PDX.rb += 1

Portland Ruby Brigade, expect to see a new face at the December meeting!

And if you think this is the last of our accouncements… well, stay tuned…

UPDATE: Yes, this means that Jeremy will join us out West to work with Ruby on Rails all-the-time!