News

• Keeping up with OSS

  Posted May 8, 2013

  Recently, the gSchool students asked me how I keep up with so many Open Source projects. Between new commits and the social situation revolving around each one, it can get a bit complex. Luckily for them, I have an easy solution.

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• Refactoring is not a Spectator Sport

  Posted May 4, 2013

  You wade into real-world codebases and find yourself thigh-deep in layers upon layers of cruft left by hasty additions, rushed repairs, and shifting priorities.

  This is often the reality of successful, long-lived applications. They have been shaped by immense pressures. If you don't actively work to improve them, they become stagnant and they begin to rot.

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• Heroku Performance Workshop @ RailsConf

  Posted April 28, 2013

  Back in the day, conference evenings were about writing code. While we all can enjoy an open bar here and there, we've partnered up with Heroku to do something a little different this Wednesday at RailsConf.

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• The Death of Ifs

  Posted April 23, 2013

  I despise if, elsif, and case statements. Our own MicroBlogger tutorial inspired me to put together a quick video on how I remove these dreaded statements from my code.

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• There are Plenty of Stupid Questions

  Posted April 19, 2013

  … and even more thoughtless answers.

  It seems like there are two sides to the 'stupid question' coin: The 'infer' side, and the 'imply' side.

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• Your first pull request

  Posted April 15, 2013

  I do a lot of open source work, and it's always great to see new people get involved! Sometimes, Open Source can be intimidating, though. Like many things, it's easy once you've done it a few times, but that first time is the hardest. Today, I'd like to show you the simplest pull request you can possibly make: a spelling fix!

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• When You Teach Just Use `each`

  Posted April 12, 2013

  There are a quite a few lessons that I have re-learned while teaching Ruby to this inaugural class of gSchool students.

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• WDM 101 - Web Development Math 101

  Posted April 8, 2013

  A standard question that most people coming into programming ask is: Do I need to know math to become a web developer?

  The popular answer is an emphatic “NO!”, but to be honest, this is only correct for certain values of “Math”.

  You don't need to know topology or knot theory to do web development. You don't need to be able to do calculus, trigonometry or linear algebra. In other words, when people say “NO!”, what I think they really mean is that you don't need to be a mathlete.

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• Parade - Version 0.10

  Posted March 27, 2013

  Parade is presentation software powered by Sinatra with slides written in Markdown. Parade 0.10 brings with it better support for mobile devices and quite a few common slide formats.

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• Introduction to JavaScript - Online

  Posted March 21, 2013

  One of the most common questions we get asked is “do you offer online classes?” Finally the answer is “Yes!”

  Today we're opening an online version of our Introduction to JavaScript course. In the class you'll focus on fundamental JS concepts then layer on jQuery.

  If you want to stop copying & pasting your way through JavaScript programming, this is the course for you.

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• Working with Heroku

  Posted March 17, 2013

  Today we're excited to announce a new course: Professional Heroku.

  I remember when Heroku first launched: an IDE that ran completely in your browser. It was awesome, ridiculous, and short-lived. But, in one of the better executed pivots our community has seen, Heroku has emerged as a fantastic hosting solution.

  We've always made significant use of Heroku's platform in our training programs. It's quick, easy, and free – what more could you ask for?

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• Katrina Owen Joins Jumpstart Lab

  Posted January 30, 2013

  

  We're constantly looking for excellent developers that are also passionate, effective instructors. That's an incredibly rare combination.

  When I met Katrina Owen at Frozen Rails last year, I instantly knew she was the kind of person we needed.

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• Announcing gSchool!

  Posted November 1, 2012

  With LivingSocial's first Hungry Academy class in the books, we're turning our attention to creating a tuition-based long-term developer training school in Colorado.

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• SteelCity RubyConf 2012: Internationalization and Localization

  Posted August 30, 2012

  

  Jeff Casimir gives a talk on Internationalization & Localization.

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• Madison Ruby 2012 Panel: Teaching Rails

  Posted August 25, 2012

  

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• SteelCity Ruby 2012: Anti-Opression 101

  Posted August 24, 2012

  Everyone acknowledges that the software field has an issue with gender balance, but there are many of arguments about what to do about it.

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• GoRuCo 2012: Lessons Learned from Hungry Academy

  Posted June 23, 2012

  Building Developers: Lessons Learned from Hungry Academy

  Here's the quick story of what's worked, what hasn't, and the lessons learned as we try to solve the developer shortage.

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• RailsConf 2012: Designing Hypermedia APIs

  Posted April 23, 2012

  Rails did a lot to bring REST to developers, but its conception leaves the REST devotee feeling a bit empty. “Where's the hypermedia?” she says. “REST isn't RPC,” he may cry. “WTF??!?!” you may think. “I have it right there! resources :posts ! What more is there? RPC? Huh?”

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• Metrics-Powered Ruby/Rails Performance

  Posted February 5, 2012

  “Ruby can't scale.” Tell that to LivingSocial, Groupon, Gowalla, Sony, and the rest of our community pushing millions of requests per day.

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• WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi "Tech Tuesday"

  Posted January 16, 2012

  Tuesday 1/17/2012 at noon I’ll join friends Roz Lemioux from Fission Strategy and Ryan Seashore from CodeNow to talk about “learning to program” on WAMU’s Kojo Nnamdi show. You can listen live at http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2012-01-17/training-where-tech-jobs-are-coding

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• The World is Full of Real People

  Posted January 13, 2012

  Yesterday at CodeMash 2012 in Sandusky, Ohio, I gave a five minute lightning talk about something that’s been in my mind: the developer’s life of privilege. Here’s the text of my talk…

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