Today we announced that tickets go on sale for Rails camp 8 on Friday 23rd July.
Rails camp will be running from Friday 12th November to Monday 15th November.
When the tickets go on sale, you can head over to Eventbrite and grab them.
Rails camp Perth – November 2010
July 19th, 2010, by AdamWe are a Perth web design and web development company and this is our blog. We specialize in building web applications with the Ruby on Rails framework. Jump to the Ruby on Rails category or contact us.
Do you want to work with us?
June 14th, 2010, by MatthewThe Frontier Group is a boutique software development company based in West Perth. We have a strong focus on web software, and utilise Ruby on Rails and JavaScript to build web applications. Our team has grown to thirteen staff and we’re looking to take on more experienced web developers.
Is this you?
You understand the difference between websites and web applications, and you want to write apps that matter for people that care about them.
You’ll have a track record of working on completed projects. You’ll have a few years commercial experience, probably working as part of a team doing solid but under-appreciated work. You will have experience with Mac, Linux or UNIX, but it might not be your daily environment. Similarly you will have an opinion about vi vs. Emacs or Python vs. Ruby, but you’ll understand that they’re just opinions.
You’ll care about your tools and will take real, genuine pride in the quality of the code you create. Learning new programming languages and getting more out of the languages you already know will excite you. Efficiency will be important too, and you’ll be looking for ways to automate your workflow and push the repetition off to a script.
You’ll be confident in your programming ability, regardless of the web language you prefer, yet humble enough to seek guidance when needed. You’ll know how JavaScript can be used to enhance the web, and will have demonstrated experience with a leading JavaScript library. You might even care about SASS and HAML, if you’re really cool.
Using the right tools is important and we realise that. We don’t have a parent company dictating how we do things or what our “standard operating environment” is – you’ll get to make those decisions with us. We all use MacBook Pros for development, but you might want a new iMac, for example. You’ll keep up to date with current trends and care about using modern techniques and practices, as well as tools and technologies.
What we give you
- $76,000 per year salary
- 9% superannuation (on top of salary)
- A MacBook Pro with SSD (yours to keep, replaced every two years)
- $1,000 travel allowance per year (parking, bike servicing, public transport)
- Internet and mobile allowance ($80 each per month)
- Current and relevant books, training, tools and gear
- Opportunities to work from home/flexi-time
- Pay reviews every 6 months with no ceiling on earning potential
- Freedom to grow your role with our organisation
What you give us
- 38 hours per week
- Your creative genius and passion
How to apply
Send a short email to jobs@thefrontiergroup.com.au and reference your Github and Stack Overflow accounts, along with any Open Source projects you’re involved with. Include a resume if it’s three pages or less.
We are a Perth web design and web development company and this is our blog. We specialize in building web applications with the Ruby on Rails framework. Jump to the Ruby on Rails category or contact us.
Named Scopes with Joins and Default Block Arguments
May 4th, 2010, by AaronToday I was fiddling with some code to get particular types of payments that are due on particular days and I ran across a couple of things I don’t want to solve again.
Firstly, the problem of being able to have default arguments to a block in ruby. It’s solved nicely in Ruby 1.9 but we’re using 1.8.x on our boxes at the moment. The work around is incredibly simple though and goes something like this :
lambda { |*args|
date = (args[0] || Date.today)
.. remaining code ..
}
That’s all there is to it really. You could go the whole hog with hashed attributes and so on but I think it starts to get a bit smelly if your anonymous functions are taking more than one argument.
The other issue I had was whether a named scope can include a join, and it can.
named_scope :credit_card, { :joins => :subscription, :conditions => "subscriptions.method = 'credit_card'" }
You can hash it all out if you want to, though if it’s all about readability I find the above to be more suitable. However this will also work :
... :conditions { :payment_plans => { :payment_method => "credit_card" } }
The coolest thing about all of this though (and I feel I’m very late to the party here) is that I now get to do things like :
Payment.credit_card.due_on(Date.today)
# or
Payment.credit_card.due_on
# or
Payment.due_on(Date.today + 1.month)
In the above I had just used the default argument to the due_on named scope to be today’s date.
I mean, I’d seen a bunch of tutorials on named scopes and how they worked but hadn’t found a use case in my work. I think it’s finally twigged for me though and will be making use of them a bit more in the future.
We are a Perth web design and web development company and this is our blog. We specialize in building web applications with the Ruby on Rails framework. Jump to the Ruby on Rails category or contact us.
The Frontier Group sponsors the Ruby Summer of Code
March 26th, 2010, by AdamToday, The Frontier Group are proud sponsors of the Ruby Summer of Code.
“To continue Google’s great tradition of sponsoring Open Source Development via summer student interns, several Ruby companies, organizations and community members are getting together to fund Ruby Summer of Code. The project will work much the same way Google Summer of Code does — mentors and student interns, with mentors voting on which student projects get slots. Students will be paid a stipend of $5000, and we’ll raise the number of student slots as contributions come in.” – Ruby Summer of Code
Frequently Asked Questions
-
What is Ruby Summer of Code?
Ruby Summer of Code is a student internship program, modeled after Google’s Summer of Code, designed to help fund student development of Ruby coding projects in Summer 2010.
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What are the goals of this program?
The goals of the program are to help get students engaged in Ruby development and the Ruby community, and to continue the tradition of great student Ruby projects completed in past summers as part of GSoC.
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How many mentoring organizations and students are expected to take part in the program?
The number of mentoring organizations depends on the number of sponsors the program receives; all funding will go towards adding more mentors and students to the program. If you or your company would be interested in helping out, contact us.
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When can I apply?
The mentor application window is March 24th to April 2nd. The student application window is April 5th to April 23rd.
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How does the program work?
The Ruby Summer of Code program is designed to help fund student development of Ruby and/or Rails projects in the summer of 2010. Accepted students will be matched up with accepted mentors and will have two months to complete their summer projects. Students will undergo a project evaluation midway through the summer (dates to be announced), and those showing suitable progress will receive 50% of their student stipend. At the close of the work window, projects will undergo final evaluations, and students who successfully completed their projects will receive the remaining 50% of their stipend.
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How do evaluations work?
Projects will be evaluated by each student’s mentor, and then reviewed by the larger mentor pool. Evaluations will be individually tailored based on the pre-determined agreed upon objectives and deliverables of each project.
More information can be found at the Ruby Summer of Code website.
We are a Perth web design and web development company and this is our blog. We specialize in building web applications with the Ruby on Rails framework. Jump to the Ruby on Rails category or contact us.
JRuby BugMash is in session
January 10th, 2010, by AdamJRuby is a 100% Pure-Java implementation of the Ruby programming language. From the folks over at the JRuby project:
The JRuby project has been growing impressively quickly, with frequent releases and a constantly expanding community. There’s a hefty list of impressive users and companies, and the team has been touring the world, trying their best to make it out to everyone who wants to hear and learn about the project.
As with any growing code base though, there’s a need to keep things tidy; frequent releases and speedy development also mean bugs, and things that need fixing—and that’s where we turn to you!
The first ever official JRuby BugMash will take place this Saturday, January 9th through Tuesday, January 12th. The core team will spend the days prior to the BugMash highlighting the specific bugs that are most important—you’ll want to keep an eye out for the JRuby Introsection, which will one of the focuses of the BugMash. Also look in spec/tags for failing RubySpecs for JRuby’s 1.8 and 1.9 compatibility modes. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit (especially in 1.9) for both new and experienced developers. Then, Saturday morning, it’s off to the races! As a small token of our appreciation, in addition to the wonderful satisfaction of having made a difference to the project, we’ll be sending each of the first 100 participants a limited edition JRubyConf Poster.
The JRuby Core Team will be around on IRC channel #jruby throughout the BugMash to help folks get started and to answer questions. Be sure to stop in and say hello!
There’s also a great post on the good and bad of JRuby over at the Engine Yard blog.
We are a Perth web design and web development company and this is our blog. We specialize in building web applications with the Ruby on Rails framework. Jump to the Ruby on Rails category or contact us.
Stay in the Loop
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