RubyJobs - an open source project from Ruby Ireland

[gavin...@gmail.com]

Hi,

As planned last night, I have created a project on github for the
RubyJobs open source project.

http://github.com/GiantCranes/rubyjobs/tree/master

If you are new to git, create a github account and read their useful
guides. You will be up and running very quickly, it is
straightforward. [http://github.com/guides/home]

For those that weren't present at the meeting, RubyJobs will be a
simple job board Rails app. Everyone is welcome to get involved in the
design and development of the project. Once it has been fleshed out a
little we will deploy it and begin to use it as the place to post and
find Ruby jobs in Ireland.

To begin, it would be useful to have a discussion on the kinds of
features that we would like the application to have. My preference to
aim for simplicity, the 37signals job board is a good example of the
simplicity I would like to see : http://jobs.37signals.com/. What
would you like to see in the app? What features should we leave out?

I've replaced a few defaults in the skeleton rails app, please let me
know if this doesn't suit you:

* jQuery instead of Prototype
* RSpec instead of TestUnit

I've also generated the user and sessions models/controllers/views/
specs using the restful_authentication plugin. If you run the
application you should be able to create an account and login. There
are currently 259 passing specs for the authentication system, I think
that good test coverage is something that we should aim for from the
start.

Please post any issues that you may have when running the app on your
environment, this will allow us to fix or document any troublesome
areas.

Let me know if any of the tools, gems, plugins are new to you and I'll
provide links to some resources.

I think that between us we should be able to have a working job board
application with a week or two.

Thanks,
Gavin

[gavin...@gmail.com]

I forgot to add, please post if you plan on contributing to the
project in any way.

On Dec 10, 8:44 pm, "gavinjo...@gmail.com" <gavinjo...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Andrea]

cool, Thanks so much for taking the time to do this
I can help on the jquery side of things ( i used it before ) but I
would like to get involved in the core as well.

I had a look at the 37 signals one and it looks good, I like the way
they keep to simple things that work well
- rss and maybe twit/friendfeed when there s a new job too? :D

liked the layout
Location / Job / Company

Cheers

Andrea


On Dec 10, 8:52 pm, "gavinjo...@gmail.com" <gavinjo...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[gavin...@gmail.com]

> I can help on the jquery side of things

Great, a nice big live search box on the homepage would be useful.

> I would like to get involved in the core as well

Cool, perhaps we should decide on the first set of features by Friday?
We could then aim to have some features complete by mid next week.

[Declan McGrath]

That's great Gavin!

Just a bit of a heads up on a few issues I encountered after git'ing
down the repo. On Ubuntu 8.04 I needed to
- install rubygems 1.3.1, easiest way was to, as root,
- download http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/45904/rubygems-update-1.3.1.gem
- gem install rubygems-update-1.3.1.gem
- update_rubygems
- note: this changed my gem directory from /var/lib/gems/1.8 to /
usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/
- install Rails 2.2.2
- install AASM see the install section on the page
http://github.com/rubyist/aasm/tree/master
- install Ubuntu packages for sqlite3 and libsqlite3-ruby via aptitute
(note: I tried to install 'gem install sqlite3-ruby' but I got the
errors make: *** No rule to make target `ruby.h', needed by
`sqlite3_api_wrap.o' so I went with the Ubuntu libsqlite3-ruby package
instead and it worked fine)

Whoa! Now all I need to do is post some jobs :-)

Dec

[Denis Hennessy]

Hi Gavin,

I'm sorry I missed last night; sounds like it was an interesting
evening.

Can you summarise what the goals of the rubyjobs project is. For
example, is someone going to run it as a business (as in, sell the
ability to advertise to other businesses)? Is it a separate site or do
you imagine many identical copies of it running on lots of domains?
If free, how do you stop recruitment agencies filling it up? Is it
just full-time jobs or projects too?

Cheers,
Denis

[gavin...@gmail.com]

> Can you summarise what the goals of the rubyjobs project is.

There are two main aims:

1) As a community work on open source projects so that we can learn
from each other and improve. This is a nice simple little app to start
with, we should have results quite quickly. I have a few ideas for
other open source projects and I'm sure others do too.

2) Create a simple resource for hooking up companies and people with
Ruby skills.

> is someone going to run it as a business

I'd be happy to run the website without a business model. It wouldn't
cost much to run and I'd hope to get some contract work through it
anyway.

> Is it a separate site or do you imagine many identical copies of it running on lots of domains?

I've begun the registration of a .ie domain - I'll post again when the
registration is complete. Being open source, anyone would be free use
the codebase to setup their own job boards.

> If free, how do you stop recruitment agencies filling it up?

My personal preference would be not to allow recruitment agencies post
jobs. We may have to build in some moderation features as the site
grows, but that can wait until we have a problem with spam or invalid
posts.

> Is it just full-time jobs or projects too?

I think any projects, contracts or jobs that have a Ruby requirement
should be allowed.

[Denis Hennessy]

Sounds interesting. I'd be happy to help once it's clear what work
needs doing.

In the meantime, how about setting up a (free) uservoice.com account
It's a good service for gathering feature ideas and letting people
vote on them. Once it's clear what's needed, a lighthouse project
would be handy to manage who's doing what.

/dh

[Tony Byrne]

Hi All,

On 10 Dec 2008, at 20:44, gavin...@gmail.com wrote:

> For those that weren't present at the meeting, RubyJobs will be a
> simple job board Rails app. Everyone is welcome to get involved in the
> design and development of the project. Once it has been fleshed out a
> little we will deploy it and begin to use it as the place to post and
> find Ruby jobs in Ireland.

I wasn't able to make it this month, but I think this is an excellent
idea! Well done!

Regards,

Tony.

Tony Byrne.

[Dermot Brennan]

This a great idea. I'm definitely going to try it out.

I see you're using ERB as the view template. Have you considered using
Haml? I've used Haml and Sass on a few projects and I think it's
great. It's definitely something you should think about at the start
of a project before too much work has been put into the views.

-Dermot

On Dec 10, 8:44 pm, "gavinjo...@gmail.com" <gavinjo...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Declan McGrath]

I should be able to dig out some time to contribute. Also I like the simplicity of the 37 signals jobs board.

Regards,
Dec

[Andrea]

right so maybe its time to have a set of features

- lists all available jobs by date desc
- when selecting one more details
- people can add jobs (maybe email required for validation purposes)
- can search by job, category, company

how does it sound?

Andrea

On Dec 11, 1:04 pm, "Declan McGrath" <decla...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I should be able to dig out some time to contribute. Also I like the
> simplicity of the 37 signals jobs board.
>
> Regards,
> Dec
>

> On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 8:52 PM, gavinjo...@gmail.com
> <gavinjo...@gmail.com>wrote:

> > > Gavin- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Darragh Curran]

Sounds good -

for the backburner -
how about people commenting about job postings, If I saw a job
posting, and talked to them and was impressed, I'd like to share that
with other users - to help highlight the good/interesting jobs.
how about being able to post yourself as being available for hire
(this has happened a good bit on the group so far)

Sorry I'll not be able to contribute - next two months are busy!

Darragh

[Mike Brennan]

Another job board that I always thought looked good and which might be
another source for inspiration (design-wise) is Cameron Moll's
Authentic Jobs, check it out:

http://authenticjobs.com/

On Dec 10, 8:44 pm, "gavinjo...@gmail.com" <gavinjo...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Paul Nelligan]

I personally would like to have a database of ruby programmers in Ireland included also, along with a summary of their projects and availability, contact details etc.... so that potential employers can browse candidates, and find people who fit their requirements... This has the added benefit of growing the community because we have a service that people can sign up to...

Maybe this is a feature that we can add later, once the board is up and running...

cheers

[Declan McGrath]

Sounds good.

Plus always rank paid for ads at the top :-)

[Brian Kenny]

Something like this might be all thats needed for the database ERD design

http://bkenny.com/blog/ruby_jobs.png

2008/12/11 Paul Nelligan <nel...@gmail.com>

[Paul Nelligan]

Just looking at the ERD, and wondering:

1) are we going to have different types of users?, i.e. administrators, recruiters, ruby programmers? (administrators could be particularly important when dealing with spam)
2) should the requirements be searchable and/or categorisable... e.g. years of experience required, skills required - e.g. javascript, AJAX, Haml, Merb, Rails

Maybe it's overcomplicating things at this early stage, but just throwing it out there anyway...

cheers

[Brian Kenny]

I would agree with both points.

On Dec 11, 4:06 pm, "Paul Nelligan" <nell...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just looking at the ERD, and wondering:
>
> 1) are we going to have different types of users?, i.e. administrators,
> recruiters, ruby programmers? (administrators could be particularly
> important when dealing with spam)
> 2) should the requirements be searchable and/or categorisable... e.g. years
> of experience required, skills required - e.g. javascript, AJAX, Haml, Merb,
> Rails
>
> Maybe it's overcomplicating things at this early stage, but just throwing it
> out there anyway...
>
> cheers
>

> On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Brian Kenny <brian.bke...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Something like this might be all thats needed for the database ERD design
>
> >http://bkenny.com/blog/ruby_jobs.png
>

> > 2008/12/11 Paul Nelligan <nell...@gmail.com>

>
> > I personally would like to have a database of ruby programmers in Ireland
> >> included also, along with a summary of their projects and availability,
> >> contact details etc.... so that potential employers can browse candidates,
> >> and find people who fit their requirements... This has the added benefit of
> >> growing the community because we have a service that people can sign up
> >> to...
>
> >> Maybe this is a feature that we can add later, once the board is up and
> >> running...
>
> >> cheers
>

[ciara...@gmail.com]

I'd love to help with this - thanks for starting it off Gavin.
C

On Dec 10, 8:44 pm, "gavinjo...@gmail.com" <gavinjo...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[gavin...@gmail.com]

A great response so far and some good ideas. We're going to have to
make some decisions as a group, how about if we just +1 the ideas that
we like, the highest score for each area determines the decision.
Design by committee works ... right?

> Have you considered using Haml?

I used HAML for a while on carlist.ie but quickly lost interest in it.
I'd rather use ERB for views. Like everything else, I'm happy to go
with whatever the consensus is.

[+1 ERB]

> http://authenticjobs.com/ (check it out)

I like the simplicity of this too. They have a similar model to the
37signals one. It doesn't look like job posters create account, they
just fill in the form to add a job.

I'd like to do something similar. People posting jobs don't need an
account. Having posted a job, they would receive an email with a
couple of links - one for marking the job as filled and one for
deleting the job altogether. Job posting would stay on the site for a
period of time, perhaps 30 days.

[+1 Job Postings without an account]

We would still need the user authentication system for moderators.

> - can search by job, category, company

Could we get away with just a simple live search box? "rails contract
dublin" would return all the Rails contracts in Dublin. There is not
going to be a huge number of postings and a simple solution might be
enough.

[+1 Live search box as the only search mechanism]

> I personally would like to have a database of ruby programmers in Ireland ... Maybe this is a feature that we can add later

This would be useful, we'll be in a better position to plan additional
features like this once we have completed the core application.

> Plus always rank paid for ads at the top :-)

Are people happy if this project has no commercial aims? That would
mean free ad posting and no advertisment.

[+1 Non-commercial website]

> Are we going to have different types of users?, i.e. administrators, recruiters, ruby programmers?

I strongly favor not allowing recruitment companies posting jobs. I
don't think that they bring any value to the table.

[-1 Recruiters]

Feel free to vote on any issues that I missed - we can tally the
results tomorrow.

[gavin...@gmail.com]

I applied for rubyjobs.ie with blacknight last night. They are looking
for "a signed letter on the group's headed paper". Do we have such a
thing? If not, can someone who has a printer write a letter on the
groups behalf and fax it to blacknight? (059 9164239)

[Dermot Brennan]

Some more thoughts :-

It would be great to have RSS feeds, tagging and comments. People
could subscribe to a feed rubyjobs.ie/jobs.rss?tags=rails+loadzamoney
+css . I guess those features aren't really essential for the first
version.

Instead of building your own comment system, you could use Intense
Debate (http://intensedebate.com) or Disqus (http://disqus.com) to
quickly add a commenting system.

Google maps integration could be a useful feature, so that you could
easily see exactly where a job is based.

You would need an "apply to" text field, where employers can describe
how to apply. I think that's more flexible than just displaying an
email address or something. authenticjobs.com and jobs.37signals.com
both have this.

Need to decide on whether a rich text editor, textile or just plain
text is used for the job description input.

I think if the site has good full text search and simple tags or
categorisation, there shouldn't be any need to add tons of fields like
subcategories, num_years_experience and skills_required etc. to the
Job model.

-Dermot

[gavin...@gmail.com]

[+1 RSS feeds for search]

[Paul Nelligan]

Now that I think of it, we really don't need much job categorisation (aside from perhaps the region), given what we're trying to achieve... so scrap my suggestion for job categorisation, and i'll chastise myself for the bad suggestion ;)

but i'm still pro the idea of having a searchable database of programmers in later iterations (obviously not the first), and i'll volunteer to write the code if others are in agreement...

[+1]

also, non-commercial enterprise

[+1]

[ciara...@gmail.com]

My thoughts,
[+1 ERB] I like haml, but everyone knows erb/html, so it's simpler to
just use it
[-1 Recruiters]
[+1 Non-commercial website] for the forseeable future

[+1 Live search box as the only search mechanism]

[+1 Job Postings without an account]

[+1 RSS feeds for search]

Also an addition of my own.
[+1 all code should come with tests]

On Dec 11, 7:05 pm, "gavinjo...@gmail.com" <gavinjo...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> A great response so far and some good ideas. We're going to have to
> make some decisions as a group, how about if we just +1 the ideas that
> we like, the highest score for each area determines the decision.
> Design by committee works ... right?
>
> > Have you considered using Haml?
>
> I used HAML for a while on carlist.ie but quickly lost interest in it.
> I'd rather use ERB for views. Like everything else, I'm happy to go
> with whatever the consensus is.
>
> [+1 ERB]
>

> >http://authenticjobs.com/(check it out)

[Alan Larkin]

Can I suggest someone set up an Assembla or maybe an Unfuddle project, and that
this brainstorming be moved off the list. They are both excellent and would I
think provide a better medium for this discussion and later planning.

--
<a href="http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/en"><img border="0"
alt="Wikipedia Affiliate Button"
src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/5/58/2008_fundraiser_micro_button-en.png"
/></a>

[Dermot Brennan]

Or lighthouse.

> >>>http://authenticjobs.com/(checkit out)

> src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/5/58/2008_fundraiser..."/></a>

[Andrea]

we have one already
http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/rubyireland
I ll change it and update it with all thats been discussed in this
thread now

I ll wait 5 min to start just in case someone else did this already?

> > src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/5/58/2008_fundraiser..."/></a>- Hide quoted text -

[gavin...@gmail.com]

> Can I suggest someone set up an Assembla or maybe an Unfuddle project, and that this brainstorming be moved off the list

+1

> http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/rubyireland

I had a look there but didn't see anything other than the skeleton
setup.

> Or lighthouse.

I'd prefer lighthouse too, all the cool kids are using it. It hooks up
with github nicely. I've setup a project for rubyjobs:

http://rubyjobs.lighthouseapp.com/projects/21484-rubyjobs

Create an account and send me an email, I'll add you to the project.

On Dec 12, 12:55 pm, Dermot Brennan <dermot.bren...@gmail.com> wrote:

[gavin...@gmail.com]

I've setup a user voice account for rubyjobs, we can start using it
for adding and voting on ideas for the site (thanks for the suggestion
Denis)

http://rubyjobs.uservoice.com/

[Andrea]

hi there
sorry got cut up , and liking lighthouse :)

Andrea

On Dec 12, 7:25 pm, "gavinjo...@gmail.com" <gavinjo...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Brian Kenny]

Hmm have we moved to a SQLite DB ?

On Dec 11, 10:00 pm, "Paul Nelligan" <nell...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Now that I think of it, we really don't need much job categorisation (aside
> from perhaps the region), given what we're trying to achieve... so scrap my
> suggestion for job categorisation, and i'll chastise myself for the bad
> suggestion ;)
>
> but i'm still pro the idea of having a searchable database of programmers in
> later iterations (obviously not the first), and i'll volunteer to write the
> code if others are in agreement...
>
> [+1]
>
> also, non-commercial enterprise
>
> [+1]
>

> On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 9:41 PM, gavinjo...@gmail.com
> <gavinjo...@gmail.com>wrote:

[gavin...@gmail.com]

I don't think we've discussed the database platform, it has been
sqlite from the first commit for dev and testing. I'll probably deploy
to postgres.

[Brian Kenny]

I'm happy to go with any database platform, just as long as well all agree on it :)

2008/12/14 gavin...@gmail.com <gavin...@gmail.com>

[gavin...@gmail.com]

Any thoughts on this logo?

http://github.com/GiantCranes/rubyjobs/tree/56df9f03d9f7c0bf6fb0d4c23b857b53f547ae35/public/images/logo.png

[Brian Kenny]

Looks perfect Gavin +1

2008/12/15 gavin...@gmail.com <gavin...@gmail.com>

[ciara...@gmail.com]

I like it!

On Dec 15, 8:46 pm, "gavinjo...@gmail.com" <gavinjo...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Any thoughts on this logo?
>

> http://github.com/GiantCranes/rubyjobs/tree/56df9f03d9f7c0bf6fb0d4c23...

[Declan McGrath]

That's great. Sums it up nicely I think!

Dec

[Andrea]

v. nice :)
Andrea

On Dec 15, 11:25 pm, "Declan McGrath" <decla...@gmail.com> wrote:
> That's great. Sums it up nicely I think!
>
> Dec
>

> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 10:55 PM, ciaran....@gmail.com <ciaran....@gmail.com

[Andrea]

btw is not that I dont want to do this i m just mad busy
and i cant get to set it all up properly
(ie i still havent been able to run the project as is, I m hopping to
have a few spare hours tomorrow)
Cheers

Andrea

On Dec 15, 8:46 pm, "gavinjo...@gmail.com" <gavinjo...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Any thoughts on this logo?
>

> http://github.com/GiantCranes/rubyjobs/tree/56df9f03d9f7c0bf6fb0d4c23...

[gavin...@gmail.com]

> i still havent been able to run the project as is

Let me know any problems that you have with the setup.

[Andrea]

in case any one is using windows and having issues with sql3-ruby gem
this worked for me

http://rubyforge.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=23001&group_id=254&atid=1043

gem install --version 1.2.3 sqlite3-ruby

Cheers

On Dec 15, 11:56 pm, "gavinjo...@gmail.com" <gavinjo...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Declan McGrath]

My two cents...
[+1 ERB]
[-1 Recruiters]
[+1 Non-commercial website] currently, however I would be supportive of the
idea of generating some revenue (far) down the road. This could be used to
fund something like a Ruby Ireland conference/event. Also, anyone who has
gone out of pocket, such as registering domains, etc could be compensated.
However, the administrative side and responsibility of finances is a pain and
would be a massive distraction from the fun aspect of hacking on a project.

[+1 Live search box as the only search mechanism]
[+1 Job Postings without an account]
[+1 RSS feeds for search]

[+1 all code should come with tests] Might need to discuss how this extends to
the presentation layer and AJAX testing

[gavin...@gmail.com]

I've just deployed the application and dummy data to www.rubyjobs.ie.
It is feature complete for launch although I'll be improving some
areas of the interface this evening.

Please test it out by posting some jobs. Use your real email for the
company email if you would like to receive the job edit link.

http://www.rubyjobs.ie/

[Paul Nelligan]

it would be nice if there was a link to the jobs index from showing the job you just posted. I know it's not really necessary, but I personally would like to see it appear on the list also.

other than that, it looks great.

[Paul Nelligan]

also I was wondering, who's going to be moderating the posts??, especially if we get a shedload of recruitment companies spamming us with php jobs??... is there any way of automatically moderating it??... e.g. using basic user profiles??...

[gavin...@gmail.com]

> it would be nice if there was a link to the jobs index from showing the job
you just posted.

I'll add a ticket for this, it will be implemented soon. Feel free to
add to the ticket:

http://rubyjobs.lighthouseapp.com/projects/21484-rubyjobs/tickets/32-new-job-added-page-should-have-link-back-to-jobs-list

> who's going to be moderating the posts??

Moderation features will be added if and when we have a need. We use a
number of community techniques on www.dotnetkicks.com which are quite
effective.

On Jan 5, 10:07 pm, "Paul Nelligan" <nell...@gmail.com> wrote:
> also I was wondering, who's going to be moderating the posts??, especially
> if we get a shedload of recruitment companies spamming us with php jobs??...
> is there any way of automatically moderating it??... e.g. using basic user
> profiles??...
>

> On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Paul Nelligan <nell...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > it would be nice if there was a link to the jobs index from showing the job
> > you just posted. I know it's not really necessary, but I personally would
> > like to see it appear on the list also.
>
> > other than that, it looks great.
>

> > On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 8:31 PM, gavinjo...@gmail.com <gavinjo...@gmail.com

[Marcelo V. F. Menezes]

Great!

--
Marcelo V. F. Menezes
0xEB5BB9D8 @ http://pgp.mit.edu