HSV.rb - let's code together!

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Ryan Waldron

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May 12, 2009, 12:06:07 AM5/12/09
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I got to go to RailsConf last week (woot!) and one of the Birds-of-a-Feather sessions I attended was the Rails Activism group.  We talked about a bunch of stuff in a short period of time, but a lot of it was about "what can a user group do to help bring people along in Ruby/Rails"?

Of course, some of the people there were from large Ruby groups (Orlando, the legendary Seattle.rb group), but some were from groups smaller than ours.

I didn't know this, but Ryan Bates of RailsCasts fame lives somewhere in southern Oregon, where there are NO other Ruby folks he can hang out locally. Wow.

Anyway, there seemed to be a strong consensus that the best way for people to learn and to help each other learn is by actually programming stuff, not just doing presentations.

I've been toying with bringing this up for a few months, but that meeting convinced me: HSV.rb needs a project.  Or 5.  Or 100. 

It doesn't have to be something smashing, but it could be.  The http://seattlerb.rubyforge.org project is a product of that Ruby group.  I'm not going to look them up at the moment, but there are quite a few gems and tools and projects that were started and released by user groups.  We should aspire to do something at least good enough to release and be of use to someone.

BUT -- and this is important -- it doesn't have to be something like that.  It just needs to be code that we work on, together, and can therefore be encountering and solving similar or related problems, so we have a common basis for sharing useful tips and solutions.

For instance, I was introduced to the FABULOUS Ruby Warrior project/game/thing: http://github.com/ryanb/ruby-warrior/tree/master  (warning! This thing can quickly suck up an evening or two or a bunch).  You'll have to look at it to see what it is, but imagine a roughly Nethack-like top-down text 'adventure', but instead of playing it with arrow keys, you write Ruby code to endow your warrior with the decision-making abilities he'll need to navigate the level.  I don't even know how many hours I spent playing with this the first night I found it, because I kept obsessing over whether there was a way to get *one* *more* *point* out of each level I was on.

It's a great way to learn some Ruby, it's fun, and we could fire it up at level one and play through some levels together at HSV.rb meetings.

This is also something we could do at a lunch-time meeting, even if just a few different ones could come at a given time.

What about some very cool project like http://www.nashmash.com/ , which aggregates Nashville-area tweeters in a pretty cool way.  It wouldn't have to be that slick or full-featured, but we could learn about really dealing with Twitter (or some other mashups).  Look at http://almost.at and pick an event: wouldn't that be cool to hack on?

The point is, we don't have to build some massively cool new thing.  We could pick something small and useful and do part of it.  We could pick a single task ("Make a mashup that pulled tweets from the public timeline with a given keyword and display them with a random Flickr photo tagged with that keyword") and just figure out how to make it work.

We could put a screen on the projector and play pairing - there are some guidelines we could borrow that would give us very clear rules about how to do it (to start out) and then we could modify them as we liked to fit our group better.

There's so much amazingly cool and fun stuff going on -- Adhearsion/telephony/voip, twitter/friendfeed/facebook, maps/geoloc/etc., mashups of all kinds -- that we should pretty much have a never-ending stream of stuff to do.

I'm certainly not opposed to presentations, but the fact is, as Bryan can attest, it's kind of hard to find people to do a presentation every month, partly because it's a giant pain to *prepare* a presentation.  It's a lot easier to just come and hack on something (at least for me).

To me, it would be great to be able to post a problem or request: "I'd like to learn how to do a simple mashup like http://tweetdreams.org/ " and maybe some other folks post theirs, and then we vote (NOT ON THE MAILING LIST -- that's too hard, just a little quick post online thing) on the most popular one and then try to figure it out.

We could start via email and github and IRC before the meeting, jump right into business as soon as people started showing up, and keep going until nobody could stay any more, and then keep right on going.

I'm rambling, I know, but I'd really like to see us turn HSV.rb from a slightly shy, kind of tentative "what are we, exactly?" kind of group into a more or less steady group of fellow programmers who've worked together on *something*, with some ongoing common projects or puzzles to work on that gave us all a reason to get out on a Tuesday night when there's other stuff to do, but also gave something to keep us interested and getting/giving value even for those who CAN'T make a Tuesday night meeting.

We need a Wiki or Campfire-type of thing to keep up with what we're doing, what we've done, what passes for guidelines on how we do it, and so on.  I've got hosting and bandwidth, and I know other people have volunteered the same.  It isn't like it's hard to find a place to host a low-traffic bit of webbage.

So who's with me?  Does this sound good to anybody else?  Would you be up for aiming at this sort of thing?

Jeremy McAnally

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May 12, 2009, 12:12:06 AM5/12/09
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Sounds awesome. I have tons of ideas that I can outsour^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
share with you guys! :P I'm sure everyone else does, too. There are
times where I just need to hack on something *different*, so this
would be cool.

--Jeremy
--
http://jeremymcanally.com/
http://entp.com/
http://omgbloglol.com

My books:
http://manning.com/mcanally/
http://humblelittlerubybook.com/ (FREE!)

Matt Brooks

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May 12, 2009, 1:22:04 AM5/12/09
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A Twitter mashup does sound fun! Maybe we could finally do something exciting with Tweetup.org? Remember Huntsville owns this domain. :)

-Matt B.

Matt Brooks

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May 12, 2009, 1:22:04 AM5/12/09
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codea...@gmail.com

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May 12, 2009, 3:43:37 AM5/12/09
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Sounds Good to me. Ryan, Your enthusiasm is contagious. Let's make it happen.
Matt

codea...@gmail.com

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May 12, 2009, 3:43:37 AM5/12/09
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Sounds Good to me. Ryan, Your enthusiasm is contagious. Let's make it happen.
Matt

On May 12, 2009 12:22am, Matt Brooks <aubi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
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codea...@gmail.com

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May 12, 2009, 3:43:37 AM5/12/09
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Sounds Good to me. Ryan, Your enthusiasm is contagious. Let's make it happen.
Matt

On May 12, 2009 12:22am, Matt Brooks <aubi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
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codea...@gmail.com

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May 12, 2009, 3:43:37 AM5/12/09
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Sounds Good to me. Ryan, Your enthusiasm is contagious. Let's make it happen.
Matt

On May 12, 2009 12:22am, Matt Brooks <aubi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
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Bryan Powell

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May 12, 2009, 9:12:22 AM5/12/09
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First, I really appreciate Ryan taking the time to share his thoughts.  The enthusiasm is awesome.  I agree with everyone else who has responded so far that this is a great step.  Perhaps we should all meet for lunch sometime next week (Tuesday?) to brainstorm and make a decision on what the group will work on.  Anybody game?

Bryan

Enrique Delgado

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May 12, 2009, 9:37:39 AM5/12/09
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Count me in!

Enrique

Ryan Waldron

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May 12, 2009, 11:47:14 AM5/12/09
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On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 8:12 AM, Bryan Powell <br...@metabahn.com> wrote:
First, I really appreciate Ryan taking the time to share his thoughts.  The enthusiasm is awesome.  I agree with everyone else who has responded so far that this is a great step.  Perhaps we should all meet for lunch sometime next week (Tuesday?) to brainstorm and make a decision on what the group will work on.  Anybody game?

I'm in!  Is the Mellow Mushroom open yet? :)

Tuesday is fine for me.  At the moment, my whole week's open, though it won't be for long.
 

Bryan Powell

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May 12, 2009, 2:25:55 PM5/12/09
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Mellow Mushroom isn't open yet... though the furniture and everything is moved in.  This week maybe?  Anyway, Tuesday lunch it is.  Let's shoot for 12.  Any ideas on location?

Bryan

Ryan Waldron

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May 12, 2009, 2:46:22 PM5/12/09
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I'm just full of ideas, and in a mood to sling them.  Feel free to ignore or whatever.  But I suggest for your consideration:

Bridge Street:

Ketchup (love the maple and chipotle ketchup flavors)
Tommy's Pizza - yum!  Love Tommy's.

Not Bridge Street:

Jason's Deli (by Five Guys; or Five Guys, for that matter)
Tony's Little Italy (Providence)
Panera (on Airport)
Nothing but Noodles (by Phil Sandoval's/Rosie's Reincarnated but with seafood)

Also Not Bridge Street:

Schlotzky's on University by UAH

Preston Marshall

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May 13, 2009, 12:10:29 AM5/13/09
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Personally I'd be glad to make it to PF Changs, love it and I haven't been there in a while.
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Preston Marshall

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May 13, 2009, 12:13:45 AM5/13/09
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Also I was thinking, maybe an social site for people relocating with BRAC and Boeing (they are moving their entire MDS operations from VA to AL).  Another idea I had was a social site focused on colleges, but that allowed you to hide behind a nickname (the goal here is to spread rumors and gossip, a la juicycampus.com (what it used to be)).

Ryan Waldron

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May 14, 2009, 10:24:44 PM5/14/09
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I love PFChang's (ate there today, yum), but the only downside is that at lunchtime it can be hard to get a table for very many people.  By noon it's usually just packed.

Ryan Waldron

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May 14, 2009, 10:25:20 PM5/14/09
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Who's coming Tuesday at noon to talk about coding together?  Quick show of hands maybe?

To somewhere, we don't know where yet, just counting heads to see how much space we might need.

Jeremy McAnally

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May 14, 2009, 10:26:31 PM5/14/09
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Yeah I could make it if it's at 11 or 12.

--Jeremy

Preston Marshall

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May 14, 2009, 10:41:28 PM5/14/09
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I'll try to make it.  Thats true about PF Changs though.  I think just about anywhere is going to be loud at lunch though, and we shouldn't have to worry about space if we make a reservation beforehand.

Ryan Waldron

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May 18, 2009, 2:08:49 PM5/18/09
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OK, all, time to put up or, you know, not put up.  Noon tomorrow, where are we going?

So far possible attendees are:

Me, Bryan, Jeremy, Preston, and Enrique.  Coupla Matts expressed interest, but I didn't see a yes or no on making a Tuesday lunch thing.

I called PF Chang's, btw, and they only do lunch reservations at 11:15 or 12:30.  So I think noon with 5+ people is highly unlikely, which makes me sad. :(

So, I *am not* trying to just get my way here, but if you guys don't sing out about where you'd prefer to eat or to AVOID eating (if there's somewhere you hate), I'm going to more or less pick what I'm in the mood for sometime this evening and proclaim it THE place to be tomorrow at noon.

But that threat is mainly a call to arms, a plea for action, on your respective parts, to pick from the suggested places or suggest your own.  Time is short, and lunch is at stake!

Also, anybody else planning to be there, please jump in this afternoon so I'll know how big a table we need.  And if it turns out to be just me, I'm still havin' my lunch meeting and talking about Ruby projects for HSV.rb.  You guys don't want that to happen, right?

My food suggestion list (please add yours if all these suck):


Bridge Street:

Ketchup (love the maple and chipotle ketchup flavors)
Tommy's Pizza - yum!  Love Tommy's.

Not Bridge Street:

Jason's Deli (by Five Guys; or Five Guys, for that matter)
Tony's Little Italy (Providence)
Panera (on Airport)
Nothing but Noodles (by Phil Sandoval's/Rosie's Reincarnated but with seafood)

Also Not Bridge Street:

Schlotzky's on University by UAH


Bryan Powell

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May 18, 2009, 2:15:48 PM5/18/09
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I say Jason's by Five Guys.  That's where the last hsv.rb lunch was, so why not make it a tradition?

/b

Ryan Waldron

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May 18, 2009, 9:51:07 PM5/18/09
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OK, Jason's wins by virtue of a having a single vote!  I love democracy!  Woot!

I'm going to try to claim a table at Jason's Deli big enough to seat 5-6 people.  I'll try to drag in there around 11:30.  Feel free to come find me.

Meeting starts at 12, so if you can get there a little earlier and get your feedbag on, even better.

l'll be the staggeringly handsome-but-portly gentleman in the Ruby Hoedown t-shirt.  Well, one of them, anyway.

I do not have a real agenda, because I don't know how such things should go.  But the things we need to talk about are:

1) Mechanism to track what we *want* to work on, what we *are* working on, and what we've finished/abandoned/released.

2) How the actual "working on" might go -- consider that we're basically looking at two things, group learning sessions where we try things (Ruby Warrior, Ruby Quiz, etc.), and group working on projects for use/release/whatever.  So sometimes we'll be together in one room, most of the time we won't be, but could be hanging out via IRC/AIM/Twitter/carrier pigeon/transporter, etc.

3) Suggestions and ideas to start working on right away.

And last but not least:

4) What do we work on first, and when do we kick it off?

Think we can do all that in an hour?  Probably not. :)

Enrique Delgado

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May 18, 2009, 10:37:18 PM5/18/09
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I'll be there tomorrow : )

E

Preston Marshall

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May 18, 2009, 11:30:01 PM5/18/09
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I'll be bringing my friend Taylor along too, apparently he isn't
subscribed to this list.

Jeremy McAnally

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May 19, 2009, 11:05:37 AM5/19/09
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Crap I just remembered I have other lunch plans today that had totally
slipped my mind. I'll catch the next one!

--Jeremy
>>>>>>>>> What about some very cool project like http://www.nashmash.com/ ,

Enrique Delgado

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May 19, 2009, 11:22:45 AM5/19/09
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Ugh, I just got reminded that I have a lunch meeting today at noon.
I'm helping a lady I used to work with with a website and I had
totally forgotten I had setup a meeting with her today. Sorry, I was
looking forward to it! I've been playing with Ruby Warrior, it's
awesome :)

Keep me posted!

E

On May 19, 10:05 am, Jeremy McAnally <jeremymcana...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Crap I just remembered I have other lunch plans today that had totally
> slipped my mind.  I'll catch the next one!
>
> --Jeremy
>
> On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 10:30 PM, Preston Marshall
>
> <pres...@synergy-solutions.biz> wrote:
> > I'll be bringing my friend Taylor along too, apparently he isn't subscribed
> > to this list.
> > On May 18, 2009, at 9:37 PM, Enrique Delgado wrote:
>
> >> I'll be there tomorrow : )
>
> >> E
>
> >> On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 8:51 PM, Ryan Waldron <ryan.wald...@gmail.com>
> >>>>> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 9:24 PM, Ryan Waldron <ryan.wald...@gmail.com>
> >>>>>>>>>http://seattlerb.rubyforge.orgproject is a product of that Ruby
> ...
>
> read more »

Matt Brooks

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May 19, 2009, 12:00:03 PM5/19/09
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I am still going! Can't wait! Plus I am bring someone else, so that makes up for the drop outs.

-Matt B

Matt Brooks

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May 19, 2009, 12:00:03 PM5/19/09
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pre...@synergy-solutions.biz

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May 19, 2009, 12:29:17 PM5/19/09
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Haha its really packed!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Brooks <aubi...@yahoo.com>

Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 09:00:03
To: hs...@googlegroups.com<hs...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: hsv.rb<hs...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [hsv.rb] Re: HSV.rb - let's code together!
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