Lawrence on Rails is dead.

[Eric J Gruber]

Lawrence on Rails has been a wonderful thing for me. I wanted a way to
meet other people using Rails and Ruby, and lo and behold, in the
heart of Django Country, I found some other people who was interested
in getting together. Awesome.

Now with sadness and some internal resistance, I announce that
Lawrence on Rails is dead.

A little clarification.

I think there has been a misconception in the past that I had some
sort of issue with LPDN, and this is most certainly not the case.
There is no Python-Ruby war in Lawrence (as far as I know) and there's
no personal beef with anyone who considers themselves LPDNers. I would
like to make that abundantly clear now and forever. Come to LC? Feel
if you want to socialize more, there's LPDN on Tuesdays. Want to get
more into code? Bring your laptop and grab a slice of pizza.

That said, LPDN has a different more social focus, which is completely
fine. The first time I went, I brought my laptop, but was the one one.
That's not really the focus of the group so I was kind of the odd man
out. LoR has been the type of group that show-and-tell-and-ask-
questions is encouraged and desired, but the scope has been rather
limited to Ruby.

At our meeting last Thursday the future of the group was discussed and
we hashed out a few ideas for how to continue. Ruby's great, but there
is a lot to learn from other languages and, more importantly, from
other programmers. Therefore, Lawrence on Rails is no longer active
and in its place, Lawrence Coders (http://lawrencecoders.com;
http://twitter.com/lawrencecoders, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lawrence-Coders/128968167135858).

Speaking of "programmers," part of the discussion was a semantic
argument of programmers vs. developers. Surprisingly to me, not
everyone is comfortable with the interchangeability of the two terms.
So, Lawrence Coders it is - this should signal two things:

1.) This is a local group to build up and shine a light on the local
programmer/developer community in the Lawrence area.
2.) This is not a group only for web monkeys.

Hopefully, if there are designers who are interested in stretching
their boundaries, they'll feel welcome to come check us out. Likewise,
designers who have no interest in learning any type of programming
beyond frontend design will probably figure out pretty easily this
group isn't for them.

Lastly, there also has been lprog (http://twitter.com/lprog), which
happened a few times and was successful. It's similar to Lawrence
Coders, but meets much less frequently. I have no idea what the
official status of that group is, although Nate's input was essential
to how Lawrence Coders took shape.

I believe it's important to have a local network of programmers/
developers. Learning is only one aspect. Sharing job leads,
collaborating on projects, showcasing freelance work - these are all
good things.

For now, the schedule looks like it'll be at 9 p.m., Monday evenings
at Johnny's in north Lawrence starting June 28, although some are
getting together at 8:30 p.m. tonight if anyone is interested. There's
no real leader of the group (I just helped to get the ball rolling
with a few account names and a domain purchase); just show up and
share.

And please, do come and share - every member's growth is dependent on
your experiences as a coder.

Pony up,

Eric J. Gruber