Welcome to new members

[Alex Chaffee]

We've got a few new members to this list, so I wanted to say "hi" and also give a little status update on the TFT labs.

I recently taught a week-long Ruby and Rails class and used that deadline to make some long-postponed improvements to the web site and materials. The site is now much prettier (thanks, Chandra!) and the information is more clearly focused on 1) what TFT is and 2) how to download the TFT labs for your favorite language. Once you've done that, the labs are more organized into a little local web site -- each chapter has its own "index.html" page with navigation so you can click around from lab to lab with greater ease.

I'll be making more changes as time goes on, too. And this whole project is supposed to be open source, so if anyone comes up with some new labs, new exercises, or new solutions, please post them and/or send a github change request.

Finally, Trevor asks:

Hi, I'm Trev. i've done web development off and on for several years (mostly client side coding), then IT support for a while and now i'm getting back into the web development world after moving to a small town without much IT opportunities here. I love web development anyway, so the change is a pleasant one. full time web development will be fun :) I've mostly been a javascripter but recently i've been learning ruby (more for scripting linux and automating source code reviewing routines, not for ROR. not yet anyway.). I've also been trying to implement tdd, but i something is just not 'clicking' yet. I might need a little help. Thanks for all i've learned sofar from your website. it's helped already. I can't wait to take the downloadable course, however i do have a question about errors running rake that i have not been able to figure out. I might need a little help to get up and running on my own. I'd be grateful. maybe i should be asking a ruby on rails or rake group somewhere? or is this an ok place to ask? the error occurs when running the downloaded course from your site, but it's a rake/gem type error. not a test first teaching thing. if you prefer i ask a ROR group or somewhere else, i understand. thanks again, talk to you all soon. :) This is a fine place to ask. In fact, I bet if you're having a problem someone else is too, so it's probably something that belongs in the FAQ or instructions.

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Alex Chaffee - al...@stinky.com - http://alexch.github.com
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