The WorkingWithRails community is going from strength to strength. Our membership is growing fast and our readership is growing to. In light of this, we feel now is the time to grow even more. So, we're asking for you, dear reader, to engage with us and consider these two propositions:
1. What do you want to see on the WWR site? What's the next piece of functionality that we should build? What would make your life as a Rails developer better? What resource do you need? What would keep you coming back for more? We've got lots of ideas, but what does the community really want?
We'll give you a credit in the form of a link to your WWR profile on the site when the new function is built. Note, we just need the seed of your idea - you don't need to write a detailed spec!
There is no formal closing date, but we'd like to get cracking within a month or so. Please post your suggestions on our forums.
2) We want to a hire a skilled RoR author. Perhaps you've got a successful blog, or you've written RoR articles for books or magazines. Would you like an even wider audience for your work AND get paid for writing about something you love? If so, we want you!
For more details, see our job ad.
The winner of the March 2008 Hackfest is Chris O'Sullivan. Congratulations Chris, a ticket to RailsConf2008 will be with you shortly.
Once again many thanks to O'Reilly for providing the prizes. The runners up get a variety of books and magazines.
A big thanks to all the contributors who took part.
The top prize for April is a ticket to RailsConf Europe 2008 happening 2-4 September 2008 in Berlin.
We're delighted to announce that the HappyCodr system has been merged with WorkingWithRails.
Our good friend Theron Parlin decided recently that the very popular HappyCodr site wasn't getting the attention from him that it deserved, so he asked if we'd come up with a solution. We imported his database of Rails sites and added the ones we didn't already have to our growing list.
We also added a new "Showcase" feature to show a random selection of a dozen sites - all built with Rails and great examples of what can be achieved.
Enjoy the updates and if you want to show Theron your support, why not recommend him.
We've just released a new version of the WorkingWithRails software. As well as some stuff that most people will find boring, like fully automated payment processing for the job board and some requested features, like a wider view to read the forum posts, it brings a great new feature to the busy Railers armory.
It's a Rails-specific Search Engine right on our home page. It's powered by Google (who else?) and it offers the ability to easily search a carefully selected, handcrafted-for-greatness collection of Ruby on Rails and Ruby websites. The list includes things like the Ruby on Rails API, other Rails documentation sites and of course the official Rails site and wiki. We're also adding some of the best Rails blogs. We're happy to add to the list, so if you've got suggestions, please do let us know.
This means that you can now get Rails info fast. For example, search for an API method without having to wade through information about other languages that just so happen to have a method with the same name. As well as the API, you might get a reference to a How-To or Blog entry about it too. All in one place.
Try it now...
WorkingWithRails is going from strength to strength. As we do we're delighted to be rewarding Ruby On Rails stars with some great prizes for their community contributions as well as being a fabulous source of Ruby on Rails job opportunities.
Over 100 jobs in the last 30 days
Over 100 Ruby On Rails jobs have been posted on our site in the last 30 days. These are Rails specific jobs, from great employers - the quality of the ads is really high. Not only that but we're getting email after email telling us what great candidates our advertisers are finding through their ads on our site. Post a job of your own or browse the latest ads.Forums
The forums on WorkingWithRails are growing fast and we're pleased to announce that we're now offering valuable prizes for the best contributors.
Over $1,000 of Beanstalk services are up for grabs for the top three most highly regarded forum contributors.
Every single WorkingWithRails user is elligible to win one of these fantastic prizes just for being an active member of the community.
For more information, please visit the forums homepage now.
Hackfests
In association with O'Reilly, we continue to offer some fabulous prizes for the winners of our regular Hackfests. This month we're offering tickets to RailsConf 2008, as well as books and magazines. We have some great prizes coming in the next few months too.
Read more about the regular Hackfests.
Our 10,000th Profile
We recently awarded a brand new iPod Touch to the creator of our 10,000th user profile. We'll publish an interview with the happy winner soon.Congratulations to Ernesto Jimenez the winner of the February 2008 Hackfest and a ticket to RailsConf2008.
It was a very close run contest for this month. Only 250 points separated 1st and 2nd place!
Once again many thanks to O'Reilly for providing the prizes. The runners up get a variety of books and magazines.
A big thanks to all the contributors who took part. If you missed out of the top spot this time we have another ticket to RailsConf2008 up for grabs in the March 2008 Hackfest, which is now under way. Good luck!
A big thanks to all the contributors who took part in the January 2008 Hackfest.
Congratulations to Pratik Naik who won the first hackfest of 2008 and in do so bagged himself a ticket to RailsConf2008.
Once again many thanks to O'Reilly for providing the prizes. The runners up get a variety of books and magazines.
A quick note on the top 10... Unfortunately we had several participants end up with the same number of points, but we have prizes only for 10 people. We had a draw to choose the final prize winners, but all participants who scored as many points as the final winners have been given "Hackfest Winner" badges on their profiles.
A new year, brings a new Hackfest!
This month O'Reilly are providing the winner with a ticket to RailsConf 2008. Happening May 29-June 1, 2008 in Portland, Oregon.
RailsConf 2008 is the official event for the growing Rails community. If you're passionate about Rails and what it helps you achieve—or are curious about how Rails can help you create web frameworks better and faster—RailsConf 2008 is the place to be.
O'Reilly are also providing a supply of books and magazines for the runner-ups.
Not contributed to the Rails source code before? Find out how
A big thanks to all the contributors who took part in the December 2007 Hackfest.
The results are now out:
Well done to Cheah Chu Yeow who landed the top spot and a fantastic prize of $300 provided by Centro.
The runners up get a variety of books and magazines thanks to O'Reilly.
Congratulations to everybody who took part!
CNET Networks, Inc. (the "Company" or "CNET") is a global media company producing a branded Internet network, a computer product database, a print publication, and television and radio programming for both consumers and businesses.
In this interview we talk to Seth Thomas Rasmussen who works on the CHOW and Chowhound sites under the CNET Networks Entertainment and Lifestyle brand.
BACKGROUND
Q: How did you come to be working at CNET?
I started working at CNET in April of 2007. Chris Wanstrath let me know that they were looking to hire. I was looking to be hired, so it was a good setup.
Q: What is your background?
I started doing web design and development for my high school drumline. After high school I got an A.A.S. in Multimedia and Web Design. I spent my first few years at my first "real" job learning things I should have learned in school such as the importance of standards, separation of concerns and the basics of web programming. In general, I came from more of a design and interaction focus than, say, computer science.
Q: How easy was it to get Rails adopted at CNET?
I'm not sure what it was like getting Rails in the door at CNET. When I came around, CHOW and Chowhound had been online for almost a year. I'm told it was initially brought up by Mike Tatum and Tim Myrtle who had been using it for Wayfaring. Chris and PJ Hyett, now at Err Free, along with Evan Weaver, were key to getting CHOW and Chowhound off and running on Rails.
There is increasing interest in Ruby and Rails around CNET. Having some significant Java systems in place, I've talked with several people who are interested JRuby in particular.
Q: What is your work environment like?
The office space is basically one large room with half-cubes and offices located at the headquarters in San Francisco. I spend varying amounts of time there and elsewhere such as my apartment. Other than things like having that freedom of location, one awesome perk is definitely the leftovers and test samples from the food team!
I mostly work with small teams, though we do integrate with larger groups and systems with CNET. A real joy is working with such a concentration of passion and talent. I fear that reads like cliché bullshit, but I've no reason to kiss ass here, people.. it really is a fantastic group all around.
PROJECTS
Q: What kind of projects do you work on at CNET?
I work mostly on CHOW and Chowhound. I am part of the Entertainment and Lifestyle group at CNET which includes those properties as well as some others like Gamespot, TV.com and Urban Baby. CHOW and Chowhound are the only ones on Rails, though Urban Baby recently saw work begun to move elements of it over to Rails.
One of the features I've spent the most time on for CHOW so far is Places. Users can create records of places and link them in the context of Chowhound discussions. We recently launched Member Recipes wherein users can publish recipes either by entering from scratch or cloning an existing recipe and making modifications. Though they work mostly with a vendor platform and their own video production staff and tools, I've worked some with the video team and I just wanted to call them out because they are doing some really awesome stuff.
I've done some work in integrating OpenSearch on CHOW(add us in Firefox or IE7!), and hopefully we'll see some effort put into a CHOW API one of these days. Lately I've been focused on expanding our facility for running contests and challenges on the site, integrating the recently released user recipe features in particular.
There are several other features and areas of concern I deal with, but that's a decent sampling.
Q: What is your typical development process at CNET?
Product, sales, editorial and a handful of other influences produce the features that we then develop and maintain. We don't adhere to any formal practices or methodologies per se, though we take bits from here and there like most people. The Urban Baby team is trying some agile processes on their current work. Our test suites are a salad of test/unit, test/spec and rspec.
We run an edge revision of Rails and adhere to RESTful design as much as is reasonable. The applications are a mix of DIY and vendor plugins and systems. Urban Baby will see its blogs relaunched on Rails code converted from a Typo base which will eventually be integrated further with the plugins and other resources used to support CHOW and Chowhound.
I work closest with about eight other people, with handfuls scattered about the periphery. Of that initial eight, three comprise the current engineering team with a fourth working on a contract basis.
Q: What kind of infrastructure do you run your sites on?
We have a few Redhat boxes running a mongrel cluster supported by Apache and MySQL.
Q: Do you always use Rails as a preference over other languages?
Not necessarily, but the vast majority of what I develop against and maintain is Ruby and Rails.
Q: In your experience where has Rails proved to be the most challenging?
Rails can be confusing to debug before you know about things like how sometimes errors just get swallowed. I've hit a stride with my testing in Rails in recent months, and I've found that functional test coupling of controllers and views is a bit of a shame. I've yet to try Test::Rails or other alternatives other than stubbing out renders in my own tests. ActionMailer is a bit of a siren with the way it leads you on like it has "normal" Rails views, only to leave you marooned in a bit of a foggy abyss.
Q: What is the best part about using Rails?
I enjoy the higher level designs and expressions it encourages. The stuff conducive to RESTful design that is being worked in currently is also quite nice. And of course it's running on Ruby!
Has it really been one year already?
We launched on the 17th November 2006 and have seen the site grow, and grow, and grow... Not only in terms of features but members also. We topped the 9000 mark this weekend.
A big thank you to all the community. Your support is really appreciated.
No sooner has one Hackfest finished another one kicks off. We have a fantastic top prize this month courtesy of Oakley. Just take a look at these:
Oakley O ROKR PRO
Prize details:
"Cut the cords and push your training session to the next level with wireless audio freedom. O ROKR™ Pro is Bluetooth Stereo eyewear that unleashes your potential. You no longer have to be tethered to your mobile phone or favorite MP3 Player, they can be safely stored away in a backpack or pocket. With a secure fit and an advanced sweat-resistant design, it’s an incredible training tool. Listen to music and make calls virtually anywhere with a system that adjusts easily for when you need to hear your environment. Cut the cords and take advantage of the razor sharp clarity of High Definition Optics® (HDO®)."
It is possible to cram any more technology in a pair of sunglasses? A very cool prize for a lucky winner. On a side note, Oakley are looking for a Rails developer. Perhaps that could be you?
Not to be forgotten O'Reilly continue to support the contest with a top notch supply of books and magazines for the runner-ups.
Good luck everyone!
A big thanks to all the contributors who took part in the October 2007 Hackfest.
The results are now out:
Well done to Lawrence Pit who landed the top spot and a fantastic prize of a Ruby on Rails Boxcar hosting solution from Planet Argon
The runners up get a variety of books and magazines thanks to O'Reilly. Congrats!
Pratik Naik is a long-standing Rails contributor.
He has won the Hackfest on multiple occasions.
Originally from India he currently lives and works in London and is a regular attendee to the Ruby users group in the city.
Pratik is also best known in the community for creating the popular Rails blog aggregation site Planet Ruby on Rails
Q: What is your connection to Ruby on Rails?
I started my career with Oracle India, and spent almost 2 years there working on several customer facing internal web apps using perl/mod_perl. And 2 years on perl were enough to build a love/hate relationship, so while looking at new technologies/solutions I came across ruby/rails and fell in love with it instantly. And now I've been working professionally with Rails for almost a year and half.
Q: Tell us about the sort of contribution you made during the contest.
Apart from minor ActiveRecord/ActionPack fixes and pluginizing some functionalities, my major patches were for refactoring of render methods and association callbacks.
Q: How did you first get involved contributing to the Rails source?
In the past, I had made some contributions to mod_perl project. And I first got involved contributing to rails in a very short time after starting to work on edge rails. Contributing to rails is a lot easier than people ( mainly those who are new to rails ) usually think. Everything in rails is pure ruby after all. #rails-contrib irc channel is probably the best ( and fastest ) way to get core related help and finding people to review your patch.
Q: Tell us about your development environment
Mac and big screens.
Q: Rails 2.0 and beyond - where next?
I think the next steps would be to work towards making rails thread-safe and cleaning up some fugly code. And also have rails run smoothly on next major stable ruby release in 1.9 series, as it has major performance enhancements over 1.8.x.
Q: Closing words
I've been meaning to bring back to life my first rails project - FreeOnRails, which is hibernating at the moment due to my time crunches. It's a project for providing quality free rails hosting to those in need. Interested people can join the mailing list where I'd be posting all the further updates.
Apart from that, you can usually catch me in #rails-contrib and #rubyonrails irc channels (nick : lifofifo) or lrug meets. I also try to blog regularly at http://m.onkey.org
