Flexible Rails

Register now!

It's the final week of workshop preparation, so time for some last-minute announcements and updates:

1. The Flexible Rails print book is included in the workshop! I got my 25 print books from Manning this week, so I'm pleased to announce that all 24 tickets include a free copy of the Flexible Rails print book. This is a $45 value, and you get the book before it's in stores in Canada. Impress your friends! (I didn't want to announce this and then not get the books in time!)

2. The workshop is from 9 AM to 5 PM on Sunday, January 27. Registration, coffee and muffins are from 8 AM to 9 AM. It's at room 810 at the BCIT downtown campus.

3. Attendance limit: I'm limiting the attendance to 24 people, so that the group is a good size.

I've always had massive problems selecting what I want to cover; now I get to cover a lot more!

Key details:

• When: Sunday, January 27, 2008, 9 AM - 5 PM
• Where: BCIT downtown campus (room 810), Vancouver, BC
• Cost: $149

Register now!

It's one day of Flex and Rails immersion. We'll learn about Flex and Rails, and build an interesting application together: a slideshow program entirely designed for the needs of someone presenting at technical conferences. (Talk about eating your own dog food: I'll be using this application for all my talks this year!)

The workshop runs from 9 AM to 5 PM, and registration and coffee will be from 8-9 AM.

I look forward to seeing you there!

I'm busy putting the finishing touches on the material for Flexible Rails: The Workshop on Sunday; it looks like it's going to be a fun workshop.

Regarding what you should bring to the workshop on Sunday, here's the brief checklist:

• a laptop (Windows or Mac)
• your AC adapter: I often forget mine, so this is here even though it's obvious

What should be on your laptop?

• Flex Builder 3 Beta 3 (download from http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/flexbuilder3/)
• Ruby 1.8.5 or 1.8.6
• Rails 2.0.2
• MySQL 5 (download from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html#downloads)

The workshop will run from 9 to 5, but I'll be setting up the room and taking any last-minute walk-in registrations from 8-9 (as well as serving coffee), so if you have any problems installing anything I will be able to help you from 8-9.

If you want a sanity check to confirm that you have Flex, Rails and MySQL installed correctly, you can do the following:

C:\>ruby -v
ruby 1.8.5 (2006-08-25) [i386-mswin32]

C:\>rails -v
Rails 2.0.2

C:\>mysql --version
mysql  Ver 14.12 Distrib 5.0.24, for Win32 (ia32)

If you already know the basics and want to confirm they all play nicely together, you can do the following:

1. Download and unzip the Flexible Rails iteration 10 code from http://www.flexiblerails.com/files/FlexibleRailsIteration10.zip.
2. From the FlexibleRailsIteration10\pomodo directory, run:
   • newdb.bat (./newdb.sh on OS X)
   • ruby script/server
3. Import the iteration10 project into Flex Builder 3 (with File -> Import) and do a clean build (Project -> Clean...)
4. Go to http://localhost:3000/Pomodo.html and login as ludwig (with a password of foooo).

==> You should see four tasks, with the "Finish eighth symphony" task checked.

If none of the above made any sense at all, don't worry: the workshop will fix that!

Note: If you are coming to the workshop and you haven't bought and read Flexible Rails, do not do so before Sunday. The workshop will be a faster way of getting started than reading Flexible Rails. Don't worry, we won't be using the Flexible Rails example in the workshop--I'm just attaching the iteration 10 code from it since running it is a nice way of checking that everything works...

I look forward to meeting everyone on Sunday.

I've set up the Flexible Rails workshop sign-up page at http://flexiblerails.eventbrite.com/.

Please let me know if you have problems signing up; this is my first time using Eventbrite.

The cost is $99 for "Early Bird" sign-ups (until January 15) and $149 for regular price sign-ups.

More details will be posted soon; for now think of the goal of the workshop as follows: To lead a developer with no Flex or Rails experience through the process of building an interesting RIA which is small enough to build in a day, learning everything as we go. This is the approach I used in Flexible Rails, compressed to fit into a day. (Also, the workshop content is informed by my experiences writing Flexible Rails and speaking about it, seeing what works and makes people lean forward with interest, and, conversely, what makes people's eyes glaze over and/or makes them think about checking their email.)

The current plan is to build a slideshow app using Flex + Rails, but a slideshow app which is focused on the needs of speaking at technical conferences. (Talk about eating your own dog food: I'm going to use the app I build for this workshop to present my slides at the conference presentations I do in 2008.) Think slides with big words (Takahashi-method), code slides, images etc. In a day. Even if you've never done "rails hello" or <mx:Application>.

Sound cool? Crazy? Let me know...

-Peter

[updated 2008-01-01 to extend the Early Bird signup period to January 15 -- if you spent as much as I did over the holidays, a discount on the workshop will be welcome!]
[updated 2008-01-22 - the video player was, ahem, cut]

Flexible Rails is in the author review stage and shipping soon, and I've given lots of talks about it, from Portland to Pisa.

So, it's time to go beyond the standard half hour to one hour talk, and do a full workshop. I've always had massive problems selecting what I want to cover; now I get to cover a lot more!

• When: Sunday, January 27, 2008, 9 AM - 5 PM
• Where: Room 810, BCIT downtown campus, Vancouver, BC
• Cost: $99

Since it's the first run (or Beta version) of the worshop, I'm going to offer it at the discounted price of $99 CAD.

It's one day of Flex and Rails immersion. We'll learn about Flex and Rails, and build an interesting application together. (No, it won't be the pomodo application from the book! It will be something developed fresh for the workshop format.)

I look forward to seeing you there.

More details will be posted here soon. Also, I have created an announcement-only Google Group to post updates about this and any other workshops: http://groups.google.com/group/ruboss-workshops

So, if you want to be first in line to buy a ticket (there will be an extremely limited number of tickets), I recommend signing up.

Questions: peter@ruboss.com
Q. What's Ruboss?
A. My company. (In mid-2007 I incorporated a BC company, Ruboss Technology Corporation, for the purposes of doing consulting and workshops.)

Q. What's a Google Group? Isn't it a big forum? Why don't you just have a mailing list?
A. A Google Group is just like a mailing list, except Google does all the work. The member list is private, so you can join it without exposing any personal information to the world. This is an announcement-only group, so only I can post to it.