Matthew Bass

Presentations

Git with Ruby

Git is the hottest source control system available today. Come see why this open source project has taken the Ruby world by storm and learn how you can put it to use next week by leveraging several excellent Ruby libraries.

Git presents several compelling advantages over other source control systems. It's blazing fast, uses disk space very efficiently, and stores a local copy of the repository enabling check-ins without a network connection. We'll briefly examine how Git works and then dive into how to leverage the power of Git in your Ruby scripts.

Homesteading: The New Entrepreneurial Model

Many years ago a community would come together to help a neighbor get started. They'd all pitch in, knowing that when they needed help, those same friends would come to their aid as well. This model of community self-sufficiency has been recycled in the software world.

In this talk you'll learn how Matt is still using the homesteading model to build his consultancy, and how others are doing the same. You'll get enough of a grounding to move forward on your own, or help someone else while you learn more.

Power Ajax with JQuery

JQuery is a lightweight alternative to the Prototype JavaScript library. It offers a more concise syntax than Prototype as well as powerful built-in features that aren't available elsewhere. Come learn how to leverage JQuery and Ruby to integrate powerful and visually entertaining Ajax functionality into your web applications.

JQuery is a lightweight alternative to the Prototype JavaScript library. It offers a more concise syntax than Prototype as well as powerful built-in features that aren't available elsewhere. Come learn how to leverage JQuery and Ruby to integrate powerful and visually entertaining Ajax functionality into your web applications.

Unobtrusive JavaScript: Stop Cluttering Your HTML

Separation of concerns is important, especially when building web applications with Ruby. Making JavaScript unobtrusive is a technique whereby the JavaScript is pulled out into a third layer alongside the HTML and CSS. Obtrusive JavaScript damages the readability of your markup and causes problems for browsers. JavaScript should always be unobtrusive. Come learn how to write it that way from the very beginning.

Separation of concerns is important, especially when building web applications with Ruby. Making JavaScript unobtrusive is a technique whereby the JavaScript is pulled out into a third layer alongside the HTML and CSS. Obtrusive JavaScript damages the readability of your markup and causes problems for browsers. JavaScript should always be unobtrusive. Come learn how to write it that way from the very beginning.

Building and Publishing Ruby Gems

Ruby packages are called gems. A gem simply contains application or library code. The gem command is used to download, install, and manage Ruby gems on your system. A great way to distribute your own Ruby code is to distribute it as a gem. Together, we'll go step-by-step through the process of building and publishing your own gem for the world to see.

Ruby packages are called gems. A gem simply contains application or library code. The gem command is used to download, install, and manage Ruby gems on your system. Like a traditional UNIX package manager, gem makes it very easy to grab code from the web and try it out on your system. A great way to distribute your own Ruby code is to distribute it as a gem. Together, we'll go step-by-step through the process of building and publishing your own gem for the world to see. Several libraries that make it easier to build a gem will also be covered.

Leveraging Custom Markup in Ruby

Several robust markup languages have risen up around Ruby. These include ERB, HAML, YAML, and several others. Join us for a brief overview of these languages. Learn the advantages and disadvantages of each, how to leverage them in your own applications, and how to construct your own custom markup library in Ruby.

Several robust markup languages have risen up around Ruby. These include ERB, HAML, YAML, and several others. Join us for a brief overview of these languages. Learn the advantages and disadvantages of each, how to leverage them in your own applications, and how to construct your own custom markup library in Ruby.

Generating Rich PDFs with Prawn

Prawn is a Ruby library that was developed with the goal of making PDF generation in Ruby easy and fast. It gives an order of magnitude speed increase over its predecessors like PDF::Writer. The markup is straightforward yet powerful and can be leveraged to generate very professional looking PDF documents. Join us for an introduction to the library. We will walk through several examples of how to generate various types of PDFs from both vanilla Ruby scripts and Rails applications.

Prawn is a Ruby library that was developed with the goal of making PDF generation in Ruby easy and fast. It gives an order of magnitude speed increase over its predecessors like PDF::Writer. The markup is straightforward yet powerful and can be leveraged to generate very professional looking PDF documents. Join us for an introduction to the library. We will walk through several examples of how to generate various types of PDFs from both vanilla Ruby scripts and Rails applications.

Which Ruby Testing Framework Should I Use?

Ruby has dozens of different testing libraries, each with its own strengths and weaknesses and each taking a slightly different approach to testing. How can we possibly choose which one to use?

In this workshop, we will compare and contrast several of of the more popular libraries including Test::Unit, RSpec, Shoulda, and Cucumber. Plenty of interactive code demonstrations will be given. You will leave better equipped to make an intelligent decision about which library to use on your next Ruby project.