Hashrocket Articles

Mentoring at Jacksonville Startup Weekend

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Paul and I recently had the privilege to mentor at Jacksonville Startup Weekend. Paul gave a preparatory talk to the 150-odd participants about how to deliver a MVP (minimum viable product), and we both provided mentorship to teams throughout the event.

You can read more about the event in the official recap, or if you’re a Jacksonville Business Journal subscriber, there’s a good writeup here.

We saw a lot of potential in the ideas that were worked on over the weekend, and wish the best to all of the teams involved. Startup Weekend is just another way that we here at Hashrocket are looking to give back to the Jacksonville community, and we’re excited for future opportunities to do more!

While we don’t have footage from the event, here’s the video that Kaz put together to give Startup Weekend folks an idea of what Hashrocket is all about. Enjoy!

Hashrocket Loves: Code and Coffee

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Code and Coffee is a weekly event that several of us at Hashrocket Chicago have been attending regularly since it started this past summer, and are now starting up in Jacksonville Beach. It takes place every week on Tuesday morning at 7am.

For Jacksonville, see: http://www.meetup.com/jax-code-and-coffee

For Chicago, follow Dave Lyon or Mike Busch on Twitter, or just stop by the Starbucks at Chicago and Franklin 7am on Tuesday.

Originating in Columbus, OH, Code and Coffee was brought to Chicago by Mike Busch, and to Jacksonville Beach by Rocketeer Paul Elliott

What do you do?

Code and Coffee, as the name implies, is mostly about coding and drinking coffee. An alternative to after work meetups, Code and Coffee works out well for people with evening commitments who still want to get together with fellow coders and discuss their craft.

The activities on a given day are as varied as the people in attendance. Sometimes there are discussions of new programming techniques and ideas. If you need help, there’s always someone willing to pair with you or teach you something. In general, it’s a meetup to practice, learn and grow as a developer.

Who goes to this thing?

Anyone and everyone. There are no requirements to attend, and no specific language or skill set targeted.

Here are some quotes from Rocketeers that have attended:

“[I love that I] can always go there for some quick discussion about code or to see what people are working on at the time.”

— Aaron Kalin

“As a dad, I can’t make it to many after work community events. Having an early morning hack time set aside is great for this family man.”

— Brian Dunn

“I made the mistake of coming to code and coffee the first time without my laptop. Luckily it’s as much about people as it is code!”

— Stephen Caudill

“I like both code and coffee”

— Josh Davey

Not in Chicago or Jacksonville?

Not to worry! There might be a Code and Coffee near you. Check out http://codeandcoffee.info to see if there is one near you!

Introducing: Dave Lyon

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

A recent graduate of our Apprenticeship program, Dave Lyon is our newest Rocketeer in the Chicago office. Hailing from Normal, Illinois (Yes, really!) He’s quickly adjusting to life in the city. Having spent the last four years at Northern Michigan University in quiet Marquette, Michigan, it’s been quite an adjustment indeed!

Dave has a bachelors in Computer Science, and enjoys programming in Ruby, Smalltalk, and Objective-C. When not programming, he enjoys live theatre, movies and reading. You might find him at various meetups around Chicago, his personal favorite is “Code and Coffee” every Tuesday at the Starbucks on Chicago and Franklin.

Please join us in welcoming Dave Lyon to Hashrocket!

Ruby Developer Meetups: Chicago

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

In anticipation of a large group of new Rubyists coming to Chicago in October via Code Academy, I thought it would be helpful to put together a resource for various meetups around Chicago.

First, you might consider signing up for Geek Out Chicago! — a monthly newsletter of events around Chicago.

Here’s a list of meetups that occur at least monthly:

Code and Coffee: Meets every Tuesday at the Starbucks by the brown line stop at Chicago and Franklin. 7AM – 9AM
Chicago Ruby: Meets several times a month in various locations. A great place to meet your fellow Rubyists. Chicago Ruby on Meetup
- Downtown Chicago: On the first Tuesday of each month. 6PM-6:30PM pizza & networking. 6:30PM – 8PM meeting.
- Elmhurst: On the third Saturday of each month at 10:30AM.
- Hack Nights: As scheduled.
VimChi: Hosted by Hashrocket Chicago, this meetup happens once a month and covers various plugins and techniques for using Vim. Vim Chicago on Meetup
Geekfest: Groupon has continued Obtiva’s tradition of weekly Geekfests. Covers a wide range of topics around Ruby, Agile, Startups, Databases… etc. Geekfest on GathersUs
Geek Breakfast: Once a month, Chicago’s geek community meets for breakfast at Wow Bao at State and Lake. Events are posted on GathersUs
Chicago Javascript: Talks about anything and everything regarding Javascript. Chicago Javascript on Meetup
Chicago NodeJS: Hosted by Hashrocket Chicago, this meetup is all about NodeJS. Chicago NodeJS on Meetup

Did I miss one? Tweet me @daveisonthego and I’ll add it to the list!

We're hosting a hackfest!

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Have you ever wanted to contribute back to Rails? Hashrocket Chicago will be hosting a 2-day hackfest to help test the upcoming 3.1 release. The purpose is to help iron out any outstanding bugs or issues before they officially release. You can upgrade an existing Rails project, make a new one or check open bugs and reproduce some of the issues.

If you’re interested, pelase visit the signup page at gathers.us

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Hashrocket University 2011 Recap

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This year, we were fortunate enough to host our second Hashrocket University course on Rails development.

Pair programming is a core piece of our learning culture and sharing of knowledge. While there are a few opportunities through Craftsmanship shops and apprentice programs to engage in this immersive style of learning, the majority of short-term training available to the Ruby community is classroom-driven.

We sought to turn that model on its head by offering a small class size, top-end workstations, and a 1:1 Rocketeer-to-student ratio. This allows us to provide attendees with a private tutor for two full days of pair programming focused on the areas where they personally want to improve and dig deep. We interviewed the attendees to get their feedback, and this is what they had to say:

Announcing "In The Spotlight"

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

We’re happy to announce our new video series: ‘In the Spotlight’. In this series, we interviewed a variety of talented folks at RailsConf to find out what they’ve been up to and what interesting products are springing up in the rails community.

Here’s the first of many videos:

We’ll be posting a new video each day to the In The Spotlight channel on the Hashrocket Vimeo. Hope you enjoy!

RailsConf 2011: Q&A

Mon, 23 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Who was the most interesting Rubyist you met at RC2011?

Matt: Probably Wayne. He has a very vibrant personality and wore sesame street boxers. You could hear him laughing all the way down the hall.

What was the biggest thing you missed out on while you were at RC2011?

Dave: I didn’t have any crab cakes and didn’t make it to BoatConf [a few Rocketeers rented a room on a boat and dubbed it BoatConf – ed]. I really wanted to pair with some people but no one seemed to want to. Although BohConf was a lot of fun, it would have been cool to see some of the talks as well. Probably the biggest thing I’m upset about is missing the music jam. I just totally spaced on it.

What was your favorite interview?

Paul: It’s hard to narrow it down to just one. I really enjoyed talking to Chad Pytel from Thoughtbot about how they manage themselves for both client and product work. I talked to Jeff Casimir from JumpStart Labs about the upsurge of training offerings in the industry. Jeff is great…I love talking with him. I also had a great conversation with Brian Doll from [NewRelic][] about some of the new features on their platform, which I am really looking forward to trying out. I was really interested in the comments by Anthony Aeden from DNSsimple and LivingSocial about the mentality on InfoEther’s side of the aquisition. I don’t think I can pick just one.

What was the coolest camera equipment you saw while you were at RC2011?

Kaz: Mine.

Did you learn any new testing tricks from the conference sessions?

Thais: I really liked how Chelimsky explained his point of view and how to remove duplication. He showed some examples of RSpec and some things he doesn’t like about the library. Even though everything he mentioned is not new to me, it was still good to watch because he is a very good speaker.

Another cool thing he talked about was how to think about being DRY. Sometimes being DRY causes you to tightly couple pieces of the system that shouldn’t be coupled and this can cause problems down the road. He said that a little bit of duplication is OK in certain circumstances.

What was different about this year’s RailsConf versus previous years?

Thais: This year had a big focus on frontend development. There were talks on backbone-js, coffeescript, and page load performance. This is a topic that has been largely overlooked by the industry for a long time. Even the organization of javascript in Rails 3.1 has had an overhaul and is greatly improved. The asset pipelines are much more sophisticated. DHH discussed some of this in his keynote and it was followed up by a few of the talks throughout the conference.

Describe your conference experience in 1 word.

Paul: inspiring
Caleb: welcoming
Thais: motivador
Dave: connecting
Aaron: enlightening
Matt: gin

SXSW Interactive 2011: Q&A

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Our design team (plus Kaz and Marian) journeyed to SXSW this year, and came away with full brains and fuller stomachs. Here’s just a tiny bit of what happened, from each person’s (unique) perspective.

What was your most memorable moment?

Daniel: Picking a single moment as the best is difficult because they range from technical learning experiences to the totally absurd. On Sunday night Hashrocket sponsored BeerCamp 2011 — it was great to cut loose with our team and evangelize Hashrocket.

Doris: Memorable? Good choice of words … because chances are i don’t remember everything ;)

Cameron: I ate barbecued pork on a donut, and it was FREE. I’m proud to be an American. (Thanks to Gordough’s for the donut, and the Squarespace food truck for the price.)

Marian: A pedicab ride uphill with three of us on board!

Kaz: Most memorable: First seeing Jake Gyllenhaal in Uchi then getting rejected when trying to get a photograph with him. Most favorite: Being in a really cool town with loads of great food, meeting awesome people, hanging out with friends and of course going to see The Foo Fighters.

What was your least favorite experience?

Daniel: Deciding which panel discussions to attend is difficult. It’s a real hit or miss process to choose one. I attended one panel that featured some well known names in our industry only to find that there seemed to be no preparation, agenda or theme to the discussion. It ended up becoming a weak discussion of the obvious. It was quite disappointing.

Doris: Missing our flight and being fearful of missing a day of SXSW. That would have been tragic.

Cameron: Getting five minutes into a panel and realizing it’s a bust, which happened a few times. Every year I root for the conference portion to become more well-executed.

Marian: Airport drama! And waiting in line for coffee at Starbucks in the Hilton Lobby.

Kaz: Missing the airplane to Austin. [ed: obviously we made it there, after much grief and confusion. Thanks for nothing, TSA]

What was your favorite panel?

Daniel: On the flip side of the hit or miss process, there were some real winners in the bunch. I attended an iPad UI talk that was quite informative, another on using visual data to discover music that kept me thinking and the geek in me loved the panel where sci-fi film UI designers discussed their work.

Doris: GeekFit. Robert Jolly, Derek Featherstone and I have been trying to come up with a way to promote health/fitness in the workplace for a few years now. The panel explored some of the long-term health risks associated with our obsession with all things digital and too little time maintaining an active, healthy lifestyle. Lots of ideas were tossed out and we’re continuing the conversations — search Twitter for #geekfit Next year at SXSW, expect some bigger and more exciting things surrounding this topic!

Cameron: John Gruber, Jim Coudal, and Michael Lopp hosted a panel about their personal approaches to creativity & writing. It took place approximately 739 blocks away in the basement of the Sheraton, but was absolutely worth the early time slot, taxi drive, overcrowding, and heatstroke.

Marian: The Lean Start-Up panel.

Kaz: A Conversation with James Gunn, ~~Ellen Page~~ and Rainn Wilson. I also enjoyed the various 15 minute closing panels on using video to help your business.

What was the most delicious thing you ate?

Daniel: The best food I consumed by far was from a Japanese fusion restaurant call Uchi. Apparently the chef has competed on Iron Chef and is culinary wizard from the future. Everything I ate seemed to be prepared with magical unicorn dust and continued to get better with each plate they brought to the table. I also ate a donut filled with potato salad and smothered in BBQ pulled pork. I felt very guilty afterward … but not that much.

Doris: That’s a hard question to answer. I’m big into raw foods and walked myself to Whole Foods every single day to indulge on some incredible eats. One of my favorites was the pad thai Kaz and I made in our hotel room from julienned zucchini, carrots, yellow squash, peppers and pad thai sauce from the raw bar. The best thing i ate though, had to be the dinner of high caliber amazingness that is Uchi.

Cameron: Yes, Uchi was even more delicious than the pork-on-a-donut. Even more.

Marian: Sushi!

Kaz: Whole Food’s Raw Pad Thai, oh and ALL of the food at Uchi. Austin has great food!

Sum up your SXSWi experience in one word.

Daniel: QR Codes

Doris: Ridiculous.

Cameron: Meat.

Marian: Inspiring.

Kaz: Epic.

Welcome to the new Hashrocket.com

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

On behalf of the whole team here at Hashrocket, welcome to our new web presence! We hope it helps you get a better handle on who we are, what we do, and why our clients will tell you that we’re one of the most uniquely capable Web consultancies out there.

This time around, we’re really focusing on 3 things that you may not know about Hashrocket:

We’re a full-service design AND development shop,
We love (and love contributing to) the open source community, and
We’re always looking for apprentices, training opportunities, and ways to distribute knowledge to you and yours.

So, have a look around, and be sure to check out our many open source contributions, our training opportunities, and our newest projects.

Also, if you’re curious about how we do things here, check out our updated Process page for an enlightening walkthrough.

Our hope is that developers, designers, and prospective clients alike find something helpful & informative here. Thanks for stopping by, and we wish you all the best.

Hashrocket University 2011 is coming up!

Sat, 12 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

We launched Hashrocket University in 2010 at Railsconf and had a tremendous first class. The feedback we received from the attendees afterward was that they got a lot out of Hashrocket University but the would have benefitted from three things, a venue that was more development friendly, a higher instructor to attendee ratio and a longer format that allowed for more time pairing.

This year we are excited to be hosting the Spring 2011 Hashrocket University at our headquarters in Jacksonville Beach, FL. This will allow us to host the class on our home turf with first class development equipment and surroundings. This also allowed us to raise the instructor to student ratio to 2 to 1. Each pair will have their own Rocketeer tailoring the instruction to the areas they want to get better at. We have expanded the format from one day to two days and modified the course content to focus primarily on pairing with attendees.

The class will be limited to 18 attendees. It includes two nights of beach front hotel accommodations, a welcome reception Friday night, breakfast and lunch both days, and two days of pairing working with veteran Rocketeers. Plus you’ll get a sweet t-shirt and other cool swag. If you have any questions drop us an email at university@hashrocket.com and you can book tickets at the official Hashrocket University site.

Trip Report: Magic Ruby 2011

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

On February 4th, 2011 I got to go hang out with my fellow Rubyists at Magic Ruby Conf in Orlando, FL! It was fun getting to see lots of familiar faces and to hear what other peeps are working on.

Former Rocketeer, Les Hill’s talk on ‘Cuking it right’ was a great summary of the integration testing we’ve been doing here at Hashrocket. Chad Fowler’s keynote was, as always, insightful and thought-provoking! Avdi Grimm’s Exceptional Ruby talk was a journey through Ruby’s exception mechanism, exploring many ways of taming this beast.

The conference was held at Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Orlando, FL — we were able to get an awesome group rate for the resort hotel, which also provided quick access to the parks. It’s definitely worth the trip for any level of Rubyist and their family!

Make sure to check out:

Book Club recap: Javascript Patterns

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Hashrocket Book Club is a chance for Rocketeers and viewers like you to meet up at 12:12 each week and walk through a book on any number of topics.

In the past we’ve done Ruby books, David Allen’s Getting Things Done, usability books, you name it … but we just wrapped up a multi-week session on Stoyan Stefanov’s Javascript Patterns.

It was an interesting couple of months, to be sure. While we found some common ground in many of his patterns (and a few were downright enlightening), there were definitely some sections that could have used a couple of more revisions, especially towards the end of the book.

But that’s exactly why Book Club is great! With enough heads in the same space, those iffy parts tend to be caught more often than not, and make for great discussion material.

Here’s episode 1 in all of its Javascripty glory.

You can watch the rest of the episodes here on our Vimeo. Enjoy!