Ruby, Rails and life

Great Read: Egoless Programming

Once in a while an article comes along that really impresses me.  Please checkout Dad and the Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming by @wyattdanger . What a great story and its amazing that a book written in 1971 list rules that still hold true today.  A for sure must read for programmers. …

My Intern is all grown up

Yesterday was Ricks last day working with us...for now.  This spring I met Rick (@rickcarlino) at our local Ruby::AZ group.  He just started showing up to the meetings and we got to talking at the after meeting drinking hole.  Rick was ex-military and was excited to learn about Rails.  He had been learning Ruby on his own and was interested in web development.  Well, I decided to bring him on as an intern for RebeHold.  It was a great idea.

Rick was almost always the first person to get to HeatSyncLabs, a local hackerspace that we work out of, and usually one of the last to leave.  For about a month or so, Rick was there EVERY day.  The guy is like a sponge when it comes to learning new things.  He did so well that we soon started to pay him, albeit not a lot.  Rick continued to excel and was soon racking up more points getting stories done than the rest of us were.

RebelHold went thru its transition that I have written about before and I put Rick full time on the project that I was managing under Rebel Outpost.  I gave hime a raise; for one week.  The next week I tried out a sliding pay scale based on the user stories completed.  That week I paid Rick our full pay for apprentices.  Not mentioning numbers here but it was like a 280% pay raise.  Rick worked even harder.

Rick has an amazing desire to learn and it amazes me how much he retains.  In college for Korean and Business Management, he still wants to learn Mobile Apps, alternative programming languages, and anything to do with a computer!

Well, he is off to Korea for a semester and we will miss him dearly.  It was great to watch him go from unpaid intern to what he has become, a full fledged developer.  The good news to all of this is, he will one day come back, as long as he doesn't defect to North Korea, and when he comes back we will have a place for him here.

Be safe Ricky! …

@m3talsmith makes daily standup

Today, Michael was the first one on the standup call.  I had to blog this....... …

Rebel Outpost

Since we fired up the Rebel Outpost member of RebelHold, we have added a website for it.  In putting together the website, we had to think about what we want and who we are to put that up on our site.  It was interesting for us to sit back and discuss this.  I fell that we all have the same general idea in mind but there are parts where these ideas are different.

When we talked about what we want, it was quite apparent that the guys are mostly interested in mobile development.  I myself am totally fine with RoR web applications, but the others want to really get into mobile development.  A couple of the guys have already been involved in mobile development and spend the majority of their spare time working on mobile apps.  Even though we got our start as a RoR shop, I see the transition to adding mobile apps to our list of specialties.  We will always strive to learn new languages and to stay current with everything that we do.

The who we are part was pretty simple to define; a group of developers working as a collective as is the RebelHold way. We come from different backgrounds and make up a assortment of skills.  We work together on various projects as well as our own personal projects.  Most of what we do we leave as open source so that others may use it as well.  We feel that having a broad variety of talent gives us the edge in that we can provide many services to our clients.  We want to build the very best applications for you. 

Rebel Against the Norm …

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We recently had issues with a lot of our Rspec tests suddenly failing.  We were getting a Selenium Error that there was a Modal dialog present.  After a lot of wasted time troubleshooting, it was determined that FF v. 13 was causing the issue.  It appears that this was an issue last fall (http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/792131)  After following the recommendations from that forum article, we still had the modal dialog issue.

Our fix was to revert to FF v. 12 until they get things fixed.

Update: I also tested FF v. 14 and the same issue persists. …

The Progression of RebelHold

So it has been in the plans since it's inception, that Rebelhold would eventually morph into multiple "outposts" or "locations".  In the last couple of weeks, this has begun to transpire.  I was excited to recently create the "Rebel Outpost" group.  Additionally, Michael, after moving back to Michigan, created the "Deep Woods Brigade."  Fletcher is planning on creating his own group as well.

We are proud to be rolling out rebel-outpost.com.  We are still a member of the RebelHold family and for lack of a better explanation, we consider ourselves a subsidiary.  Our plan still remains to have a pool of resources with different specialties available across the country.

If you are interested in discussing your project ideas or interested in interning at one of our locations, please let us know. …

RebelHold growing the community

Things are really going great for RebelHold these days.  We are now the largest Ruby on Rails development shop in Arizona that is still taking on new projects.  It is because of this that we have been able to help community members to grow as developers.  I was asked a while back what it is that I have ever done for the community.  I have been training one of our new apprentices and I also brought a new Intern onboard.  We also added another apprentice and our Phoenix outpost has doubled in size in the last couple of months.

We also have added a couple of apprentices on in other states and are proud to be able to entertain any new RoR projects as they come along.  Our goal continues to be training our own developers.  We still do not charge to teach and in fact we pay our apprentices while they learn.

I feel proud to be able to help members of our community to learn RoR and earn at the same time.  I am proud to be part of RebelHold! …

Life as a Rails developer

So Holy Shit, I am coming up on my 7 month anniversary as a full time Ruby on Rails developer.  I guess the old adage that time flies when you are having fun.  So true indeed.

I figured that it has been a while since I posted and that I need to get with it again.  On a daily basis, I am still learning so many things.  I really need to share these findings and I will try to do more posting in the near future.

So being a partner with Rebelhold, LLC absolutely kicks ass.  We are still at 3 partners but we now have two paid apprentices and working on adding a third very soon.  It is so nice to be able to return the favor that Rebelhold showed me by teaching me RoR and how to be a good developer.  I am still lead developer on a big project and I have one paid intern that I am teaching now.  I have also brought on another intern that as of yet has not made it to paid status but I feel that is not so far off in the future.  I was asked a while back what I have done for the Ruby community, and this is what I have done and do.  To top that off, we do not charge to teach and on the contrary, we pay our interns to learn once they have established a basic knowledge of RoR.  It is a goal for us at Rebelhold to train apprentices to work for us.  If they choose not to work for us after the training, then so be it but we still intend to continue teaching members of our community, regardless of who they do to work for.

We as Rebelhold has risen to the go to Rails shop in Arizona.  Many of the other Rails shops do not have the resources available that we do.  We have dev's waiting for us to get more work so that they may come on board as well.  Rebelhold will continue to be a go to Rails shop and we plan on expanding to other languages and platforms as well.

Ok , so enough preaching for now.  I wanted to share some things that I learned over the last 7 months and hopefully somebody finds some of this as useful.  So here it goes........

• Keep learning
  • I don't care how many hours a day or days a week that you are working, find the time to learn something new EVERY day.  There are so many tutorials out there that there are too many to list.  A good way to end the day is to watch a tutorial or try something new.
• Write Code
  • A lot of beginners get stuck in the keep learning part.  Watching tutorials and coding along is great.  Studying all there is to know about Ruby and Rails is great.  However, you will learn the MOST by trial and error.  Write code, write code and write code.  Create as many blogs, fake store fronts or whatever you want to but keep writing code.
• Mentors
  • Aside from the fact that Rubyists are really arrogant, they love to talk about Ruby.  I have NEVER asked a question to a Ruby or Rails person that was not answered.  Find a local user group and go.  The last intern that I brought on was a guy brand new to RoR but I saw him at every Ruby::AZ monthly meeting.  Sometimes the desire to learn outweighs all.

That to me are the biggest things to get going.  Oh yes, there are a million other things that can help you get rolling but these are in my opinion the biggest.

Oh yeah, why would you want to be a RoR developer?  Supply and Demand is why.  The demand for RoR dev's is insane.  If you are a RoR dev and on LinkedIn, you will get job offers daily.  Write a blog about RoR and you will get even more job offers.  The job market for RoR devs is totally all demand.

One last thing....I hated my old job and it was exactly that, a job.  If web development is your thing and you like Ruby on Rails, then I say do it.  Keep learning and get Earning!

BR

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Ruby and Rails 101 Course

For quite some time I have wanted to put together a Ruby and Rails 101 course for the community at no charge for attendees.  I recently posted a message on the Ruby::AZ google group to see what interest was there.  Although it seems that there is a greater need for intermediate classes, I still believe that we should start at the beginner level and if that is successful then we can have a more advanced course.

The plan is to have a weekly class most located in Phoenix/Tempe area.  I feel that once a month class is too much time in between.  Once we have the course planned, we will know how many weeks we are looking at.  I want the classes to be hands-on and last 1 - 2 hours.

So, as it stands it looks like RebelHold and our friends at Flatterline along with the Ruby::AZ group are going to make this happen.  I have had several people volunteer to help out and that is yet another example of how great the Ruby community is!

Why are we doing this?  If you have read my blog before, it is obvious that I do not like seeing people getting charged to learn programming.  Charging a company to do training is one thing but we as the Ruby community owe it to ourselves and others to help develop new Ruby programmers.  At RebelHold, we bring in apprentices and train them.  After they have made the transition, they are made partners.  So by offering this course, we are developing programmers that might work with us some day.  I owe a lot to many people that took the time to teach me Ruby and to help me learn.  Time to return the favor.

If you are interested in attending or would like to help out with the classes, please email me or go to the Ruby::AZ google group and post a message. …

Why RebelHold kicks Ass!

Well, I have been a bit busy lately and it seems like I have a thousand things that I want to work on.  If I can only find the energy and the time to do so.....

So, this is about why Rebelhold totally kicks ass!  A couple of weeks ago I was made partner!!  How is that for advancement opportunity?  Do I miss my old corporate America job?  Fuck NO!

So here I am now a co-owner in a company owned and operated by its employees.  I know that I have ranted before about the awesome opportunity that RebelHold has given me.  I had the desire to become a Rails programmer but who hires anybody these days with no college or experience?  McDonalds, that's who.

RebelHold will soon be a major name in the Rails web development community.  I want RebelHold to be the premium place for Ruby and Rails developers.  We are a collective of developers that encourage people to learn Ruby and Rails and we also believe it is our job to assist in the learning process.  We are building a community of programmers and designers and continuously improving ourselves with in house training and classes.  We have recently made the decision that Fridays are to be set aside for just that purpose.  Who can go to work with us?  Pretty much anybody that has a strong desire to be the best.  You will have to prove yourself to us that you have the desire and willpower to become one of us. We freely support our apprenticeship program and encourage all of those interested.  We are currently expanding our knowledge base to include IOS development as well.  We have members in several states now and are always interested in new talent.  In @m3talsmith's own words:

"We believe that through working under such equal conditions, both to us and our clients, and through such revolutionary processes as being honest with each others skill sets, teaching each other, growing in a community that seeks the most quality out of everything that we do, that we will create great software.

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