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This meeting will focus on hands-on pair programming. Ginny Hendry led a great random pairing session in Elmhurst, so she's bringing her act downtown! People of every Ruby level are welcome to come and participate. Please come prepared with the following: a laptop with Ruby (http://ruby-lang.org) and RSpec (http://rspec.info) installed, a basic working knowledge of the Ruby language, a general knowledge of Conway's Game of Life (see Wikipedia).

Even if you've never programmed in Ruby, you're welcome to come and observe. You'll still have fun!

Please use your real name when you RSVP for downtown ChicagoRuby meetings. Reason: We are required to give a list of all attendees to the security desk prior to the meeting. If the name on your ID doesn't the match the name on the RSVP list, then Aon security will not let you in the building. Sorry for the inconvenience, but those are the rules of the Aon Building.

John W. Long created Radiant, a Rails-based CMS, here in Chicago. Sean Cribbs is the current lead developer for Radiant. Long and Cribbs will join us via videoconference for an in depth discussion of Radiant.

Radiant is a no-fluff content management system built with Ruby on Rails. Radiant makes it easy to get a new site up and running, but also makes it easy for developers to customize the experience for their users. We'll discuss Radiant's core features, demonstrate setting up a basic site with Radiant, and discuss how it can be customized through the powerful extension system.

Please use your real name when you RSVP for downtown ChicagoRuby meetings. Reason: We are required to give a list of all attendees to the security desk prior to the meeting. If the name on your ID doesn't the match the name on the RSVP list, then Aon security will not let you in the building. Sorry for the inconvenience, but those are the rules of the Aon Building.

Coding Dojo: Part Deux – Practice Harder! Deliberate practice over a long period of time is at the heart of attaining expertise. At this, our second coding dojo, we’ll be using RSpec, Cucumber and pair programming in concert to work through the Bowling Kata. Like last time, any skill level is welcome, though this time we plan to jump right into coding with very minimal setup.

For a head start, look for sites that discuss coding dojos and the Bowling Kata.

WindyCityRails
If you enjoy ChicagoRuby, consider WindyCityRails, a full-day conference with strong presenters & a big challenge: the Obtiva Coding Dojo. Visit http://windycityrails.org for details.

Our July 18 meeting will be a bold step for ChicagoRuby. Our presenter, Wolfram Arnold, is a Rails developer and agile consultant located in San Francisco. We will set up a remote connection with Wolf so that he can present at our meeting. If you are “poor” with model-based caching, stop by our meeting to learn more about Cache Money, which “is a write-through and read-through caching library for ActiveRecord.”

During the second half of the meeting, Constantin Gavrilescu will give a presentation about his startup, TruckerZoom. Constantin will speak from experience to talk about some of the lessons learned. The topics will include multi-tenant applications, security with role-based authentication, access control using named scopes, working and staying motivated, and getting specifications from the client.

Wolfram Arnold, Ph.D. is a seasoned software professional with 17 years of experience, co-founder of 3 companies, and has been working on consumer web applications in Ruby-on-Rails since 2006.

Constantin Gavrilescu has been working professionally with Ruby on Rails for 2.5 years. He first heard about it in a Slashdot comment 3 years ago. When he's not programming in Ruby, he develops with C in Linux and does some Linux system administration.

Do you need to create a simple web application? Do you think a big web framework may actually be too much for what you need? We all love Rails, yet at times it's just too much power for the task at hand. Matt Puchlerz will introduce Sinatra, a light-weight DSL used to quickly and easily create web applications. He will guide us through the creation of a simple web app, utilizing the Bowling::Game class we began creating during last month's coding dojo. Along the way, we'll see a little more Cucumber and/or RSpec, and maybe even some DataMapper.

After Matt's presentation, we will have an open discussion regarding the recent RailsConf 2009 in Las Vegas. Whether or not you were able to attend, come to discuss what you learned or find out what you missed. Find out what's in store for Rails 3 or discuss the tips for running a successful web startup. This section of the meeting will be more of an open format. If you have some good notes from the conference, please come share them with the community.