Category Archives: general

the truth about mobile development

For my talk at LA RubyConf, I decided to share some truths about mobile development, in general, rather than focusing only on how it is different with Ruby using the Rhomobile platform.
The truth is that mobile development sucks. With Ruby, sometimes it sucks less. The unavoidable problem is that at the end of [...]

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agile development in action

I don’t know who first said that if you aren’t embarrassed about your v1 product, you waited too long to ship. At Mightyverse, we repeated that to ourselves as we struggled to release the first version of our iPhone app. After 2 weeks, we hit 128 downloads and I enjoyed reading my co-founder, [...]

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must we be arrogant jerks?

Much of Clay Shirky’s recent rant about women rang true to me. However, it took me much of the day, including talking with my friend Val Liberty to figure out what felt off about his rant. Over a whole day of dog walking, chatting over coffee and monopoly with the kids, we spent [...]

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how to look for a job

I recently gave the following advice about looking for a job. I thought maybe other folks would find it useful. It’s kind of a next generation job search, it’s an expansion of what Ted Leung called Job Search 2.0.

Write down your ideal job, then take a serious look at yourself and [...]

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ruby and rails classes in january

I’ve gotten a number of requests for follow-on training in San Francisco for Rails and the Ruby language, so here are some classes coming up in January.
Ruby on Rails class
Another Ruby on Rails training at Marakana is coming up January 19-22 — the deadline for early bird discount is Dec 29.  I was pleased to [...]

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fear stays silent while passion speaks

Cisco CTO, Padmasree Warrior, gave a thoughtful keynote speech for the Women of Vision event. I watched part 1 in May. Reminded by Anita Borg Institute’s Year in Review, I enjoyed watching part 2 and part 3.
She titled her talk: “fear stays silent while passion speaks,” which struck me as an important way [...]

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Japanese geek speak

It was inspiring to meet Matz, the creator of the Ruby language, and other Japanese Rubyists at last month’s RubyConf. Matz kindly recorded various phrases about Ruby in Japanese. Since then I’ve been working on learning katakana as an easy intro (perhaps) to the Japanese language.
For those who are unfamiliar with Japanese, katakana [...]

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agile scalability at engine yard

I attended the EngineYard Road Show a couple of weeks ago. I had low expectations for a mid-week corporate-sponsored event, but I found it to be unexpectedly good. I took a few notes on some of the presentations, which I’ve collected below:
Why Performance Matters
Tom Mornini of EngineYard told us about a Google search [...]

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ignite talk on mobile applications

I really enjoyed the Bay Area Ignite talks last night both giving mine and hearing the others. Preparing for a 5 minute talk was brutal, but giving it was really kind of fun. The format is 20 slides auto-rotated at 15 seconds per slide accompanied by a 5 minute talk.
Here are my slides:
Sarah [...]

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rubyconf hallway track

RubyConf had a most excellent “hallway track.” This was augmented by the fabulous Poken, which allowed you to “high-four” someone who you met and avoid rummaging around for business cards. It also let you look up someone’s name who you ought to know, but had forgotten.
This was the first time I attended [...]

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