Perhaps the biggest pain I've felt working on a medium-sized* team/Rails project is keeping (1) the spec, (2) the tests, and (3) the AFC (Actual Frickin' Code) in sync with each other.

I know it will always take some amount of dilligence to keep those ducks in a row, but I have some thoughts towards a Rails plugin that might alleviate *some* of the pain.  I have absolutely no code to show for this yet, but an October RIRUG meetup might give me a reasonable deadline to shoot for an 0.1 release (or at least organizing my thoughts enough to present them).

 

* On a small-sized team that's all on the same page, I fully believe you can say "screw you" to specs.  But I'm starting to believe this may be less reasonable as the scope of work increases.  As a sidebar discussion, I am also *always* down to argue about this over a few beers.

There may be some projects for Mashable City that make sense to approach with Ruby, absolutely.

So far, the push has been to use open & free web services (Google Maps, Del.icio.us, Flickr, etc) as much as possible, glued together with Javascript.  The more that is hidden away on a server somewhere, the harder it would be for other communities to both duplicate our progress and extend it.

That said, the goal is to make it easier for folks within a community (primarily the greater Providence area) to mashup various relevant but disparate data sources.  Any project in Ruby, or any other language, which moved that effort forward would have my full support, and without speaking for Allan, I expect his support as well.

So, we don't have any Ruby code yet to show, but I would be happy to talk about our efforts and show what code we do have.  Perhaps I could even suggest some open problems within the space that might be ripe for RIRUG to attack.

New technology might be too broad, and perhaps more importantly, lack a strong differentiation from ProvidenceGeeks.org.  If not language-specific, keeping it at least programming-focused seems like a good way to handle both concerns.

I'm starting a QBasic group.  Deal with it.

I'd be game for that.

The werewolves are getting antsy again!  If you don't stop them, who will?

Our next meetup will be Wednesday, July 2nd @ 7pm at Jake's Bar and Grille.  Please do me a favor and RSVP at http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/838265 if you think you might attend!

 

Also, there's been a decent stream of Werewolf-related news in our Google Group of late.  It's enough off-topic for RI Nexus that I don't want to cross-post everything, so please join us there if you're truly committed to ridding our village of this quasi-canine epidemic.

Does anyone have any info on the AT&T monthly service fees for 3G?  If it were going to be the same as the EDGE plans, I feel like they would have specifically announced that...?

Okay!  We're confirmed for this Wednesday (6/4) at 7pm at Jake's.  This is the same place we met last time, and I think we've even got the same spot in the back, up on the "stage".

Details and RSVP at http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/756010

Although this is the second installment of Providence Werewolf, it will be the first one I am playing in (having moderated all the rounds last time).  So, try to show up early, as this is your first opportunity to kill me in the game!

I can't wait to see you all there!  Cheers,

Matt

Round 2!

I'm organizing another round of Werewolf! Last time was a lot of fun, and I hope we can make this one even bigger and better.

It'll be sometime next week, tentatively Wednesday 6/4 at 7pm.  Finalized details will appear in our brand new Google Group at http://groups.google.com/group/providence-werewolf sometime over the weekend.

Not yet- again, I'm the only one so far to officially request it at http://demand.openid.net/site/fusecal.com.  I encourage anyone who would use it to demand it as well... the more people who do, the sooner we'll fit it into our dev cycle.  :-)