RI Ruby Group and Rails Shops

Posted on July 31st, 2008, by Craig Jolicoeur

General Discussion

Are there any Ruby on Rails shops in RI? Everyone I talk to in RI (especially recruiters) have literally never even heard of Ruby on Rails. Is RI so entrenched in Java and .NET technologies that there are no companies using Rails?

On another note, any kind of Ruby User group interest in Rhode Island. It's getting tiresome traveling to the Boston and MetroWest ruby groups up in MA all the time. Wondering if there is any interest in having a Rhode Island group

Comments

owen

Submitted on July 31st, 2008 - 5:11pm link

Rentomatic, BatchBlue, and Public Display are both shops that primarily(potentially exclusively) use Ruby on Rails for developing their products. I personally would be interested in A Ruby Users Group in PVD.

mauclair

Submitted on July 31st, 2008 - 5:17pm link

I would definitely be interested in a Ruby Users Group in Providence.

cpjolicoeur

Submitted on July 31st, 2008 - 7:06pm link

If we can get enough interest I definitely think we should consider starting a monthly user group

matt.gillooly

Submitted on July 31st, 2008 - 7:34pm link

I'd be game for that.

JackTemplin

Submitted on August 1st, 2008 - 9:12am link

Rhody on Rails graphic:

Rhody on Rails

From an early RI Nexus blog post.

cpjolicoeur

Submitted on August 1st, 2008 - 10:32am link

Well, maybe I'll send an email to the boston groups mailing list and see if there are other RI users that maybe we could poach from the MA groups.

Any idea on locations in Providence that we could use?

sransom

Submitted on August 1st, 2008 - 6:01pm link

I would be in.

-sean

JackTemplin

Submitted on August 1st, 2008 - 6:05pm link

If you all do create a RoR group, some of the rest of us will have to respond with a Django posse to keep you in check. Kinda like the Sharks and Jets. Kinda... ;-)

cpjolicoeur

Submitted on August 1st, 2008 - 9:58pm link

Hey, when you're a Jet your a Jet all the way...

matt.gillooly

Submitted on August 1st, 2008 - 6:49pm link

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

adarowski

Submitted on August 2nd, 2008 - 12:10am link

Count me in as well. While I'm not really a Rails developer, I do play one on TV.

cpjolicoeur

Submitted on August 2nd, 2008 - 11:39am link

It sounds like we could have a decent turnout if we actually put this together.

So lets start brainstorming on a location and time.

cpjolicoeur

Submitted on August 2nd, 2008 - 11:58am link

I went ahead and formed a RI RUG blog site just to preserve our potential "future assets".

http://rirug.wordpress.com/

I really hope we can get this started and create a decent user group here. And it really can be a tech group if there aren't that many Ruby enthusiasts in the state. I know I'm personally interested in many other programming languages than just Ruby as well hardware related tech projects.

JackTemplin

Submitted on August 5th, 2008 - 7:12am link

Cool, Craig, and awesome tagline - "Why should Massachusetts have all the fun?" :-)

So when are you thinking the first meeting should be?

cpjolicoeur

Submitted on August 5th, 2008 - 11:44am link

Not really sure. I guess it mostly still depends on interest from the community.

Also, I'm wondering if perhaps it shouldn't be more of an RI New Tech group instead of just Ruby centric. That way we'd have more interest and much more diverse crowd. The Python crowd, the hardware hacking crowd, the web designer crowd, etc... all have valuable stuff to contribute and I think we all could get something out of it. Plus it would give us a larger group of people to choose from.

Perhaps that isn't a good idea though and not having a specific enough scope would dilute interest? What are your thoughts? I've never really spearheaded a user group before so I'm not really sure.

As far as dates, I guess we need to figure out a few possible locations and then see what times/dates we can use the facilities to actually hold a meeting.

matt.gillooly

Submitted on August 5th, 2008 - 12:10pm link

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.

cpjolicoeur

Submitted on August 5th, 2008 - 12:28pm link

Yeah, very good point.

So keeping it Ruby specific seems like the way to go (but I wouldn't mind the Python guys popping up every now and then just to keep us in line!)

bjepson

Submitted on August 5th, 2008 - 12:28pm link

I'd agree with Matt's suggestion to keep it focused on Ruby or programming. However, there are a couple of groups that are doing hardware hacking if you'd like to check them out:

DC401 (monthly--a mix of security and hardware)

AS220's Make and Break Wednesdays (every week where there isn't a Geek Dinner or DC401 meetup)

- Brian

hmason

Submitted on August 5th, 2008 - 5:46pm link

I'm much more of a "Python guy" than a "Ruby guy", but I love the idea of a developer-focused meetup. The Providence PHP Meetup (there's one tonight!) has been morphing over time into a more general web development discussion, but it certainly can't hurt to add another gathering.

- Hilary

joealba

Submitted on August 6th, 2008 - 11:44am link

I'm in for the RoR group.

And if we can get enough interest locally, I'd also love to try to organize a local training / seminar on RoR from someone high up in the RoR ranks.

When I was a Perl Guy, I took a few seminars in Boston with Damian Conway that really jacked up my Perl chops. Now I'm ready for the Rails equivalent.