Hi Joel,

Your list of languages suggests an interest in OO people.  If that's the
case, Smalltalk might be acceptable to you.
In general, I like your requirements and I feel we may be a good match.  So,
I am attaching my resume.

Victor

------------------------------------------------------

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joel Nylund" <jnylund@...>
To: <novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 10:42 AM
Subject: [novarubygroup] hiring software engineers


> We are currently looking to hire intelligent people who can
> communicate well.
>
> In addition they must have several years of J2EE, .NET, PHP, or Ruby
> on Rails software development experience.
>
> We are looking for people who are the best in what they do. This means
> that they write better quality software than most, fix bugs quicker
> than most, and can communicate ideas and solve problems on their own
> or in a group.
>
> If you are one of these people and:
>
> - you have an entrepreneurial spirit,
> - you are tired of working for a company where marketing guys are
> selling software that doesn't exist;
> - you are tired of project managers incorrectly estimating software
> development efforts,
> - you know that being an architect is more than just passing some tests,
> - you consider your programming skill a craft that you are constantly
> improving,
> - you always comment your code,
> - you can write,
> - you can communicate,
> - you are honest, and
> - you are better than 80% of the software developers you have met
> - you are always learning new stuff
> - you like change, new projects, new technologies, new challenges....
>
> then please contact us (email me or go to solutionstreet.com & click
> contact us).
>
> Please no brokers or 3rd party contacts. Benefits include competitive
> salary, health, dental, disability and 401K and a great work
> environment. Strong testers (with scripting experience) are welcome too!
>
>
> thanks
> Joel
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

We are currently looking to hire intelligent people who can
communicate well.

In addition they must have several years of J2EE, .NET, PHP, or Ruby
on Rails software development experience.

We are looking for people who are the best in what they do. This means
that they write better quality software than most, fix bugs quicker
than most, and can communicate ideas and solve problems on their own
or in a group.

If you are one of these people and:

- you have an entrepreneurial spirit,
- you are tired of working for a company where marketing guys are
selling software that doesn't exist;
- you are tired of project managers incorrectly estimating software
development efforts,
- you know that being an architect is more than just passing some tests,
- you consider your programming skill a craft that you are constantly
improving,
- you always comment your code,
- you can write,
- you can communicate,
- you are honest, and
- you are better than 80% of the software developers you have met
- you are always learning new stuff
- you like change, new projects, new technologies, new challenges....

then please contact us (email me or go to solutionstreet.com & click
contact us).

Please no brokers or 3rd party contacts. Benefits include competitive
salary, health, dental, disability and 401K and a great work
environment. Strong testers (with scripting experience) are welcome too!


thanks
Joel

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

All,

On 11/12/2009 3:37 PM, Charles Calvert wrote:

[snip]

> Has anyone tried to teach children around that age to program? If so,
> do you have any suggestions for resources and tools? Did you use Ruby?

Thanks for all of your suggestions.  I've passed them on to my colleague
and will keep them in mind if my own kids show an interest.

--
Charles Calvert
Celtic Wolf, Inc.
(703) 580-0210
charles.calvert@...
http://www.celticwolf.com/

Hi all,
I'm using Rails to build a web service that takes a POST of XML with a chunk of
base64-encoded binary data and some metadata.  I want to save the decoded binary
as a file on the file system and associate it with an ActiveRecord object that
includes the metadata.

I know Paperclip is great at this kind of thing, but in going through the docs
and playing around with it a bit, it seems to have a big emphasis on being used
for images, having different versions of the binary file, etc.  I don't need any
of that, so I was wondering if anyone

a) has an alternative all-in-one (a la Paperclip) solution they like for this
kind of thing -- but one that is less image-oriented OR
b) has any tips on setting up Paperclip for this more stripped-down usage

thanks for any info,

-TR

http://ruby.about.com/b/2009/10/22/how-can-twitter-help-you-find-a-job-as-a-ruby\
-developer.htm
- since two people were looking for jobs at our last meeting, this
seems like a good link to mention.

--
tzim bin - David Medinets, Affy Advice & Coding
http://www.affy.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/affyadvice

I suppose it is up to you to present whatever you want. I didn't sense much of a
consensus in our responses.

I will through up your bio and something vague in the sign up for now I can
replace that when you get me a topic description.  I am sure this will be cool
regardless of what the actual content is.  Thanks for doing this. I am looking
forward to it.

Gray

--- In novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com, Aman Gupta <yahoo@...> wrote:
>
> The threading talk dives into some technical details, but it focuses
> primarily on the tools and techniques used to debug ruby's threading
> issues. Ideally you would come away with enough knowledge to be able
> to use the various tools to troubleshoot your own applications.
>
> I think I'll probably skip through some of the more detailed C code in
> the presentation and make some time at the end to talk about some of
> the newer ruby specific tools I've been working on such as
> perftools.rb and gdb.rb.
>
> If people are more interested in hearing about EventMachine, amqp, or
> hacking I've been doing on ruby's GC, I'm happy to talk about any of
> those.
>
>   Aman
>
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 5:29 PM, Navjeet <navjeetc@...> wrote:
> > I would be interested to hear about the event machine, amqp, perftools etc.,
> > the more practical stuff.
> >
> >
> > Navjeet
> > Blog: http://chabbewal.blogspot.com
> > Twitter: http://twitter.com/navjeetc
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 1:56 PM, gherter <gherter@...> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> What do you folks think Aman should speak about at the next meeting? Here
> >> is what he sent me:
> >>
> >> "I'm not sure if people are interested in hearing about low-level ruby VM
> >> and C stuff, but I recently gave a talk at RubyHoeDown about MRI's
threading
> >> implementation (http://timetobleed.com/ruby-hoedown-slides/). I can also
> >> talk about any of the various other projects I've worked on (
> >> http://github.com/tmm1), including EventMachine, amqp and perftools.rb"
> >>
> >> He also spoke on EventMachine at the Mt West Ruby Conf last year:
> >>
> >>
> >>
http://mwrc2009.confreaks.com/14-mar-2009-19-06-event-machine-aman-gupta.html
> >>
> >> Let me know.
> >>
> >> Gray
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

No, MongoDB is Tony Pilate in January.

Gray

--- In novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com, David Medinets <david.medinets@...> wrote:
>
> Wasn't he going to talk about MongoDB? Otherwise, I'd like to hear and
> see hooking up Ruby and C to drive some API without Ruby bindings. On
> the gripping hand, EventMachine and its everyday uses.
>
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 1:56 PM, gherter <gherter@...> wrote:
> > What do you folks think Aman should speak about at the next meeting?  Here
is what he sent me:
> >
> > "I'm not sure if people are interested in hearing about low-level ruby VM
and C stuff, but I recently gave a talk at RubyHoeDown about MRI's threading
implementation (http://timetobleed.com/ruby-hoedown-slides/). I can also talk
about any of the various other projects I've worked on (http://github.com/tmm1),
including EventMachine, amqp and perftools.rb"
>

Charles,

"Hackety Hack is a free Ruby-based environment aiming to make programming
easily available to beginners"

http://github.com/steveklabnik/hacketyhack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackety_Hack

-Ryan

On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 3:37 PM, Charles Calvert <
cbc-novarubygroup@...> wrote:

>
>
> All,
>
> A colleague of mine knows an 8 year old who is curious about
> programming. My mind immediately went to Ruby (my 8 year old likes it
> for fiddling around with math :) and thus to you all.
>
> Has anyone tried to teach children around that age to program? If so,
> do you have any suggestions for resources and tools? Did you use Ruby?
>
> This child's parents are not programmers and my colleague isn't close
> enough, geographically, to help with mentoring, so clubs or classes
> would be useful.
>
> Thanks,
>
> --
> Charles Calvert
> Celtic Wolf, Inc.
> (703) 580-0210
> charles.calvert@... <charles.calvert%40celticwolf.com>
> http://www.celticwolf.com/
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

"why the lucky stiff"'s  (AKA _why) "Hackety Hack" project was created
especially for this purpose.
The original was taken down, but it has been resurrected on github at:
http://github.com/steveklabnik/hacketyhack/

Here's more info on Hackety Hack: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackety_Hack

Ken



On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 3:37 PM, Charles Calvert <
cbc-novarubygroup@...> wrote:

>
>
> All,
>
> A colleague of mine knows an 8 year old who is curious about
> programming. My mind immediately went to Ruby (my 8 year old likes it
> for fiddling around with math :) and thus to you all.
>
> Has anyone tried to teach children around that age to program? If so,
> do you have any suggestions for resources and tools? Did you use Ruby?
>
> This child's parents are not programmers and my colleague isn't close
> enough, geographically, to help with mentoring, so clubs or classes
> would be useful.
>
> Thanks,
>
> --
> Charles Calvert
> Celtic Wolf, Inc.
> (703) 580-0210
> charles.calvert@... <charles.calvert%40celticwolf.com>
> http://www.celticwolf.com/
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Believe it or not, but I've found a language like Haskell quite easy for
younger audiences to pick up.  Some coworkers of mine have done teaching to
grade school kids and they found that it was easier to grasp than an object
oriented language.   Instead of creating classes, they can create functions
which apply math concepts that they already know were the compelling
arguments.  I wish I had that exposure as a kid instead of BASIC, Assembly
and Pascal.

Matt



On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 3:01 PM, gherter <gherter@...> wrote:

>
>
> Ruby is not on the list! I think for an 8 year old, they will be willing to
> start, but have very little attention span or grasp of the abstract concepts
> necessary to program. For that age, it had better be a visual language that
> lets you construct the program by drag and drop with immediate and 'fun'
> results. Ruby is fun for us, but not for an 8 year old.
>
> The older kids are more ready, but they might not have the will to do it. I
> taught my 13 year old some simple HTML but he lost interest pretty fast.
> IMO, kids can learn something like simple Ruby code at around 13, so the
> Chris Pine book might be good for that. The most important part at that age
> is the wanting to do it.
>
> Gray
>
> --- In novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com <novarubygroup%40yahoogroups.com>,
> David Medinets <david.medinets@...> wrote:
> >
> > Check out:
> http://www.educational-software-directory.net/children/programming
>
> >
> > On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 3:37 PM, Charles Calvert
> > <cbc-novarubygroup@...> wrote:
> > > A colleague of mine knows an 8 year old who is curious about
> > > programming.  My mind immediately went to Ruby (my 8 year old likes it
> > > for fiddling around with math :) and thus to you all.
> >
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The threading talk dives into some technical details, but it focuses
primarily on the tools and techniques used to debug ruby's threading
issues. Ideally you would come away with enough knowledge to be able
to use the various tools to troubleshoot your own applications.

I think I'll probably skip through some of the more detailed C code in
the presentation and make some time at the end to talk about some of
the newer ruby specific tools I've been working on such as
perftools.rb and gdb.rb.

If people are more interested in hearing about EventMachine, amqp, or
hacking I've been doing on ruby's GC, I'm happy to talk about any of
those.

   Aman

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 5:29 PM, Navjeet <navjeetc@...> wrote:
> I would be interested to hear about the event machine, amqp, perftools etc.,
> the more practical stuff.
>
>
> Navjeet
> Blog: http://chabbewal.blogspot.com
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/navjeetc
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 1:56 PM, gherter <gherter@...> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> What do you folks think Aman should speak about at the next meeting? Here
>> is what he sent me:
>>
>> "I'm not sure if people are interested in hearing about low-level ruby VM
>> and C stuff, but I recently gave a talk at RubyHoeDown about MRI's threading
>> implementation (http://timetobleed.com/ruby-hoedown-slides/). I can also
>> talk about any of the various other projects I've worked on (
>> http://github.com/tmm1), including EventMachine, amqp and perftools.rb"
>>
>> He also spoke on EventMachine at the Mt West Ruby Conf last year:
>>
>>
>> http://mwrc2009.confreaks.com/14-mar-2009-19-06-event-machine-aman-gupta.html
>>
>> Let me know.
>>
>> Gray
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

Wasn't he going to talk about MongoDB? Otherwise, I'd like to hear and
see hooking up Ruby and C to drive some API without Ruby bindings. On
the gripping hand, EventMachine and its everyday uses.

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 1:56 PM, gherter <gherter@...> wrote:
> What do you folks think Aman should speak about at the next meeting?  Here is
what he sent me:
>
> "I'm not sure if people are interested in hearing about low-level ruby VM and
C stuff, but I recently gave a talk at RubyHoeDown about MRI's threading
implementation (http://timetobleed.com/ruby-hoedown-slides/). I can also talk
about any of the various other projects I've worked on (http://github.com/tmm1),
including EventMachine, amqp and perftools.rb"

I would be interested to hear about the event machine, amqp, perftools etc.,
the more practical stuff.


Navjeet
Blog: http://chabbewal.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/navjeetc


On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 1:56 PM, gherter <gherter@...> wrote:

>
>
> What do you folks think Aman should speak about at the next meeting? Here
> is what he sent me:
>
> "I'm not sure if people are interested in hearing about low-level ruby VM
> and C stuff, but I recently gave a talk at RubyHoeDown about MRI's threading
> implementation (http://timetobleed.com/ruby-hoedown-slides/). I can also
> talk about any of the various other projects I've worked on (
> http://github.com/tmm1), including EventMachine, amqp and perftools.rb"
>
> He also spoke on EventMachine at the Mt West Ruby Conf last year:
>
>
> http://mwrc2009.confreaks.com/14-mar-2009-19-06-event-machine-aman-gupta.html
>
> Let me know.
>
> Gray
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I would love to hear a talk on EventMachine or amqp. Both are
interesting. I wouldn't mind hearing about the low-level Ruby stuff
either. Event based programming seems to be the trend this week so
EventMachine might be good.

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 1:56 PM, gherter <gherter@...> wrote:
> What do you folks think Aman should speak about at the next meeting?  Here is
what he sent me:
>
> "I'm not sure if people are interested in hearing about low-level ruby VM and
C stuff, but I recently gave a talk at RubyHoeDown about MRI's threading
implementation (http://timetobleed.com/ruby-hoedown-slides/). I can also talk
about any of the various other projects I've worked on (http://github.com/tmm1),
including EventMachine, amqp and perftools.rb"
>
> He also spoke on EventMachine at the Mt West Ruby Conf last year:
>
> http://mwrc2009.confreaks.com/14-mar-2009-19-06-event-machine-aman-gupta.html
>
> Let me know.
>
> Gray
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

What do you folks think Aman should speak about at the next meeting?  Here is
what he sent me:

"I'm not sure if people are interested in hearing about low-level ruby VM and C
stuff, but I recently gave a talk at RubyHoeDown about MRI's threading
implementation (http://timetobleed.com/ruby-hoedown-slides/). I can also talk
about any of the various other projects I've worked on (http://github.com/tmm1),
including EventMachine, amqp and perftools.rb"

He also spoke on EventMachine at the Mt West Ruby Conf last year:

http://mwrc2009.confreaks.com/14-mar-2009-19-06-event-machine-aman-gupta.html

Let me know.

Gray

FYI

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Karen Gillison <karengva@...>
Date: Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 7:00 PM
Subject: Re: [novarubygroup] Programming for kids
To: novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com




Here are a couple of sites I recommend. They all have good content for
interested 8 year-olds.

<http://csunplugged.com/>

<http://www.squeakland.org/>

<http://teachingkids.railsbridge.org/2009/07/20/fifth-grade-shoes.html>

Enjoy!

~Karen

--- On Thu, 11/12/09, Charles Calvert
<cbc-novarubygroup@...<cbc-novarubygroup%40celticwolf.com>>
wrote:

From: Charles Calvert
<cbc-novarubygroup@...<cbc-novarubygroup%40celticwolf.com>
>
Subject: [novarubygroup] Programming for kids
To: "NOVA RUG" <novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com<novarubygroup%40yahoogroups.com>
>
Date: Thursday, November 12, 2009, 3:37 PM



All,

A colleague of mine knows an 8 year old who is curious about

programming. My mind immediately went to Ruby (my 8 year old likes it

for fiddling around with math :) and thus to you all.

Has anyone tried to teach children around that age to program? If so,

do you have any suggestions for resources and tools? Did you use Ruby?

This child's parents are not programmers and my colleague isn't close

enough, geographically, to help with mentoring, so clubs or classes

would be useful.

Thanks,

--

Charles Calvert

Celtic Wolf, Inc.

(703) 580-0210

charles.calvert@ celticwolf. com

http://www.celticwo lf.com/

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Here are a couple of sites I recommend. They all have good content for
interested 8 year-olds.

<http://csunplugged.com/>

<http://www.squeakland.org/>

<http://teachingkids.railsbridge.org/2009/07/20/fifth-grade-shoes.html>

Enjoy!

~Karen

--- On Thu, 11/12/09, Charles Calvert <cbc-novarubygroup@...> wrote:

From: Charles Calvert <cbc-novarubygroup@...>
Subject: [novarubygroup] Programming for kids
To: "NOVA RUG" <novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Thursday, November 12, 2009, 3:37 PM







 









       All,



A colleague of mine knows an 8 year old who is curious about

programming.  My mind immediately went to Ruby (my 8 year old likes it

for fiddling around with math :) and thus to you all.



Has anyone tried to teach children around that age to program?  If so,

do you have any suggestions for resources and tools?  Did you use Ruby?



This child's parents are not programmers and my colleague isn't close

enough, geographically, to help with mentoring, so clubs or classes

would be useful.



Thanks,



--

Charles Calvert

Celtic Wolf, Inc.

(703) 580-0210

charles.calvert@ celticwolf. com

http://www.celticwo lf.com/

























[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I loved Logo as a kid. More modern answer I've seen is python's turtle
module - http://pythonturtle.org/ ||
http://docs.python.org/library/turtle.html

or if you're already got Python

$ python
  >>> import turtle
  >>> turtle.forward(10)
...


...Stinks that Hackety-Hack is basically dead.

On 11/12/09 3:37 PM, Charles Calvert wrote:
> All,
>
> A colleague of mine knows an 8 year old who is curious about
> programming.  My mind immediately went to Ruby (my 8 year old likes it
> for fiddling around with math :) and thus to you all.
>
> Has anyone tried to teach children around that age to program?  If so,
> do you have any suggestions for resources and tools?  Did you use Ruby?
>
> This child's parents are not programmers and my colleague isn't close
> enough, geographically, to help with mentoring, so clubs or classes
> would be useful.
>
> Thanks,
>
>

Alice is not a bad choice, but for that age I'd learn towards Scratch.

Book recommendations:

     Practical Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science Using
Python by Jennifer Campbell, Paul Gries, Jason Montojo, Greg Wilson

     Learn to Program by Chris Pine

     Computer Science Logo Style (3 Vols.) by Brian Havey   (available on
the web, but I've misplaced the URL)

--> Design By Numbers by John Maeda

And then there's Hackety Hack
(http://github.com/steveklabnik/hacketyhack) although it may be a bit
much for beginners to bootstrap.


Matt

Ruby is not on the list!  I think for an 8 year old, they will be willing to
start, but have very little attention span or grasp of the abstract concepts
necessary to program.  For that age, it had better be a visual language that
lets you construct the program by drag and drop with immediate and 'fun'
results.  Ruby is fun for us, but not for an 8 year old.

The older kids are more ready, but they might not have the will to do it.  I
taught my 13 year old some simple HTML but he lost interest pretty fast.  IMO,
kids can learn something like simple Ruby code at around 13, so the Chris Pine
book might be good for that. The most important part at that age is the wanting
to do it.

Gray

--- In novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com, David Medinets <david.medinets@...> wrote:
>
> Check out: http://www.educational-software-directory.net/children/programming
>
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 3:37 PM, Charles Calvert
> <cbc-novarubygroup@...> wrote:
> > A colleague of mine knows an 8 year old who is curious about
> > programming.  My mind immediately went to Ruby (my 8 year old likes it
> > for fiddling around with math :) and thus to you all.
>

The NovaJUG meeting on Polyglot Persistence next week might be interesting to
some of us.

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/489061797

Gray

--------

Polyglot persistence is all about considering your persistence requirements and
selecting a persistence mechanism that best mets those requirements, as opposed
to selecting an RDBMS as the default choice. In this session we'll look at some
of the persistence alternatives that are available like Amazon SimpleDB,
CouchDB, Google Bigtable, and more. In late 2006 Neal Ford wrote about Polyglot
Programming and predicted the wave of language choice we are now seeing in the
industry to use the right language for the specific job at hand. Instead of
assuming a "default" language like Java or C# and then warring over the many
different available frameworks, polyglot programming is all about using the
right language for the job rather than just the right framework(s). Paralleling
Neal's description of polyglot programming, a relational database is often the
accepted and default choice for persistence. Sometimes this is due to the fact
that organizations have standardized on RDBMS systems and there isn't even any
other choice. Other times it is simply what we're used to doing, and possibly we
don't even consider alternatives. But now, with things like Amazon SimpleDB,
Google Bigtable, Microsoft SQL Server Data Services (SSDS), CouchDB, and lots
more, we're now seeing the beginning of Polyglot Persistence in addition to
polyglot programming.

Pizza and sodas will be provided by

Near Infinity

BIO: Scott Leberknight

Scott is Chief Architect at Near Infinity Corporation, an enterprise software
development and consulting services company based in Reston, Virginia. He has
been developing enterprise and web applications for 14 years professionally, and
has developed applications using Java, Ruby, Groovy, and even an iPhone
application with Objective-C. His main areas of interest include alternative
persistence technologies, object-oriented design, system architecture, testing,
and frameworks like Spring, Hibernate, and Ruby on Rails. In addition, Scott
enjoys learning new languages to make himself a better and more well-rounded
developer a la The Pragmatic Programmers' advice to "learn one language per
year."

Scott holds a B.S. in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Virginia Tech, and
an M. Eng. in Systems Engineering from the University of Maryland. Scott speaks
at the No Fluff Just Stuff Symposiums and various other conferences. In his
(sparse) spare time, Scott enjoys spending time with his wife, three children,
and cat. He also tries to find time to play soccer, go snowboarding, and
mountain bike whenever he can.

Call 703 727-1307 to get in the building.  After 6 the door is locked, so you
will need this number.

Charles,

As recommended before, the "Learn to Program" book by Chris Pine is
fabulous.  I think it's the perfect fit.  The only drawback is that it's
almost all text-based.

If your friend wanted to get more visual, they could consider Processing.
  The book "Learning Processing" by Shiffman is written to be a gentle
introduction to programming for non-programmers.  If the kid is reading
above grade level, they could probably handle it.

Nothing will benefit them more, though, then having a teammate in learning.
  Kid + Book = blah, Kid + Parent + Book = Success!

- Jeff

---
Jeff Casimir
Jumpstart Lab by Casimir Creative, LLC
http://jumpstartlab.com
@jumpstartlab on twitter
SQL Jumpstart - Nov 14 & 15 - Intro to Database Design and SQL
WebDev Jumpstart - Dec 5 & 6 - Beginning HTML & CSS for Web Design
Ruby Jumpstart - Dec 12 & 13 - Intro to Programming with Ruby


On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 8:07 AM, <andyschneider@...> wrote:

>
>
> Alice is brilliant. My 12 year old watched me look at the introductory
> video and can't wait
> To start trying it. I am thinking of learning more, and perhaps using it an
> after school program.
> Thanks for the lead.
>
> Andy Schneider
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com <novarubygroup%40yahoogroups.com>[mailto:
> novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com <novarubygroup%40yahoogroups.com>]
>  On Behalf Of Joel Nylund
> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 3:42 PM
> To: novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com <novarubygroup%40yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: [novarubygroup] Programming for kids
>
> Ive been planning on trying out this on my kids http://www.alice.org/
>
> but havent gotten to it yet
>
> Joel
>
> On Nov 12, 2009, at 3:37 PM, Charles Calvert wrote:
>
> > All,
> >
> > A colleague of mine knows an 8 year old who is curious about
> > programming. My mind immediately went to Ruby (my 8 year old likes it
> > for fiddling around with math :) and thus to you all.
> >
> > Has anyone tried to teach children around that age to program? If so,
> > do you have any suggestions for resources and tools? Did you use Ruby?
> >
> > This child's parents are not programmers and my colleague isn't close
> > enough, geographically, to help with mentoring, so clubs or classes
> > would be useful.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > --
> > Charles Calvert
> > Celtic Wolf, Inc.
> > (703) 580-0210
> > charles.calvert@... <charles.calvert%40celticwolf.com>
> > http://www.celticwolf.com/
> >
> >
> >
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Alice is brilliant.  My 12 year old watched me look at the introductory
video and can't wait
To start trying it.  I am thinking of learning more, and perhaps using it an
after school program.
Thanks for the lead.

Andy Schneider

-----Original Message-----
From: novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com [mailto:novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of Joel Nylund
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 3:42 PM
To: novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [novarubygroup] Programming for kids

Ive been planning on trying out this on my kids http://www.alice.org/

but havent gotten to it yet

Joel

On Nov 12, 2009, at 3:37 PM, Charles Calvert wrote:

> All,
>
> A colleague of mine knows an 8 year old who is curious about
> programming. My mind immediately went to Ruby (my 8 year old likes it
> for fiddling around with math :) and thus to you all.
>
> Has anyone tried to teach children around that age to program? If so,
> do you have any suggestions for resources and tools? Did you use Ruby?
>
> This child's parents are not programmers and my colleague isn't close
> enough, geographically, to help with mentoring, so clubs or classes
> would be useful.
>
> Thanks,
>
> --
> Charles Calvert
> Celtic Wolf, Inc.
> (703) 580-0210
> charles.calvert@...
> http://www.celticwolf.com/
>
>
>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

Over the summer, I taught my daughters (14 and 12) to program using this
book:



http://www.pragprog.com/titles/ltp2/learn-to-program-2nd-edition



It went well, and they liked the conversational style and humor the
author had. And, of course, it is Ruby. I augmented it with simple
"homework" assignments they could work on while I was at work.



I had been thinking for years that I would use Alice, but I didn't have
the up-front time to invest in learning it first to the point where I
could answer all their questions.



-- Mark.



From: novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Charles Calvert
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 3:37 PM
To: NOVA RUG
Subject: [novarubygroup] Programming for kids





All,

A colleague of mine knows an 8 year old who is curious about
programming. My mind immediately went to Ruby (my 8 year old likes it
for fiddling around with math :) and thus to you all.

Has anyone tried to teach children around that age to program? If so,
do you have any suggestions for resources and tools? Did you use Ruby?

This child's parents are not programmers and my colleague isn't close
enough, geographically, to help with mentoring, so clubs or classes
would be useful.

Thanks,

--
Charles Calvert
Celtic Wolf, Inc.
(703) 580-0210
charles.calvert@... <mailto:charles.calvert%40celticwolf.com>

http://www.celticwolf.com/





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Check out: http://www.educational-software-directory.net/children/programming

On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 3:37 PM, Charles Calvert
<cbc-novarubygroup@...> wrote:
> A colleague of mine knows an 8 year old who is curious about
> programming.  My mind immediately went to Ruby (my 8 year old likes it
> for fiddling around with math :) and thus to you all.

Charles Calvert wrote:
> All,
>
> A colleague of mine knows an 8 year old who is curious about
> programming.  My mind immediately went to Ruby (my 8 year old likes it
> for fiddling around with math :) and thus to you all.
>
> Has anyone tried to teach children around that age to program?  If so,
> do you have any suggestions for resources and tools?  Did you use Ruby?
>
> This child's parents are not programmers and my colleague isn't close
> enough, geographically, to help with mentoring, so clubs or classes
> would be useful.

Hello, Charles,

	 One of Manning's best-selling books is relevant to your query:

	 http://www.manning.com/sande/

Sincerely,
Paul Bain

Ive been planning on trying out this on my kids http://www.alice.org/

but havent gotten to it yet

Joel

On Nov 12, 2009, at 3:37 PM, Charles Calvert wrote:

> All,
>
> A colleague of mine knows an 8 year old who is curious about
> programming. My mind immediately went to Ruby (my 8 year old likes it
> for fiddling around with math :) and thus to you all.
>
> Has anyone tried to teach children around that age to program? If so,
> do you have any suggestions for resources and tools? Did you use Ruby?
>
> This child's parents are not programmers and my colleague isn't close
> enough, geographically, to help with mentoring, so clubs or classes
> would be useful.
>
> Thanks,
>
> --
> Charles Calvert
> Celtic Wolf, Inc.
> (703) 580-0210
> charles.calvert@...
> http://www.celticwolf.com/
>
>
>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

All,

A colleague of mine knows an 8 year old who is curious about
programming.  My mind immediately went to Ruby (my 8 year old likes it
for fiddling around with math :) and thus to you all.

Has anyone tried to teach children around that age to program?  If so,
do you have any suggestions for resources and tools?  Did you use Ruby?

This child's parents are not programmers and my colleague isn't close
enough, geographically, to help with mentoring, so clubs or classes
would be useful.

Thanks,

--
Charles Calvert
Celtic Wolf, Inc.
(703) 580-0210
charles.calvert@...
http://www.celticwolf.com/

Looks like someone already picked that one up, though I think the API could
be improved.  There are three more "Ruby Wrapper" requests that haven't been
started.

-Derek

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 4:15 PM, gherter <gherter@...> wrote:

>
>
> Here is the opensecrets.org api description.
>
> http://www.opensecrets.org/action/api_doc.php
>
> Gray
>
>
> --- In novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com <novarubygroup%40yahoogroups.com>,
> "gherter" <gherter@...> wrote:
> >
> > Anyone interested in Hackathon 09 (Dec 12-13)? I should be able to get
> the FGM conference rooms. We have projectors for team coding, sodas, etc.
> >
> > http://sunlightlabs.com/hackathon09/organizing/
> >
> > There are lots of projects they want done, but this one seems doable:
> >
> > "Provide a Ruby library that provides easy access to the OpenSecrets.org
> API. Should be easily integrated in a standard Ruby or Ruby on Rails
> application. Packaged as a Ruby Gem."
> >
> > Gray
> >
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Here is the opensecrets.org api description.

http://www.opensecrets.org/action/api_doc.php

Gray

--- In novarubygroup@yahoogroups.com, "gherter" <gherter@...> wrote:
>
> Anyone interested in Hackathon 09 (Dec 12-13)?  I should be able to get the
FGM conference rooms.  We have projectors for team coding, sodas, etc.
>
> http://sunlightlabs.com/hackathon09/organizing/
>
> There are lots of projects they want done, but this one seems doable:
>
> "Provide a Ruby library that provides easy access to the OpenSecrets.org API.
Should be easily integrated in a standard Ruby or Ruby on Rails application.
Packaged as a Ruby Gem."
>
> Gray
>