December 2023 Meeting

The December 2023 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 11thth of December, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm).

This month we're hosted by the lovely folk at Zappi in their offices, on Camden High St. Full venue and registration details are given below.

Agenda #

Test Smarter, Not Harder - Crafting a Test Selection Framework from Scratch #

Christian Bruckmayer says:

The simplest way of running tests is to run all of them, regardless of what changes you are testing. However, depending on the size of your test suite, this will either get slow or expensive. At Shopify we have almost 300,000 Rails tests and we add 50,000 more annually. The sheer amount of tests and their growth makes it impossible to run all tests, all the time! Hence we implemented a framework to only run tests relevant to your code changes.

We will build a test selection framework from scratch in this workshop. We will begin by exploring the fundamentals of such a framework: code analysis. After that we will dive into minitest reporters, how they work and how we can use them to generate a test map. Finally we will use the generated test map to only run tests relevant to your code changes. Attendees will walk away with a solid understanding of what test selection is, how it works and how to implement it.

This is a workshop, so bring your laptop!

Afterwards #

When the talks come to an end we'll decamp to a local pub for some food, some drinks and some chat with your fellow attendees.

Of course, even though this is the socialising part and seems more informal, please remember that still we consider it to be a part of the meeting and covered by our code of conduct.

Venue & Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees.

Secure your place #

Hopefully you all remember that physical meetings involve finite space and so to be guaranteed entry you need to register via eventbrite.

Venue #

The address of the venue:

Zappi
Theatre House
97 - 99 Camden High St
London
NW1 7JN

See on a map

The venue has a hard limit of 100 people. If you register and realise you can't come, please use eventbrite to give up your place so we can someone else come in your place. We might be able to let in people on the night who haven't registered, but we can't guarantee it.

Posted by Frederick Cheung on Nov 09, 2023

November 2023 Meeting

The November 2023 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 13th of November, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm).

This month we're hosted by the lovely folk at Zappi in their offices, on Camden High St. Full venue and registration details are given below.

Agenda #

Outside Technology: Building bridges between engineers and everyone else #

Naomi Christie says:

Naomi will take you on a journey from her previous career outside technology to her current career as a software engineer highlighting some of the (many) things she had to learn along the way, providing insight into why misunderstandings are common between engineers and their stakeholders and offering some ideas on how we can bridge that gap.

1. LRUG November 2023 - Naomie Christie - Outside Technology: Building bridges between engineers and everyone else

The Art of Talk Design #

Melinda Seckington says:

Everywhere you look, stories surround us, and everyone has something that’s worth sharing with others. As speakers, we need to understand how to structure our talks so they can have the best effect on the audiences we are trying to reach. How do you discover the right angle and the right story for a talk? How do you frame your story?

Within tech we know how to approach building a new product: we research our user base, we figure out what and for who we’re trying to create something for and we make sure we constantly iterate on what we’ve come up with. So why aren’t we taking the same approach for our talks?

This talk will examine how to get in the right mindset of examining your talk ideas, and will introduce a framework of how to design and iterate on your talk. It will focus on several exercises and questions to help you create the best talk for the story you’re trying to tell.

1. LRUG November 2023 - Melinda Seckington - The Art of Talk Design

Afterwards #

When the talks come to an end we'll decamp to a local pub for some food, some drinks and some chat with your fellow attendees.

Of course, even though this is the socialising part and seems more informal, please remember that still we consider it to be a part of the meeting and covered by our code of conduct.

Venue & Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees.

Secure your place #

Hopefully you all remember that physical meetings involve finite space and so to be guaranteed entry you need to register via eventbrite.

Venue #

The address of the venue:

Zappi
Theatre House
97 - 99 Camden High St
London
NW1 7JN

See on a map

The venue has a hard limit of 100 people. If you register and realise you can't come, please use eventbrite to give up your place so we can someone else come in your place. We might be able to let in people on the night who haven't registered, but we can't guarantee it.

Posted by Paolo Fabbri on Oct 18, 2023

October 2023 Meeting

The October 2023 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 9th of October, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm).

This month we're hosted by the lovely folk at Redcat Digital in their offices in Timber Yard on Drysdale Street. Full venue and registration details are given below.

Agenda #

BorrowMyDoggy - Connecting dogs and people via Ruby #

Rikke Rosenlund says

BorrowMyDoggy connects dog owners with local borrowers for walks, weekends and holidays. Via BorrowMyDoggy, borrowers get happy dog time, owners get help with taking care of their dogs, and dogs get more love and attention (it's a win-win scenario). We started by winning the Lean Startup Machine, then received a crazy amount of media attention and by now have built a community of +1 million members in the UK and Ireland, and are working with some of the biggest players in the pet space. Come and listen to how a simple idea has now turned into a well known brand.

Your talk here! #

Get in touch with us at talks@lrug.org if you'd like to speak. We're always happy to help new (or not so new) speakers.

Afterwards #

Once we're done with the talks we'll leave the venue (after doing our best to help tidy up) and find a local pub to visit so we can eat, drink, and discuss the talks we've just heard.

Of course, even though this is the socialising part and seems more informal, please remember that still we consider it to be a part of the meeting and covered by our code of conduct.

Venue & Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees.

Secure your place #

Hopefully you all remember that physical meetings involve finite space and so to be guaranteed entry you need to register via eventbrite.

Venue #

The address of the venue:

Redcat Digital
Timber Yard
115a Drysdale Street
London
N1 6ND

See on a map

The venue has a hard limit of 50 people. If you register and realise you can't come, please use eventbrite to give up your place so someone else can come in your place. We might be able to let in people on the night who haven't registered, but we can't guarantee it.

Posted by Frederick Cheung on Sep 25, 2023

September 2023 Meeting

The September 2023 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 11th of September, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm).

This month we're hosted by the lovely folk at Smart in their offices on 136 George Street. Full venue and registration details are given below.

Agenda #

The Functional Alternative #

Ju Liu says

We'll start with a simple Ruby Kata and solve it together, live, with imperative programming. We'll then fix the many, many, many things we got wrong. Then we'll solve the problem again using patterns from functional programming. You'll leave this talk with a clear and concrete example of why functional programming matters, why immutable code matters, and why it can help you writing bug-free code. The next time you find yourself writing imperative code, you might consider… the functional alternative.

1. LRUG September 2023 - Ju Liu - The Functional Alternative

Back in my day… #

Paul Battley says

I've been working with Ruby since the early 2000s. Ruby has changed a lot in that time, but we don't always remember how much. Let's rewrite a short program so that it runs in a twenty-year-old version of Ruby and see how much syntax and performance has changed for the better in twenty years

1. Back in my day… - transcript from the Brighton Ruby 2023 version of this talk
2. Supporting git repo for the code used in Back in my day…

Afterwards #

Once we're done with the talks we'll leave the venue (after doing our best to help tidy up) and find a local pub to visit so we can eat, drink, and discuss the talks we've just heard.

Of course, even though this is the socialising part and seems more informal, please remember that still we consider it to be a part of the meeting and covered by our code of conduct.

Venue & Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees.

Secure your place #

Hopefully you all remember that physical meetings involve finite space and so to be guaranteed entry you need to register via eventbrite.

Venue #

The address of the venue:

Smart Pension
The Smart Building
136 George Street
London
W1H 5LD

See on a map

The venue has a hard limit of 100 people. If you register and realise you can't come, please use eventbrite to give up your place so someone else can come in your place. We might be able to let in people on the night who haven't registered, but we can't guarantee it.

Posted by Frederick Cheung on Aug 17, 2023

August 2023 Meeting

The August 2023 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 14th of August, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm).

This month we're hosted by the lovely folk at beam in their offices, at the Senna Building WeWork in Shoreditch. Full venue and registration details are given below.

Agenda #

Gain insight and better accessibility into your application's data by using The Brick #

Lorin Thwaits says

Remarkable visibility into the structure of your application and its data is available by using the open-source Rails gem "The Brick". Come meet the author of this gem, and experience the cornucopia of usefulness it can provide to teams who architect, elaborate upon, and then support Rails applications.

Afterwards #

Once we're done with the talks we'll leave the venue (after doing our best to help tidy up) and find a local pub to visit so we can eat, drink, and discuss the talks we've just heard.

Of course, even though this is the socialising part and seems more informal, please remember that still we consider it to be a part of the meeting and covered by our code of conduct.

Venue & Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees.

Secure your place #

Hopefully you all remember that physical meetings involve finite space and so to be guaranteed entry you need to register via eventbrite.

Venue #

The address of the venue:

Beam
3rd floor
WeWork
Senna Building
Gorsuch Place
London
E2 8JF

See on a map

The venue has a hard limit of 80 people. If you register and realise you can't come, please use eventbrite to give up your place so someone else can come in your place. We might be able to let in people on the night who haven't registered, but we can't guarantee it.

Posted by Frederick Cheung on Jul 12, 2023

July 2023 Meeting

The July 2023 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 10th of July, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm).

This month we're hosted by the lovely folk at Creditspring in their offices, on 75 Davies Street. Full venue and registration details are given below.

Agenda #

Ruby to solve homelessness and the refugee crises #

Dan Hough says:

Social impact startup Beam (named by LinkedIn as one of the UK’s Top 15 Startups) has built pioneering products for government, social care workers - and homeless people and refugees themselves. Together, Beam is proving that tech can solve these problems for good. Hear about how a small Engineering team has built software that has transformed the lives of thousands of homeless people and refugees. And hear about the fun, meaning and challenge in Tech for Good.

1. LRUG July 2023 - Dan Hough - Ruby to solve homelessness and the refugee crises

Afterwards #

Once we're done with the talks we'll leave the venue (after doing our best to help tidy up) and find a local pub to visit so we can eat, drink, and discuss the talks we've just heard.

Of course, even though this is the socialising part and seems more informal, please remember that still we consider it to be a part of the meeting and covered by our code of conduct.

Venue & Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees.

Secure your place #

Hopefully you all remember that physical meetings involve finite space and so to be guaranteed entry you need to register via eventbrite.

Venue #

The address of the venue:

Creditspring
1st Floor South (Office A)
75 Davies Street
London
W1K 5JN

See on a map

The venue has a hard limit of 90 people. If you register and realise you can't come, please use eventbrite to give up your place so someone else can come in your place. We might be able to let in people on the night who haven't registered, but we can't guarantee it.

Posted by Frederick Cheung on Jun 28, 2023

June 2023 Meeting

The June 2023 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 12th of June, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm).

This month we're hosted by the lovely folk at Funding Circle in their offices, on Queen Victoria St. Full venue and registration details are given below.

Agenda #

Tech debt for the rest of us #

Alfredo Motta says:

Tech Debt can be messy, but it doesn't have to be. In this short talk I'll present a simple approach to identify your Tech Debt, monitor it over time and make it actionable.

1. LRUG June 2023 - Alfredo Motta - Tech debt for the rest of us

Mutation testing - study case #

Adam Piotrowski says:

Let's talk about why and how we measure our test coverage. If you are using line test coverage measurement and you are happy with it, please let me show you some differences and examples of line TC vs mutation TC.

1. LRUG June 2023 - Adam Piotrowski - Mutation testing - study case

How we used CQRS to structure our new Borrower Portal #

Shenthuran Satkunarasa says:

Funding Circle recently built a new application that allows borrowers to manage their loans themselves. We structured the application using a (new-to-me!) design principle called Command Query Responsibility Segregation. Join me as I give a brief definition of what CQRS is before showing you the practical application of it via our new borrower portal 💻

1. LRUG June 2023 - Shenthuran Satkunarasa - How we used CQRS to structure our new Borrower Portal

Afterwards #

Once we're done with the talks we'll leave the venue (after doing our best to help tidy up) and find a local pub to visit so we can eat, drink, and discuss the talks we've just heard.

Of course, even though this is the socialising part and seems more informal, please remember that still we consider it to be a part of the meeting and covered by our code of conduct.

Venue & Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees.

Secure your place #

Hopefully you all remember that physical meetings involve finite space and so to be guaranteed entry you need to register via eventbrite.

Venue #

The address of the venue:

Funding Circle
71 Queen Victoria St
London
EC4V 4AY

See on a map

The venue has a hard limit of 90 people. If you register and realise you can't come, please use eventbrite to give up your place so someone else can come in your place. We might be able to let in people on the night who haven't registered, but we can't guarantee it.

Posted by Murray Steele on May 16, 2023

May 2023 Meeting

The May 2023 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 15th of May, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm).

This month we're hosted by the lovely folk at Zappi in their offices, on Camden High St. Full venue and registration details are given below.

Agenda #

GitHub Actions: an introduction #

Gus Shaw Stewart says:

An introductory talk about GitHub Actions - what they are, why they are important, and how you can get started with them.

1. LRUG May 2023 - Gus Shaw Stewart - GitHub Actions: an introduction

Afterwards #

Once we're done with the talks we'll leave the venue (after doing our best to help tidy up) and find a local pub for to eat, drink, and discuss the talks we've just heard.

Of course, even though this is the socialising part and seems more informal, please remember that still we consider it to be a part of the meeting and covered by our code of conduct.

Venue & Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees.

Secure your place #

Hopefully you all remember that physical meetings involve finite space and so to be guaranteed entry you need to register via eventbrite.

Venue #

The address of the venue:

Zappi
Theatre House
97 - 99 Camden High St
London
NW1 7JN

See on a map

The venue has a hard limit of 90 people. If you register and realise you can't come, please use eventbrite to give up your place so we can someone else come in your place. We might be able to let in people on the night who haven't registered, but we can't guarantee it.

Posted by Frederick Cheung on Apr 25, 2023

April 2023 Meeting

The April 2023 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 17th of April, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm). Note this is later in the month than we would normally hold the meeting, due to the Easter bank holiday.

This month we're hosted again by the lovely folk at Cleo at their offices, in Shoreditch. Full venue and registration details are given below.

Agenda #

Making a working upwards assignment operator #

Alex says:

Ruby has leftward assignment. It has rightward assignment. But what about upward assignment?

In this talk, we’ll misuse Ruby’s internals to build an arrow operator that lets us assign upwards. We’ll see some powerful Ruby metaprogramming features that allow us to bend Ruby to our will – and we’ll talk about why it’s good to write code that’s just plain daft.

1. LRUG April 2023 - Alex - Making a working upwards assignment operator
2. Upward assignment in Ruby

Build a mini Ruby debugger in under 300 lines #

Stan Lo says:

As developers, we know that the best way to learn is by doing. Many of us have built mini-rails, mini-sinatra, and even mini-rubies. But have you ever built your own debugger?

In this talk, I'll show you how to create a mini Ruby debugger that's both powerful and fun to use. You'll learn how to: - Run your program with debugger with a simple command - Set breakpoints and through debugger commands - Step through your code to find bugs

And best of all, you'll do it all in under 300 lines of code!

1. LRUG April 2023 - Stan Lo - Build a mini Ruby debugger in under 300 lines-lrug-apr-2023

Afterwards #

Once we're done with the talks we'll leave the venue (after doing our best to help tidy up) and find a local pub for to eat, drink, and discuss the talks we've just heard.

Of course, even though this is the socialising part and seems more informal, please remember that still we consider it to be a part of the meeting and covered by our code of conduct.

Venue & Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees.

Secure your place #

Hopefully you all remember that physical meetings involve finite space and so to be guaranteed entry you need to register via eventbrite.

Venue #

The address of the venue:

Cleo
Unit 2.10
2nd Floor
Tea Building
56 Shoreditch High St.
London
E1 6JJ

See on a map

The venue has a hard limit of 60 people. If you register and realise you can't come, please use eventbrite to give up your place so we can someone else come in your place. We might be able to let in people on the night who haven't registered, but we can't guarantee it.

Posted by Chris Lowis on Mar 23, 2023