March 2021 Meeting

The March 2021 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 8th of March, from 6:20pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm), taking place once again in our virtual home. This will mark a full year of running LRUG remotely. Wild times.

Full registration details are given below. Please remember that we will only be sending out the zoom meeting url to people who have registered, so please do make sure you do it.

Agenda #

We've got two talks this month, but as ever, we always need more, from April onwards. Email talks@lrug.org and we will do our very best to nurture your seed of inspiration into a healthy plant of… content.

Data as a foreign language, or: A tale of two (or possibly three) type systems #

Matt Patterson says:

Working with XSLT/XPath’s XDM type system in Ruby requires learning how to translate between two very different type systems in a way which allows for idiomatic Ruby without ignoring the bits of XDM which aren’t quite Ruby-shaped. Oh, and the only open-source implementation is in Java, so Java’s type system is in the mix.

I’ll look at a couple of cases where the different approaches and assumptions of Ruby and XDM (and Java, which just can’t help sticking its nose in) interact in an interesting way.

Sundae Club: Livestreaming Ruby on Rails #

Max Shelley:

I host a weekly livestream where each week I work on a Ruby on Rails app and, along with those watching, we plan then build different features and discuss different possible approaches. It’s casual, aimed very loosely at learners, hopefully useful and receives positive feedback from those that watch or interact.

When I mention livestreaming to others, they’re often interested in how it works, what I get from doing it, what those who interact with the streams get out of it and how they could potentially get involved in streaming. This talk aims to answer those questions, along with any others you may have, come and say hello!

Afterwards #

We're all at home so there's no post-meeting pub meetup, however a few attendees often hang around on in the zoom call after the talks are over. It's a pale-shadow of the pub meetup, so if you have some ideas about doing something better do get in touch at organisers@lrug.org.

Registration #

Prior to attending you must familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees, even though we are all just little silent video characters.

Secure your place #

Even in a virtual world there are limited places for attending the meeting so you need to register via eventbrite. The link to the zoom meeting will only be sent to registered attendees on the day of the meeting, around 6pm. Keep an eye out for the email and check your spam just in case.

Do prepare yourself in advance by downloading the zoom client.

Posted by James Adam on Feb 25, 2021

February 2021 Meeting

The February 2021 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 8th of February, from 6:20pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm). The online nature of our little gathering continues.

Full registration details are given below, but do note that we will only be sending out the zoom meeting url to people who have registered, because we have limited places, so please do it.

Agenda #

It's our annual ⚡️lightning⚡️ talks event. All short talks, all the time. As ever, we're still looking for volunteers (we have room for up to eight of you), so get in touch talks@lrug.org, if you've got something to say.

An intro to Bridgetown: A static site generator for the modern JAMStack era. #

Ayush Newatia:

Bridgetown is a new Ruby-powered static site generator that was forked from Jekyll 4.1. It has a focus on modern ideas and includes Webpack as a first-class citizen. In this talk I'll give a demo of what differentiates Bridgetown from Jekyll and some of its best features; followed by a short Q&A.

1. LRUG February 2021 - Ayush Newatia - An intro to Bridgetown: A static site generator for the modern JAMStack era

The Path(name) of least resistance #

Fred Cheung:

Ruby has many classes that deal with files, paths or directories, but one that often doesn't get enough credit is Pathname. Pathname unifies the other pretenders to the throne with a consistent, rubyish interface that is a joy to work with.

1. LRUG Februrary 2021 - Fred Cheung - The Path(name) of least resistance

Are we parallel yet? A first look at Ruby Ractors #

Lorenzo Barasti:

A speedrun through actor-based concurrency, the Ractor API and the future of parallel applications in Ruby.

1. LRUG Februrary 2021 - Lorenzo Barasti - Are we parallel yet? A first look at Ruby Ractors

Uncovering some ruby magic in awesome_print #

Mark Burns:

ap 1.methods takes an Array of Symbols as input and outputs details it shouldn't know about the methods themselves. ap 1.methods.dup has the same behaviour, but ap 1.methods.take(1.methods.length) does not. I will peer into the magic and divulge its secrets.

1. LRUG February 2021 - Mark Burns - Uncovering some ruby magic in `awesome_print

Taking Rails Offline #

Mike Rogers:

Networks are unreliable & drop out all the time! Lets make our apps more resilient to that!

1. LRUG February 2021 - Mike Rogers - Taking Rails Offline

Afterwards #

The best we can do at the moment is promise that a few of us will hang out on the zoom call after all the talks are done to blather on for a bit. It's a poor substitute for actually meeting up in person, but we'll persevere with it. If you have some ideas about an alternative approach, then let us know at organisers@lrug.org.

Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees, even though we are all in our own little bubbles.

Secure your place #

Even in a virtual world there are limited places for attending the meeting so you need to register via eventbrite. The link to the zoom meeting will only be sent to registered attendees on the day of the meeting, around about 6pm. Keep an eye out for the email and check your spam just in case.

Do prepare yourself in advance by downloading the zoom client.

Posted by Murray Steele on Jan 24, 2021

January 2021 Meeting

The January 2021 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 11th of January, from 6:20pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm). Still online.

Full registration details are given below, note that we will only be sending out the zoom meeting url to people who have registered, so please do make sure you do it.

Agenda #

We've got one talk lined up for you this month, but we always need more. Email talks@lrug.org, if you'd like to start your 2021 presenting to the enthralled hordes of LRUG attendees.

Recruiting 101 instead of 404 #

Thayer Prime says:

Recruitment is one of the hardest problems in scaling your tech company. Everyone wants the best, everyone wants diversity in hires, everyone wants the most affordable people - but companies rarely have the time, money or ability to invest in creating a world class recruiting team. So what are some of the common questions we can review, and how do you navigate the pitfalls of bad hiring as a starter for ten? Come and find out from an LRUG community Q&A to address some of the most commonly asked questions, and get some starter tips on hiring humans, not resources.

Your Qs will be A'd by Thayer Prime, of Team Prime who started life in the tech industry as a programmer twenty years ago, before turning to the dark arts of recruitment. She's been lucky enough to work with the likes of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Jimmy Wales, Apple, Stripe and NASA to name just a few. She has founded three successful companies herself, and often acts as a strategic adviser to founders and C-level executives growing their tech capacity within their organisations.

For info on how to submit questions for the talk check out Thayer's email to the mailing list explaining the situation.

1. LRUG January 2021 - Thayer Prime - Recruiting 101 instead of 404

Afterwards #

We're all at home so there's no post-meeting pub meetup, however a few attendees often hang around on in the zoom call after the talks are over. It's a pale-shadow of the pub meetup, so if you have some ideas about doing something better do get in touch at organisers@lrug.org.

Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees, even though we are all in our own little bubbles.

Secure your place #

Even in a virtual world there are limited places for attending the meeting so you need to register via eventbrite. The link to the zoom meeting will only be sent to registered attendees on the day of the meeting, around about 6pm. Keep an eye out for the email and check your spam just in case.

Do prepare yourself in advance by downloading the zoom client.

Posted by Murray Steele on Dec 22, 2020

December 2020 Meeting

The December 2020 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 14th of December, from 6:20pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm). We're still online. Stay home. Protect the NHS.

Full registration details are given below, note that we will only be sending out the zoom meeting url to people who have registered, so please do make sure you do it.

Agenda #

We've got one talk lined up for you this month, but we always need more. Email talks@lrug.org, yeah? Be a pal.

Create a Twitter clone in 15 minutes in pure Ruby with Matestack #

Jonas Jabari says:

Matestack enables you to implement reactive web UIs in pure Ruby, skipping ERB, HTML and JavaScript. In a live coding session, we will create a Twitter clone using Matestack's core features from scratch!

1. LRUG December 2020 - Jonas Jabari - Create a Twitter clone in 15 minutes in pure Ruby with Matestack

Afterwards #

For the good of the country, we have had to pause our normal post-LRUG pub time, but typically a few folks will hang on in the zoom call after the talks are over. We've been meaning to try the new self-selecting breakout rooms too, which we could. But in general, the ongoing-pandemic after-meet experience could still use some work: if you have any ideas on that, do get in touch at organisers@lrug.org.

Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees, even though we are all in our own little bubbles.

Secure your place #

Even in a virtual world there are limited places for attending the meeting so you need to register via eventbrite. The link to the zoom meeting will only be sent to registered attendees on the day of the meeting, around about 6pm. Keep an eye out for the email and check your spam just in case.

Do prepare yourself in advance by downloading the zoom client.

Posted by Chris Lowis on Nov 27, 2020

November 2020 Meeting

The November 2020 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 9th of November, from 6:20pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm). In defiance of the new lockdown, we will be holding the meeting in Trafalgar Squ… no, of course not. We're still online. Stay home. Protect the NHS.

Full registration details are given below, note that we will only be sending out the zoom meeting url to people who have registered, so please do make sure you do it.

Agenda #

Thanks to the beautiful people who responded to our cry for talks, we've another two lined up for you this month, but we always need more. Email talks@lrug.org, yeah? G'wan. It'd be a real help.

Patches Welcome! #

Everybody at LRUG probably uses open source software - unless they got lost on the way to another meeting - but it often surprises me how few developers take the extra step from using it, to contributing to (or releasing their own) open source software projects. I'm going to talk about how I got involved in the open source community, why I stay involved, and about my current open source projects

Denny de la Haye has been a programmer for nearly 30 years now - "although my ZX81 code is thankfully all lost in the mists of time (AKA audio cassettes and thermal printer paper)", he says. He has spent most of the last 4+ years writing Ruby, and most of the 15+ before that writing Perl. The switch between the two was less traumatic than he expected, but it did lead to starting another open source software project last year…

1. LRUG November 2020 - Denny de la Haye - Patches Welcome!
2. Links to pages and projects mentioned in "Patches Welcome!"

Convention over Kubernetes: (Almost) Configless Deploys with Kuby #

Rails' most well-known mantra is "convention over configuration," i.e. sane defaults that limit the cognitive overhead of application development. It's easy to learn and easy to build with. The development experience is fantastic… right up until the point you want to deploy your app to production. It's at that point that the hand-holding stops.

Heroku to the rescue, right? Just push your git repo to "heroku master" and never think about deployment again! Heroku is a great option for many small projects and the ease of deployment is exactly the kind of experience Rails developers are used to. To quote Aaron Patterson: "but at what cost?" You're tied to Heroku's stack and stuck within the limitations of their free tier. Heroku's add-ons can get pretty expensive too if you decide to upgrade later on.

How can we, but humble Rails devs, achieve the same seamless, turnkey deployment experience affordably? Enter the Kuby gem, a convention-over-configuration approach to deploying Rails apps using industry-leading technologies. Come learn how, with almost no configuration, you too can use Kuby to leverage Docker and Kubernetes to deploy your Rails app cost-effectively on a variety of cloud platforms.

Cameron Dutro currently works on the Quip team at Salesforce. He's been programming in Ruby and using Rails for ten years and has held previous positions at Fluther, Twitter, and Lumos Labs. When he's not reading about, using, or working on technology, Cameron can be found hiking in the hills behind his house or hanging out at home with his wife, daughter, and cat.

1. LRUG November 2020 - Cameron Dutro - Convention over Kubernetes: (Almost) Configless Deploys with Kuby

Afterwards #

For the good of the country, we have had to pause our normal post-LRUG pub time, but typically a few folks will hang on in the zoom call after the talks are over. We've been meaning to try the new self-selecting breakout rooms too, which we could. But inn general, the ongoing-pandemic after-meet experience could still use some work: if you have any ideas on that, do get in touch at organisers@lrug.org.

Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees, even though we are all in our own little bubbles.

Secure your place #

Even in a virtual world there are limited places for attending the meeting so you need to register via eventbrite. The link to the zoom meeting will only be sent to registered attendees on the day of the meeting, around about 6pm. Keep an eye out for the email and check your spam just in case.

Do prepare yourself in advance by downloading the zoom client.

Posted by James Adam on Nov 02, 2020

October 2020 Meeting

The October 2020 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 12th of October, from 6:20pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm). In keeping with the times, our meeting will be online.

We'll run the meeting on our own zoom account, so make sure you have the zoom client for your preferred device, or know how to attend via the web.

Full registration details are given below, note that we will only be sending out the zoom meeting url to people who have registered, so please do make sure you do it.

Agenda #

We've got two talks lined up for you this month. We also need more talks for the rest of year, and beyond, so please get in touch on talks@lrug.org if there's something you'd like to say to LRUG.

JWTs - what Rails developers need to know #

Dan Moore:

What is a JSON Web Token (JWT) and why do you care? JWTs are a stateless, standardized way to represent user data. This talk will discuss why JWTs matter and the nuts and bolts of JWTs. We’ll also discuss how you might use a JWT in your Rails or Ruby application.

1. LRUG October 2020 - Dan Moore - JWTs - what Rails developers need to know
2. JWTs - What Rails Developers need to know
3. Building a Secure Signed JWT
4. Ruby JWT Examples

Getting Past the Tech Test #

Michael Mazour:

Sometimes people have great backgrounds and great skills, but have trouble getting hired because they didn't approach the tech test the way the company wanted. As someone who reviews a lot of tech tests at work, I'm going to explain some of the unwritten rules and expectations that you might not know if you've been out of circulation or are just entering the job market, and help you level up your tech test game.

1. LRUG October 2020 - Michael Mazour - Getting past the tech test
2. Getting Past the Tech Test

Afterwards #

A few of us usually hang out in the Zoom chat after the meeting. It only really works with a handful of people though, so we're still on the lookout for something else tha would work for more attendees. If you have any ideas on that, do get in touch at organisers@lrug.org and we can explore it together.

Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees, even though there's no pub or venue. Basically they are good rules to generally live your life by.

Secure your place #

Even in a virtual world there are limited places for attending the meeting so you need to register via eventbrite. The link to the zoom meeting will only be sent to registered attendees on the day of the meeting, around about 6pm. Keep an eye out for the email and check your spam just in case.

Do prepare yourself in advance by downloading the zoom client.

Posted by Chris.Lowis on Oct 05, 2020

September 2020 Meeting

The September 2020 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 14th of September, from 6:20pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm). In keeping with the times, our meeting will be online.

We'll run the meeting on our own zoom account, so make sure you have the zoom client for your preferred device, or know how to attend via the web.

Full registration details are given below, note that we will only be sending out the zoom meeting url to people who have registered, so please do make sure you do it.

Agenda #

We've got two talks lined up for you this month. We also need more talks for the rest of year, and beyond, so please get in touch on talks@lrug.org if there's something you'd like to say to LRUG.

StimulusJS: Modest JS for the HTML you have #

Matt Swanson:

An overview of StimulusJS (a small framework from Basecamp) and discussion on when you might (or might not!) want to use it

1. LRUG September 2020 - Matt Swanson - StimulusJS: Modest JS for the HTML you have
2. StimulusJS: Modest JS for the HTML you have

Wizards without magic #

Duncan Brown:

Multi-step forms (a.k.a wizards) are fiddly to build and difficult to test. (And not just in Rails). Why is that, and how can we make them better?

1. LRUG September 2020 - Duncan Brown - Wizards without Magic

Afterwards #

It's not quite hanging our of drinks and food in a local pub, but a few of us usally hang out in the Zoom chat after the meeting to chat. It only really works with a handful of people though, so we're still on the lookout for something else tha would work for more attendees. If you have any ideas on that, do get in touch at organisers@lrug.org and we can explore it together.

Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees, even though there's no pub or venue. Basically they are good rules to generally live your life by.

Secure your place #

Even in a virtual world there are limited places for attending the meeting so you need to register via eventbrite. The link to the zoom meeting will only be sent to registered attendees on the day of the meeting, around about 6pm. Keep an eye out for the email and check your spam just in case.

Do prepare yourself in advance by downloading the zoom client.

Posted by Murray Steele on Aug 31, 2020

August 2020 Meeting

The August 2020 (What? Already?!) meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 10th of August, from 6:20pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm). Like last month the venue this time is wherever you happen to be because it's COMPLETELY VIRTUAL!

We'll run the meeting on our own zoom account, so make sure you have the zoom client for your preferred device, or know how to attend via the web.

Full registration details are given below, note that we will only be sending out the zoom meeting url to people who have registered, so please do make sure you do it.

Agenda #

We've got two talks this month. We also need more talks for the rest of year, so please get in touch on talks@lrug.org if there's something you'd like to say to LRUG

Language doesn't matter: what makes a senior engineer? #

Matt Bee:

What makes a senior engineer? What other aspects of being a senior engineer are as important, if not more important, than knowing a programming language inside out. What things can you work on to become or be a better senior engineer (that won't have a new framework out by next week!). This is a set of lessons learned in a journey from self taught front end developer to senior polyglot developer (via ruby).

1. LRUG August 2020 - Matt Bee - Language doesn't matter/ what makes a senior engineer?

Doing the right thing #

Chris Zetter:

Ethics are the principles of right and wrong that govern our behaviour. Using examples from my experience, i'll share some tools that you can use to understand ethical decisions and ways to help ourselves and our team make the right choices.

1. LRUG August 2020 - Chris Zetter - Doing the right thing

Afterwards #

Normally a few of us hang around in the Zoom chat after the meeting, but we're still on the lookout for other things we might try. If you've got a good idea of how to replicate the post-talk chats get in touch at organisers@lrug.org and we'll see what we can do.

Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees, even though there's no pub or venue. Basically they are good rules to generally live your life by.

Secure your place #

Even in a virtual world there are limited places for attending the meeting so you need to register via eventbrite. The link to the zoom meeting will only be sent to registered attendees on the day of the meeting, around about 6pm. Keep an eye out for the email and check your spam just in case.

Do prepare yourself in advance by downloading the zoom client.

Posted by Chris Lowis on Aug 02, 2020

July 2020 Meeting

The July 2020 meeting of LRUG will be on Monday the 13th of July, from 6:20pm to 8:00pm (meeting starts at 6:30pm). Like last month the venue this time is wherever you happen to be because it's COMPLETELY VIRTUAL!

We'll run the meeting on our own zoom account, so make sure you have the zoom client for your preferred device, or know how to attend via the web.

Full registration details are given below, note that we will only be sending out the zoom meeting url to people who have registered, so please do make sure you do it.

Agenda #

We've got one talk linked up so far for you this month. There's room for more so please get in touch if you'd like to talk about something. We also need more talks for the rest of year, so please get in touch on talks@lrug.org if there's something you'd like to say to LRUG

Improved security for password authentication #

Jolyon Pawlyn:

Devise is a great authentication solution and is standard in many Rails applications. I want to look at 2 easy improvements to the default password validation. Then let's see what it takes to implement bare bones two-factor authentication using Devise and Warden.

The security features to be covered can be viewed in an example application.

Jolyon is a volunteer at Crowdfrica, ex Contentful, Wunder Mobility and Unboxed Consulting, and also an aspiring yardener.

1. LRUG July 2020 - Jolyon Pawlyn - Improved security for password authentication

Perfect is the enemy of good #

Nicky Thompson:

This talk is a rambling rag-tag collection of software engineering and problem-solving lessons learned over the course of mumble years as a developer and now an engineering manager. It includes practical tips, philosophical insights, or just advice that other people gave me that I found helpful. These ideas have helped me be better at my job over the years. They are tried and tested, things that I have actually done throughout my career. They might or might not help you.

Nicky is an Engineering Manager at FutureLearn, providing management and support to the Technology Team. Offline, Nicky enjoys watching bad TV and learning new stuff: this year it's a serious sewing/dressmaking habit.

1. LRUG July 2020 - Nicky Thompson - Perfect is the enemy of good

…. you? #

As I mentioned above, we've basically run out of offers to give talks. I can certainly vamp for ten minutes about whether or not I care about using single or double quotes for strings without any interpolation, but I think it's almost certain that some of you have some thoughts or experiences that might be more interesting.

Please get in touch on talks@lrug.org and we will take it from there.

RubyConfBY Raffle #

The kind folks at RubyConfBY have given us two tickets to their conference to raffle to our attendess. The conference is going to be held (online) on the 18th & 19th of July, between 2-6PM CET (so that's 1-5PM BST). They've got a great line up of very interesting talks, and of course, it's never been easy or cheaper to attend a conference since there's no travel or hotel costs to factor in. But you can reduce that cost to zero by signing up to attend LRUG.

During the meeting, we'll run a raffle for all registered attendees and pick two. And even if you don't win in the raffle, the organisers have arranged a discount for LRUG members, which we'll share on the night.

Afterwards #

Normally a few of us hang around in the Zoom chat after the meeting, but we're still on the lookout for other things we might try. If you've got a good idea of how to replicate the post-talk chats get in touch at organisers@lrug.org and we'll see what we can do.

Registration #

Prior to attending you should familiarise yourself with our README paying close attention to the code of conduct which applies to all attendees, even though there's no pub or venue. Basically they are good rules to generally live your life by.

Secure your place #

Even in a virtual world there are limited places for attending the meeting so you need to register via eventbrite. The link to the zoom meeting will only be sent to registered attendees on the day of the meeting, around about 6pm. Keep an eye out for the email and check your spam just in case.

Do prepare yourself in advance by downloading the zoom client.

Posted by James Adam on Jul 01, 2020