Welcome back to the Vancouver.rb Q&A series. Today let’s welcome Victorian and soon Vancouverite Adam Palmblad - the cofounder and dev lead of startup TeamPages.com.

Our photos and uploads are handled with Rick Olson’s attachment_fu. Emails were initially problematic, but between ar_sendmail and some improvements I’ve made to it (maybe open-sourced one day), that problem is solved.

We run Mongrel and Nginx, and I’m happy with that setup, despite knowing some people who are quite happy with LiteSpeed.

On a big development branch we’ve just switched to Rails 2.1 and I’m pretty happy with that – named_scope has been good fun to work with.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Adam Palmblad: I’m a cofounder and the lead developer at TeamPages, and I’ve been with them since the beginning, 18 months ago.

I’ve been developing websites since high school – first with Perl back when 5.004 was new, and later with PHP. I think I remember a project using both MySQL and PHP 3.

I’ve got a degree in computer science from the University of Victoria.

In my spare time, I love to get outside. I enjoy rockclimbing and mountaineering – one of the things I’m looking forward to, with respect to moving to Vancouver, is being closer to Squamish.

Q: How did you get start with Ruby on Rails? Any commentary what makes Ruby or Ruby on Rails a great choice for developing web applications?

Adam Palmblad: I kind of jumped into Ruby on Rails with TeamPages. Initially, when we were starting TeamPages, we weren’t sure what language to implement it in. Rails was getting a lot of hype back then, and I played around with it a bit, and it felt good. Scaling was a bit of a concern, but we figured we’d be okay. There were blog posts going either way, and scaling is one of those things where you need a working application and users to figure out the hotspots.

I loved how fast it was to get going in it. The Rails Domain Specific Language (DSL) bits were easy to pick up and made a lot of sense. Ruby, once I got used to it, was a lot of fun, and made a lot of sense. Ruby’s definitely replacing Perl as my quick hack language of choice.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about TeamPages.com?

Adam Palmblad: TeamPages is the brain child of our CEO, Mike Tan. Mike was finishing up school at University of Victoria (UVic) and playing intramural sports. His team had a really tough time getting players to show up, and ended up forfeiting a playoff game because no one on his team knew to show up. Solving that problem is a foundation of our business.

Fast forward a little bit, and we’re a venture backed corporation moving to Vancouver. We’ve been going strong for the past year and a half. Watch for exciting new developments at the end of the summer (August-September).

Q: Inside TeamPages.com - Can you tell us a little bit about the architecture of TeamPages.com and highlight some libraries (gems), plugins or other (open source) building blocks that get used for TeamPages.com?

Adam Palmblad: I have to give a shout out to Engine Yard. I love having a solid IT team on hand to deal with things like that – be it power, equipment failure, network connectivity, poorly configured system software (other hosting companies have done unexpected upgrades causing breakages), even the occasional late night software glitch.

As far as gems go, I don’t think we’re running anything really interesting. Our photos and uploads are handled with Rick Olson’s attachment_fu. Emails were initially problematic, but between ar_sendmail and some improvements I’ve made to it (maybe open-sourced one day), that problem is solved.

We run Mongrel and Nginx, and I’m happy with that setup, despite knowing some people who are quite happy with LiteSpeed.

On a big development branch we’ve just switched to Rails 2.1 and I’m pretty happy with that – named_scope has been good fun to work with.

Q: Can you tell us some challenges you faced while developing TeamPages.com using Ruby on Rails?

Adam Palmblad: My biggest problem is rendering time. I’ve got around that by trying to be really careful with the code, doing more with JavaScript, and cutting down on queries and object initialization with fancier queries.

I kind of like tossing custom stuff into a :select on an active_record find – we have some complex relationships in our data and sometimes that’s the fastest way to do it.

Q: Any tips, tricks or advice for developers getting started with Ruby or Ruby on Rails?

Adam Palmblad: Just dive in. That’s basically what I did. Started with an example app, and then played around with a domain I had some experience with. Early on, I found the PeepCode Screencasts really helpful. I’ve got “Agile Development with Rails”, but I’ve never finished it. I’ve hacked around a bit, and played with different plugins, read some of the source code.

I found the local Victoria Ruby User Group helpful as well. Especially starting out, they recommended a lot of gems, blogs, and all-round good stuff. Why’s guide is a classic, although apparently not for everyone.

I still keep a browser tab open to www.gotapi.com as well – face it, the Rails API docs aren’t that great, especially for searching, and gotapi just makes it easy to search the Rails API, the Ruby standard libraries, DOM methods, Prototype, and JavaScript.

Thanks Adam Palmblad for your time and insight and welcome to Vancouver. TeamPages.com is hiring! See the Joint Vancouver Job & Gigs Board (running on Ruby on Rails and Passenger) for postings.

Questions? Comments? Send them along to the Vancouver.rb Forum/Mailing List. Thanks!

Let’s follow the example of the Seattle Ruby Brigade (Seattle.rb) and let’s start a weekly Vancouver Open Ruby Hack Night every Monday (unless we have a monthly meeting).

Interested? Let us know on the Vancouver.rb mailing list/forum and join us for the 1st Open Ruby Hack Night at Waves Coffee at the Hastings and Richards corner (offering free wireless) in downtown Vancouver one block from the Harbour Centre.

When: Monday, June 9th, 2008 - 7pm - Whenever (9ish)
Where: Waves Coffee, 492 West Hastings St.

Comments? Suggestions? Send them along to the Vancouver.rb forum/mailing list. Thanks!

Join us for the Vancouver Ruby/Rails meetup on Monday, Jun/2nd at 7pm at the Network Hub. Vancouverite Joe Bowser will talk about “Inside DogOnRails - A Wifidog Auth Server - and the FreeTheNet.ca Project”.

Summary: Learn more about DogOnRails from the project lead. What’s DogOnRails? DogOnRails is an open source Ruby on Rails implementation of the WifiDog 1.0 protocol designed to be used with a customized version of the ROBIN software. DogOnRails acts as the dashboard for FreeTheNet.ca - a Vancouver Open Network Initiative Cooperative (VONIC) project connecting Canada one block at a time using Open-Mesh enabled wireless routers.

About Joe Bowser:
Joe Bowser is one of the co-founders of the Vancouver Open Network Initiatives Cooperative (VONIC), and FreeTheNet.ca, a Community Wireless Mesh Network in Vancouver, BC. Joe’s current day job is working at Nitobi Software, where he works with Javascript, Ruby on Rails, and other open source technologies. Joe has also taken very active roles in other not-for-profits, such as volunteering at Free Geek Vancouver, and Spartacus Books, and is committed to Open Access to information and the Free Software movement.

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Volunteer as a speaker for upcoming meetups. Add your talk to the wiki. Thanks!

Looking for Ruby/Rails talent? Interested in pitching your startup? We can help!

Here is how it works: Pay everyone a beer/drink at the Ruby Pub Nite (usually 10-20) and in return step on a chair and get your 3-5 minutes of fame to tell us all about your startup, job openings, etc. Win-Win for everybody! Cheers!
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More info and sign-up at the Vancouver Ruby/Rails June meetup event page.
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Questions? Comments? Send them along to the Vancouver.rb Mailing List/Forum. Thanks!

Join us for the Vancouver Ruby/Rails meetup on Monday, May/5th at 7pm at the Network Hub. Vancouverite Brock Whitten who published an “Open Break-Up Letter to Rails” will talk about “Off the Rails - Why You Should Use Merb for Your Next Project”

Summary: I feel that ‘web services’ is the future of the web and Merb is more suited for this due to its speed and flexibility (it’s perfect for building an API). This talk is a quick primer on Merb: what its benefits are and why these benefits are important for a developer that is thinking about the web of tomorrow.

Demonstrates building a basic RESTful API from scratch using Merb. This took about 10 min. Once we were done, we had an ‘Articles’ resource that had the 7 golden(REST) methods. All the methods for accessing the resource understood HTTP, XML, JSON and YAML. What this does for us is gives us many ways to access our resource.

About Brock Whitten:
I write applications using Ruby frameworks such as Ruby on Rails and Merb. I am intimate with RESTful principals and am known as an AJAX junkie. I think in terms of ‘resources’ and ‘web services’. I believe whole heartedly in open-source software and have a passion for furthering my local community.

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Volunteer as a speaker for upcoming meetups. Add your talk to the wiki. Thanks!

Looking for Ruby/Rails talent? Interested in pitching your startup? We can help!

Here is how it works: Pay everyone a beer/drink at the Ruby Pub Nite (usually 10-20) and in return step on a chair and get your 3-5 minutes of fame to tell us all about your startup, job openings, etc. Win-Win for everybody! Cheers!
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More info and sign-up at the Vancouver Ruby/Rails May meetup event page.

The Planet Vancouver.rb (planet.vanrb.com) publishes Ruby/Rails stories from in and around Vancouver for easy reading or subscription in a single “river of news”. Latest stories include:

• JRuby 1.1 Goodness - Important, Why? - by Tim Bray
• Typo by Geoffrey Meredith
• Ruby and other Gems by Avi Bryant
• Presentation Tip: Haml Rocks! by Eric Promislow
• Be Less Stupid and Ugly - Using git with vlad by Joe Bowser

Interested in getting your blog included? Send a blurb about your blog highlighting some Ruby/Rails stories to the Vancouver.rb Forum/Mailing List. Thanks!

Welcome back to episode two of the Q&A with Vancouverite Brock Whitten.

Q: What’s Git? What has been your experience using Git for PmpknPi? Any pros or cons versus subversion? Any comments on (free) Git hosting services?

Brock Whitten: Well you don’t have to go far to see the excitement around Git. I am hosting PmpknPi in two Git repositories (GitHub and Gitorious) and one Subversion repository at Google Code. Git has made this super easy. Subversion can do most of what Git can do. The big difference for me is that with Git I actually use the tools. I find myself creating, merging and using branches all the time where as with subversion I tread lightly around those tools. Git is also setup in away that allows for people to fork and contribute to your project with ease. As for free Git hosting, Gitorious is fantastic. It seems to be constantly improving in both features and speed. Only downfall is you can currently only do open repositories. For private ones you will have to go to GitHub which is the ‘golden standard’ of Git hosting. It is currently beta-by-invite but I have some invites kicking around so I’m open to anyone emailing me for one if they feel they will use it.

Q: Any commentary on jQuery? How is it better or worse than the “classic” standard Rails JavaScript library Prototype? How does jQuery fit into the Rails or Merb universe?

Brock Whitten: I wanted to see the Prototype/Scriptaculus extracted from Rails 2.0 to level the playing field for other JavaScript libraries such as Moo-tools and JQuery to make its way onto Rails. Seriously, it’s time we separate our JavaScript from our content! Dan Webb has been telling it right for some time now but he is still ignored by the Rails community. It should be noted that you can program unobtrusively with Prototype but Rails/Prototype persuades us to do otherwise. That’s why I have switched to JQuery for both my Rails and Merb projects.

Q: Can you tell us a bit about your upcoming Open Web Vancouver “Off the Rails” talk? What’s it all about?

Brock Whitten: I’m very excited about being the person who gets to speak about Merb at the Open Web conference. The plan is to give a quick rundown of Merb and where it fits into the ‘framework’ landscape. I will then demonstrate some code (perhaps whip up a quick blog from scratch). I will certainly leave some time to answer questions. Be warned, there is a very good chance you will leave my talk wanting to port many of your projects to Merb.

Q: Any commentary on Zed Shaw’s “Rails is a Ghetto” essay/rant?

Brock Whitten: I like Zed a lot. I think he is very genuine and cares greatly about his work. That doesn’t mean that I agree with everything he says but none of that matters. What matters is Zed is willing to let it be known when something is not right even if that may come at a high cost to him. That’s the kind of person I want in my community.

Thanks Brock Whitten. For more join us at the upcoming Open Web Vancouver 2008 conference at Canada Place on April 14+15th.

Questions? Comments? Send them along to the Vancouver.rb Forum/Mailing List. Thanks!

Welcome back to the Vancouver.rb Q&A series. Today let’s welcome Vancouverite Brock Whitten.

Rails is awesome. I try my very best not to say things like Merb is “better” than Rails but it is. Let’s keep in mind that part of the reason it’s great is because it is a lot like Rails and Merb was able to learn from the mistakes Rails learned the hard way. The most obvious advantage that Merb has is for writing APIs. If you were to build an API with Rails you are loading this entire (kitchen sink) framework for something very simple. Think alone of all those view helpers you won’t be using yet they are being loaded for every instance of Mongrel. This is like driving a motor home to the cornerstone to buy milk. Merb on the other hand is broken into chunks (merb-core, merb-more, plugins) so you only load what you need. This makes Merb multiple times faster than Rails.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? How did you get started with Ruby on Rails? What makes Ruby on Rails a great choice for developing web applications/sites?

Brock Whitten: By day I’m a Rails Developer for the Vancouver animation studio, Bardel Entertainment(seen Viva Pinata?). My job there is focused on building tools that help our animators build cartoons better and faster. By night, If I’m not sharing a pint or watching a film with one of my chums, I am at home working on one of my many side projects (almost all Merb related).

Actually I fell in love with Ruby on Rails while studying PHP at BCIT. As soon as I graduated, I bought every Ruby book I could get my hands on and have not looked back. I’m very happy as a Ruby/Rails developer.

Rails is a great way to build web apps because it allows you to focus your efforts on creativity rather than mundane tasks. It saddens me to see how many people have lost touch with this point.

Q: Can you tell us some challenges you’ve faced developing using Ruby on Rails?

Brock Whitten: I was still fairly novice programmer when I got onto Rails, and Rails itself was still young and working out its kinks. This was frustrating for me at times because I could see the framework was in need of plugins, documentation bloggers and speakers but I was not mature enough as a developer to contribute on this level. Ironic enough, now that I am capable, Rails is solid and the community is thriving.

I have benefited greatly from the Ruby community and thus have always felt a debt to it. I have been waiting for the right opportunity to give back and Merb has opened that door. Currently Merb has many of the same needs as Rails did a couple of years ago and I will be contributing as much as I can to this community.

Q: Off the Rails - Can you tell us a little bit about Merb? How did you get started? Any insight on how Merb compares with Rails and how it’s better or worse?

Brock Whitten: Rails has received a lot of criticism lately, mostly regarding speed and scalability. I think this is because people are using Rails for things they shouldn’t. Can you blame them? Rails is awesome. I try my very best not to say things like Merb is “better” than Rails but it is. Let’s keep in mind that part of the reason it’s great is because it is a lot like Rails and Merb was able to learn from the mistakes Rails learned the hard way. The transition to Merb is very natural, Rails developers should have much of a problem. The most obvious advantage that Merb has is for writing APIs. If you were to build an API with Rails you are loading this entire (kitchen sink) framework for something very simple. Think alone of all those view helpers you won’t be using yet they are being loaded for every instance of Mongrel. This is like driving a motor home to the cornerstone to buy milk. Merb on the other hand is broken into chunks (merb-core, merb-more, plugins) so you only load what you need. This makes Merb multiple times faster than Rails. The trade off is polish, Rails has really evolved into a solid system. Expect some craziness with Merb, for a while at least.

Q: What’s PmpknPi? Tell us more about PmpknPi? What are your future plans?

Brock Whitten: For the right people PmpknPi is going to be a godsend. It is a very lean, fast, RESTful API for blogging (caching optional kind of fast). This is a blog engine for Ruby developers, not for your clients. The system assumes you are competent. It is very straight forward and is easy to modify. It intentionally does not have a user model or tempting, or a plugin system. Simply edit the settings.yml file and away you go. Comments have a voting mechanism (digg/reddit style) that does not require your users registering which I think should be standard on all blogs. Oh and did I mention the JavaScript is completely unobtrusive and degradable. I just tagged the 0.1 release. Give it a go and don’t be afraid to fork the git repo at GitHub or Gitorious. Who knows? perhaps I’ll pull some of your changes.

Future plans are to add asset uploading with thumbnailing and a tagging system (that’s 4 models total!). That’s it. I plan to always keep it very basic. I’m hoping people will customize it to their liking and then write a tutorial on how to apply those changes such as adding your twitter feeds or adding multiple users using the merbful_authentication plugin.

It should also be noted that PmpknPi will be used for merbman.com which is days away from launch. I will mostly be me writing about my experiences with writing Pmpknpi and talking about Merb.

Thanks Brock Whitten. Check back later this week for the second part in the interview discussing “What’s Git?” and pros or cons versus subversion plus some comments on (free) Git hosting services and more about the upcoming “Off the Rails” talk at Open Web Vancouver 2008 and more.

In a new monthly series I will spotlight Ruby projects from Vancouver.rb members starting off with a little Ruby gem - Slide Show (S9) - by yours truly

What’s Slide Show (S9)?

Slide Show (S9) is a free web alternative to PowerPoint and KeyNote in Ruby that lets you create slide shows and author slides in plain text using a wiki-style markup language that’s easy-to-write and easy-to-read.

New in v0.2 are “loss-free” vector grahpics gradient themes. See some samples online using the “classic” sixteen web colors plus nine gradient styles such as “Diagonal”, “Radial Off Center”, “Top Bottom” and more. Try the “Radial Repeat” theme for some free psychodelia. (Note: Built-in SVG browser support required - e.g. use Firefox or Opera). Or try the Microformats slide show live on your very own desktop.

Find out more at the Slide Show (S9) project site. Questions? Comments? Send them along to the Free Web Slide Show Alternatives (S5, S9 And Friends) Forum/Mailing List. Thanks!

Interested in getting your Ruby project spotlighted in the new Vancouver.rb series? Send a blurb to the Vancouver.rb Forum/Mailing List and tell us about your Ruby project to get it all started.

Arash Sanieyan (Peerglobe) posts on the Vancouver.rb Forum/Mailing List:

Come and Drop by for a casual and friendly get-together. We are arranging another AIR/Flex/Rails workshop event on Wednesday March 19th. We’ve invited a few people to discuss their insights working with these technologies. Peter Armstrong will join us and talk about his new book “Flexible Rails”. Flexible Rails is the term Peter uses to describe the integration of Adobe Flex with Ruby on Rails as the back-end. Flex supports building powerful graphic user interfaces while Rails simplifies database integration.

We will be providing coffee and doughnuts and going to the Steamworks for a round of beer afterwards. Read more…

Peter Armstrong - the Ruby/Rails meetup organizer - posted the agenda for the upcoming March Ruby/Rails meetup. Peter writes:

Title: Resource Oriented Architecture (ROA) with Rails by Alex Bunardzic (Raymond James)

Summary: World wide web is an ever growing collection of resources published by the humanity at large. These resources get to be produced and consumed by utilizing the underlying Resource Oriented Architecture (ROA). ROA differs from the garden variety of legacy computing infrastructures by not elaborating on extensible protocols.

The presentation will focus on explaining the working of ROA, as well as on exposing the benefits of adopting this architecture. Following that, we will discuss some perceived drawbacks inherent in ROA, and will conclude the presentation by describing how can Ruby on Rails framework help us build web sites using the principles of ROA.

More info and sign-up at the Vancouver Ruby/Rails March meetup event page.

PS: Zed Shaw in the infamous “Rails Is A Ghetto” rant has a section on Alex titled “Revenge Of The Zen Prick”.