Re-blogging the news from Scout—we’re sponsoring the Golden Gate Ruby Conference and demoing some very tasty updates to Scout.
Stop by and say hi to Derek and Andre in the booth. I don’t know which one of them will be the booth-babe, yet.
Posted in Keeping it Simple 
Comments
Here are 4 reasons for prototyping applications first. By prototyping, I mean an emphasis on building working applications rapidly:
1. It is much easier to edit an existing application that to try to dream one up with nothing visual and interactive to work with.
2. Too much planning leads to over-complication. Sometimes you can be too smart for you own good. “What if the user wants to do X or Y.” Don’t guess, find out.
3. A working application that can be tweaked beats a theoretical application that is perfect (and either sucks when it’s “done” or never sees the light of day)
4. A Prototype forces you to focus on the core functionality, that makes or breaks your idea. Trust us, the logo is not your killer feature.
Credit is due to our good friend Mike Landman of Ripple for Reasons #1 and #3.
Highgroove is attending Startup Riot 2009 tomorrow. We’re excited to be attendees this year (last year we were presenters on Scout).
If you’re attending, be sure to say “hi!” to Matt and I!
Posted in Ruby on Rails, Business Comments
I’ve been in the New York Times newsroom at 5 pm on a Friday, when a reporter dropped in with brand new test score results from across the New York public school system—suddenly, it was like a machine springing to action. There were graphic designers loading SQL dumps of data, collaborating with developers and reporters, all working with the numbers to culminate and disseminate the information, and create factual reporting. It was truly amazing – even better than the afternoon I spent in the pits at a NASCAR race.
I bring this up not simply because of this fantastic article on nytimes.com about these Renegade Cybergeeks at the Times, but because I have seen what kind of great things happen when you put smart, motivated people together, towards great causes.
Last week, we got the chance to work with these developer/journalists (or perhaps journalist/developers) once again—and I couldn’t help but be simply thrilled to help, in a small way, by providing hands-on consulting and training to their Interactive and Computer Aided Reporting Teams.
We’re delighted to associate with these geeks.
Posted in Keeping it Simple Comments
Recently I bought Madden ’09 for Xbox 360. I enjoy the game well enough (though seeing how I finished 11-5 with the Detroit Lions I now question its authenticity…) but can’t profess to have nearly as much fun with Madden as I did with 1991’s Tecmo Super Bowl for the original Nintendo. The reason is a matter of simplicity.
Madden encourages the player to take the reigns of an NFL franchise or player, and often gets lost in the details by requiring too many off-the-field decisions and too complicated in-game button combinations. Of course the graphics are amazing, and online league play opens up a world of possibility never-before-seen in sports gaming, but when it comes down to actually gameplay, an element of pick-up-and-play gets lost in the complexity.
Tecmo is fun, plain and simple. No trades, no draft combines, no adaptive A.I., no bobbled catches, no user activated celebrations, no booth commentary or virtual trainers. Just two buttons on the controller, eight plays to choose from on offense and one formation on defense, a trick move that’s unstoppable if executed correctly, and perhaps the most addictive gameplay this side of Tetris.
The contrasts between the two games remind me of something that’s often forgotten while developing software – the end goal. It’s easy to get wrapped up in feature-itis, in making applications too complex for their own good. But software that’s easy to use and sticks to its principle function is almost always the most productive.
We’ve made a few slight changes to the Highgroove Studios site. Here’s the lowdown:
An emphasis on experience. We’ve been building Ruby on Rails applications since the framework existed. Along the way, we’ve published books, and contributed to a few, too. In short, we’re extremely proud of our time with Rails and want the world to know about it.
Updates to the Highgroove Team. We have some real experts on our team. From Ruby core developers, to former Big-5 Consultants—we’ve been around the block and we’re very proud of our accomplishments. Be sure to check out the updates bios and the new members.
A showcase of our work. We have been involved in a lot of successful projects. We’ve been in the trenches at lots of companies, working with lots of smart people, and it shows.
In true Highgroove fashion, we’ve launched it already, so we can tweak it as we go.
Posted in Speaking, Community, Presentations, Ruby on Rails Comments
Many critics are hailing Little Big Planet as the video game of the year. Its “flexible, fun, and powerful” level creator and sharing system has created an interactive platform never before seen in gaming.
But you don’t need to tell our James Edward Gray II about it – in March, at the MountainWest Ruby Conference” in Salt Lake City, he’ll be giving a featured speech on how Ruby programmers can learn from Little Big Planet’s creative problem solving and code reading. He’ll also be discussing some of the most creative Ruby projects out there, showing how their developers build servers, optimize code, and more.
A Playstation 3 and advanced knowledge of Super Mario Brothers Level 1-1 is optional but encouraged for attendees of this talk.
Posted in Ruby on Rails, Atlanta, Speaking Comments
Come see Matt talk about the Rack project, a minimal interface between webservers supporting Ruby and Ruby frameworks that’s behind the new Rails Metal functionality.
He’ll be going over Rack, and showing an example of a quick and dirty framework. He may even show how we use Rack handler’s to help handle Scout’s load.
Other topics include:Check out the Atlanta Ruby Meetup Group and the January Meeting Event Details for more information.
Check out what’s going on with Scout and Merb in Atlanta this weekend!
MerbCamp is the first official gathering for the Merb community.
Our own Matt Todd is speaking on “Going Beyond Web Sites with Merb”—where he’ll talk about using Merb to do things other than just your run-of-the-mill web-sites—things like APIs, Web Services, lightweight protocols, and making your grass greener. Well, maybe not that last one.
You can Register at:
The Napkin RSS Feed
