Introduction to Rails Workshop

It's been quite a while since I blogged, mainly because I've had my head down writing new workshop material. We're running an introductory Ruby On Rails workshop on July 21 (just two weeks away now), and although it's been a lot of effort I'm pretty happy with the way the material is working out.

One day isn't very long to look at the equivalent of Java and a full Java web development stack, so rather than simply repeat what's already available in books and screencasts we're going to cover things that we find useful in our day to day development work. We'll be giving attendees a whirlwind tour of Ruby, a brief guide to Rails, and then we'll focus on tools and practices that aren't quite so accessible to the ruby newbie.

So if you've heard about Ruby and/or Rails but haven't made the plunge yet, or you know someone like that, go have a look at the course description, check out our pricing policies and send us a bid. At the moment all you need to bid is $100, so you may be getting some really cheap training!

New introduction to agile methods

It's been a while since I posted, and it's mainly because I've been busy updating our introduction to agile methods. It's done now, at least well enough to show people. Warning - this is a large (7mb) pdf file. It's not intended to stand alone - the real value comes from someone talking it through - but you may still find it interesting, and there may be parts you can use (with accreditation please).

Design Patterns - last reminder

A final reminder that if we receive enough bids we'll be closing the Design Patterns workshop to attendees midnight this Friday. Post your bids by email.

Design Improvement to Design Patterns

Marty ran the Design Improvement workshop last weekend - another full house and another good day. There are some pics on the wiki, and also some blog posts from attendees.

The next workshop is Design Patterns on May 19, and we're really lucky to have secured Andy Bulka as the workshop leader. We've already got four people bidding, so if you're interested you might want to get in now.

Design Improvement bids close this Friday

A reminder for anyone considering the Design Improvement workshop that bids close this Friday. We've got 12 distinct bidders at the moment, so if you're interested you should probably make a bid near your final limit rather than trying to be tactical about it.

Also a little advance warning - we're looking at running an EAT Design Patterns workshop in May, so watch out for that or let me know if you're interested in getting mail when it's announced.

Marty Andrews co-teaching TDD course

I'm pleased to announce that Marty Andrews/ will be teaching the EAT TDD course with me on January 20. Marty has a wealth of experience in agile development, particularly TDD, and it will be valuable for people to get both our perspectives.