The Topfunky Tour of the USA World continues with a seminar in London on March 30!

Get Started With Rails

At my first workshop in Seattle last month I probably learned more than the students did. In an agile fashion I have completely refactored my tactics and am prepared for a rockin’ seminar next month. I’ll cover the basics of Ruby and the mysteries of Rails. It will be intense, practical, and focused. If you are an intermediate to advanced developer who is ready to go down the Ruby hole, this is a seminar you should attend.

You’ll take away a software kit with practical code snippets, short examples, and whole projects. Limited to 50 people.

→ More Info

Carson Workshops

I feel fortunate to be teaching for Carson Workshops who have hosted seminars by some of my technological heroes, including Thomas Fuchs, Eric Meyer, Shaun Inman, and David Heinemeier Hansson.

I also hope to stick around for a few days and hear six hours of my favorite DJ, Mr. Scruff.

Dvorak Redux

I managed to start a rousing discussion on Dvorak vs. Qwerty. Most of the literature I’ve read focuses on the issue of speed, which wasn’t a concern for me (comfort and design philosophy were). I didn’t start by saying “Is Dvorak better than Qwerty?” Instead, I asked “If I were starting from scratch, which layout is more intelligently designed?” For me, populating the home row with the keys I use most often makes more sense.

I appreciate Richstyles who said

As a programmer is it worth the investment to interrupt the productivity for an extended period of time in such an exciting moment in rails history?

In the month that I’ve been learning Dvorak, I have continued a fulltime Rails contract, written eleven blog posts, coded RubyOnRailsWorkshops.com from scratch, written the CSS Graphs Helper, issued two releases of Gruff, published three podcasts, and written half a chapter in an upcoming book on Rails deployment, all in 100% Dvorak. So it didn’t slow me down too much.

For most people, the effort to learn Dvorak or Colemak or anything else isn’t worth it. The reason I switched was part of a larger plan to be the most productive, efficient, and effective programmer I can be. If you are also seeking that and have found enlightenment in Qwerty, I applaud you. Let’s march forward confidently and make the world a better place.

Curtain down…