Robby on Rails

Hello all!

I’ve been so busy this year travelling (for pleasure and work) and helping grow the company that I’ve not had much to say here. Expect some posts soon!

In the meantime, if you’re looking for a new challenge… Planet Argon is seeking a few more Ruby on Rails developers. Interested? get in touch.

Just a quick update to let you know that I’ll be moving more of my business-related topics to the Planet Argon Blog. I invite you to subscribe to that feed as well. :-)

p.s. We just published Episode 4 of the Planet Argon Podcast, which was on the topic of Hiring designers.

Earlier this week, we published Episode 3 of the Planet Argon Podcast. In this latest episode we responded to one of the ideas someone in the audience asked on this brainstormr, which was, “How do you manage bugs?”

We had a round table discussion about how we classify and prioritize bugs with our clients, ticketing systems, and other tools that we use to streamline this process.

You can listen to this on iTunes or online.

Earlier this week our new podcast was approved and is now available in the Apple iTunes Store. We’re also soliciting topic ideas for future episodes on brainstormr.

We posted Episode 2, The Letter Scotch, yesterday for your enjoyment. In this episode, we covered a handful of web browser tools that we use (and detest) to debug HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This included Web Inspector, Firebug, DebugBar, and a handful of other tools. We all have slightly different preferences, depending on the tasks that we’re working on and the team had an open dialogue about the pros/cons of each of these tools.

You can learn more about and listen to our podcast at http://planetargon.com/podcast.

Thanks in advance for listening!

While our team is typically focused on larger client and internal projects, we do get an opportunity to assist businesses on a much smaller scale. Whether this be through retainer-based consulting or through code audits, we have seen a lot of Ruby on Rails code over what has nearly been… five years!? We’ve been able to compile a fairly extensive checklist that we use in our code audit process that we’ve decided to streamline it into a smaller product.

Historically, this service has ranged anywhere from $2000-6000, depending the size and scope of the projects, but we want to help smaller startups¹ and projects outline a roadmap for how they can begin to refactor and optimize their existing code base so that they can be more efficient at the start of 2010. So, we’ve scaled things down into an extremely affordable flat-rate package where we work off of a pre-defined number of hours.[2]

Through the end of 2009, we’re now offering the 8-Hour Rails Code Audit package for just $1000 USD (details).

We’re currently limiting this service to just two projects per week, so reserve your spot now.

¹ Larger projects are welcome to benefit from this service and custom quotes are available upon request.

² As always, we’re happy to discuss longer engagements.

Related Posts

• Audit Your Rails Development Team
• Rails Code Audits and Reviews, continued

It’s time to find my passport again…

I’ve been invited to speak at Rails Underground, which is being held in London, UK from July 24-25th.

My talk, which is tentatively titled, “Launching Ruby on Rails projects, a checklist”, will expand on several ideas that came out a previous article on the topic. Additionally, I plan to share some of the lessons that we’ve learned at Planet Argon as we’ve launched projects over last several years.

If you’re able to make it, I encourage you to register for the event before it’s too late. Take a quick peak at the list of speakers. I’m grateful to the event organizers for the invite and look forward to seeing/meeting all of the attendees!

Also, for those of you in the London area. If you’re seeking a design and development team that specializes in Ruby on Rails and want to schedule a meeting with me while I’m visiting, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. I’m planning on staying a few days extra around the conference dates to visit some of our existing clients and would be happy to meet you.