Looking for an Intern

12.5.11 by Gregg Pollack

Envy Labs is officially looking for a (paid) intern.  We looking for someone who:

  • Already knows his/her way around Rails.  We’re going to want to see that you’ve built a Rails app or two.  You don’t need to have written any tests, but you do need to know the basics.
  • Can come work with us at Envy Labs in Orlando at least 2 days a week (if not more).  In other words,we can be flexible if you’re currently a student.
  • Is a good writer and communicator.
  • has their own laptop.
  • Knows their way around HTML/CSS/Databases.
  • Has a passion for creating web apps.

What will this person be doing?  
  • Beginner Rails Apps.  We have some smaller sites that need to be done in Rails / Sinatra that we’d get your help with.
  • Pair Programming.  We’d get you pairing with more experienced developers to advance your knowledge.
  • Code School Support. We all take turns supporting Code School, and so would you.
We’re pretty passionate about our learning environment at Code School with our book club, do code reviews, pair programming (when needed), and our Friday presentations.  If you’re interested please email me with your resume and tell me about (or show me) websites you’ve developed.  Also let me know if you’ve completed any Code School courses.

2 Comments

Rails for Zombies 2 Released!

10.26.11 by Gregg Pollack

Just yesterday Code School released Rails for Zombies 2, the sequel to the first Intro to Rails Zombie course.  This new course picks up right where the last one left off with 5 more vidoes, and 52 more coding challenges.  Topics include:

  • Rails command line and database migrations
  • More ActiveRecord relationships and named scopes
  • Undertstanding REST, nested resources, forms, and partials.
  • The Rails 3.1 Asset Pipeline
  • Sending Email from our Rails app
  • Custom routes and dynamic pages with AJAX

By the end of the course you’ll be much better prepared to create your own Rails applications.  Here’s the intro video to learn more:

With Zombies 2 we also released our Code School Open Enrollment program, which allows you to get access to all our course for one low monthly price.  Head over to Code School Enrollment to learn more about that.

No Comments

Upgrading to Rails 3.1.1

10.7.11 by Jacob Swanner

Often, here at Envy Labs, when we start a new application, we’ll use the latest version of Rails available; even if that version happens to be a prerelease. Unfortunately, as new versions are released, it can be difficult to know what steps need to be taken to upgrade your applications.

There are many times when just modifying the Rails gem version in your Gemfile and then running bundle update seems to work: your tests still pass, application runs like normal, etc. So, you never think twice and go about continuing to develop your application. But, were there other changes that could/should have been made as well? Perhaps Rails has changed the default value for some configuration setting; perhaps release candidates did not deal with assets in the same way the final release did. If you are using prerelease versions, more things tend to change as newer versions come out.

Read the rest of this entry »

9 Comments

Try Ruby Rewrite and Redesign

9.29.11 by Gregg Pollack

There once was a developer named “why the lucky stiff” also known as  ”_why”.  He did many great things in the Ruby world, including the creation of an website called Try Ruby which allowed anybody to try their hand at programming ruby by coding in the browser.

Here at Envy Labs we’ve been inspired by _why’s work and you can see his influence with Rails for Zombies, where we teach people Rails by coding in the browser.  Rails for Zombies was such a huge success it led us to build Code School, where we build paid coding courses.

We’ve learned a great deal about how to do in-browser coding as we’ve built Code School, and a few months ago Eric Allam started to wonder if we should take our knowledge and contribute back to TryRuby.  After a call to Andrew McElroy who graciously maintained the project with David Miani (after _why disappeared), Eric dove in.

Flash forward two months later and today we’re happy to announce the release of TryRuby version 3!

Read the rest of this entry »

10 Comments

We Ain’t Got No RSpec

9.23.11 by Gregg Pollack

Four years ago I was doing the Rails Envy Podcast when we received a voicemail from a listener known as R. Elliot Mason. The instant I heard the voicemail I knew it was special. I also knew there was only one way I could truly give tribute to such an amazing voicemail. Thus, the “We Ain’t Got No RSpec” Remix was born. Below you’ll find the original voicemail recording, followed by my Remix.

Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments

Running jQuery code from Ruby using ExecJS-Async

9.4.11 by eric

pipes

Last week I wrote a post about using the Asset Pipeline outside of Rails because we needed to test answers for Code School’s upcoming Zombies 2 course. But we also need a way to test javascript (that uses jQuery) that manipulates a DOM, and all from inside of Ruby.

ExecJS to the rescue

ExecJS is a ruby gem that lets you run JavaScript code from Ruby. It does this by using the best javascript runtime available to evaluate Javascript and returning the result in Ruby! For example:

ExecJS.eval "'red yellow blue'.split(' ')"
# => ["red", "yellow", "blue"]

Rad! Or you can use it to compile a block of javascript and then call it later, like this:

context = ExecJS.compile "var run = function(foo) { return foo + foo }"
context.call 'run', 'bar'
# => 'barbar'

Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments

, , , , , ,

Using the Asset Pipeline outside of Rails – Serving CoffeeScript and SASS

8.28.11 by eric

In our upcoming Rails for Zombies 2 Code School course, we have a couple of challenges that make use of Rails 3.1 new Asset Pipeline. The Asset Pipeline is the thing in Rails that serves up your javascript, images, and stylesheets. But it can also compile CoffeeScript into Javascript, or SASS into CSS.

And so we wanted to teach people a little bit of CoffeeScript/SASS in Rails for Zombies 2. But that means we have to have a way to test CoffeeScript/SASS. We accomplished this by extracting the bits in Rails 3.1 that implement the pipeline and used them to serve and compile CoffeeScript into Javascript and SASS into CSS.

Read the rest of this entry »

7 Comments

, , , , ,

Senior Developer Wanted

8.23.11 by Gregg Pollack

Envy Labs is up to 20 people now, and we’re looking for one more Senior Ruby/Rails Developer to join our team here in Orlando, Florida. I prefer videos over typing (who da thought?), so here’s a video giving you a short tour of Envy Labs and talking a little about what it’s like to work with us.

To learn more about what is important to us, check out our Core Values. If you think having a set of Core Values is cheesy, please don’t apply. If you think you might be a good fit for our team, email me with some stuff you’ve done. You get a bonus for open source, videos of your presentations, and anything else you can send over (aside from a resume).

In the video I said that we organize the “weekly barcamp”, yes I meant “yearly”.. thank god.

1 Comment

Designing 3 For 5

8.9.11 by Jason VanLue

A few weeks ago we launched our newest Code School course, 3 For 5: Functional HTML5 & CSS3. We’re pretty excited about the course primarily because we’re able to piggy back on our jQuery Air course and continue to reach more of the design / front-end audience. This is our fourth course at Code School, and with each course we seek to build on what we’ve learned to make the next course our best ever.

Here’s a brief rundown on how we designed and built 3 For 5:

Theme

One of the key brand elements of Code School is that each course we produce has a unique theme. For our HTML5 / CSS3 course, we wanted to take a functional approach — meaning we wanted the course to be extremely practical and provide real-world tips and tricks that our users could take and begin implementing immediately. I’m somewhat of an architecture nut, and the balance between form and function (something just as important in architecture as in web design) seemed to fit as a theme.

I was able to track down a collection of vintage Photochrom prints in the public domain as well as several old photographs of well-known buildings. These formed the foundation of the theme particularly for the course slides.

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment

Functional HTML5 & CSS3 Course Released

7.26.11 by Gregg Pollack

Today I’m happy to announce our third paid course at Code School, Functional HTML5 & CSS3. Hosted by our lead designer Jason VanLue, the course contains everything you need to know to start applying HTML5 and CSS3 to your website design today. I encourage you to watch the video below to learn more:

We are stoked to be able to offer some great prizes when you finish the course.  The first prize gives you half off your first month of Think Vitamin Membership, which contains an incredible library of educational videos covering topics from Django to Rails, jQuery to IOS Development, and most importantly some great HTML5 & CSS3 tutorials.

We’re also excited to offer a discount of 20% on books from A Book Apart which offers key design books such as CSS3 for Web Designers and HTML5 for Web Designers.

Aside from the new prizes, this course comes with two new items we’ve never offered in any code school course:

  • Three cheat sheets which contain all of the HTML5 and CSS3 covered in the course.
  • A demo website you download after the course which serves as a killer example of what is possible with effective design and HTML5 & CSS3.

I believe the combination of the topic, prizes, cheat sheets, and demo website make this the most valuable course we’ve made at Code School.  It also makes the price of $45 a steal.

No Comments

« Older Entries