Thank You, ThoughtWorks!

Tuesday, September 12, 2017 was the last ChicagoRuby:Downtown meeting held at ThoughtWorks. Future Downtown meetings for ChicagoRuby will be held at the new 8th Light office at 25 East Washington in Chicago.

Thank you, ThoughtWorks, for everything you have done for ChicagoRuby over the years!

Passing the ChicagoRuby Baton

After ten years as lead organizer of ChicagoRuby, I have decided to step down. My 8th Light colleague, Nicole Carpenter, has accepted the leadership baton. Congratulations, Nicole!

Highly Effective SEO

If you’re promoting a site on the web, you may be curious about search engine optimization (SEO). Curiosity about SEO makes sense. If there is a way to raise your ranking in the search engines, why not do it?

This post describes a highly effective way to achieve SEO without resorting to clever schemes.

For Example…

As of the date of this post, Googling the term chicago ruby on rails will generate results similar to the above image. Note that three of the ten results on page one are owned or controlled by the ChicagoRuby Organizer Team. I’ve tried this test on machines in multiple countries, computers that I’ve never touched before (to eliminate the influences of caching and geography). The results are consistent. How did we push ChicagoRuby’s SEO to this level?

Nantucket or WindyCityRails

There once was a dev from Nantucket,
Who tried to write code in a bucket.
“It works” quoth the coder.
Now I want to get bolder.
I’m ready for WindyCityRails.

You’re right. That limerick is only 80% finished and completely nonsensical!

A Business View of Ruby on Rails

If your company does anything with software on the web (sometimes called “Software as a Service” or SaaS) then you’ve already heard about Ruby on Rails. For smart people with non-IT backgrounds, this post will answer a few key questions:

• What is Ruby on Rails?
• Why do you care?
• How can your company benefit?

Note: A version of this post was originally published by WisdomGroup and re-published by ChicagoRuby.