Intro To Ruby On Rails

Presenter: Alan Hecht

You've heard the hype, now come see the reality presented from the perspective of a long-time .Net deveoper.

Ruby On Rails is the story of a technology that has changed the way people think about web development. Microsoft's ASP.Net MVC is a response to Ruby On Rails that benefits from the thinking that went into Ruby and Rails.

Even if you are a die hard Web Forms developer, you can gain a new perspective on web development by checking out this presentation.

Alan Hecht is a senior level software developer who has been a member of GGMUG since our early days. His presentations are always very well thought out and he has deep experience with multiple technology stacks.

Alan first presented this session at the Intro To My Tech series at GiveCampAtlanta with Jason Noble of the Atlanta Ruby User Group. Unfortunately Jason came down with a severe case of moving to Colorado and won't be able to join Alan this time.

You can find Alan's blog here.

Back In Our Regular Meeting Space

Don't forget we'll be back in our regular room at Gwinnett Tech. Building 100, room 401 at 6:30 PM on 3/10/11.

I hope to see everyone there PLUS bring a friend! Everyone is welcome at GGMUG.

Jeff Ammons will be speaking to the Atlanta .Net User Group on Monday, February 28 at 6:30 PM. Their meetings are held in the Microsoft office over in Alpharetta. Check out their website for directions, etc. I'd love to see lots of GGMUGers there, so y'all come!

MVC @ 3: Choice For ASP Developers

After many years with a single focus, ASP.Net now has more than one flavor.

WebForms, MVC and WebMatrix are all built on the same ASP.Net core, so how's a developer to choose?

In this session we'll take a closer look at ASP.Net MVC and why you might choose it.

We'll build a simple demo site to explore some of the new bits of MVC3 and take a walk through an MVC2 project that is in the process of moving to 3.

We'll also  talk about how the different flavors of ASP.Net give developers the option of working in a style that suits them. 

GGMUG Meeting 3/10/11

I'll post a full announcement later, but our meeting will be back at Gwinnett Tech and feature Alan Hecht giving us an intro to Ruby On Rails from a Microsoft Developer's perspective. There's nothing better for a developer than seeing how other people solve similar problems with different technologies. You've heard about Ruby, so come on out and see it first hand!
 

Want to learn more about ASP MVC, WebMatrix, OData, Entity Framework, and more?

Register now for the Web Camp that will be held at Microsoft's Alpharetta office March 30 and 31st.

Register here.

What is NuGet?

NuGet is a package management tool for .Net development libraries.

It is a rare project that doesn't use libraries of one sort or another. NuGet helps you:

• Find libraries
• Install libraries
• Configure libraries

Where Do I get It?

http://nuget.codeplex.com/ is the place to start. NuGet was developed by Microsoft and released as an open source project on CodePlex.

Check out the Getting Started page first.

You can install it into Visual Studio using the Extension Manager by following these instructions.

What About Extension Manager?

You may be thinking, "Why do I need NuGet if I have Extension Manager?"

Keep in mind that Extension Manager is installing and managing extensions to Visual Studio itself. NuGet is installing libraries into your project.

How Do I Use It?

Create a new project or open an existing one.

Hit the Tools:Library Package Manager:Add Library Package Reference menu option.

This will open a window that lets you discover libraries.

When you find a library you want, click the Install button.

That's pretty much it.

NuGet will install the library into your project, create new directories and files, and update configuration settings.

Problems

The only real problem I've found so far is that it can be hard to find projects since there doesn't seem to be a search capability or any kind of grouping/tagging.

Since NuGet is new, we'll cut it some slack, but hopefully it will become more searchable in later releases.