The Koans walk you along the path to enlightenment in order to learn Ruby. The goal is to learn the Ruby language, syntax, structure, and some common functions and libraries.

By manipulating and building upon Ruby’s TestUnit framework, the EdgeCase developers have created a step-by-step process for teaching Ruby through the practice of “Red, Green, Refactor.” They’ve added some simple game mechanics too, by showing your systematic progression through the 270+ challenges (puzzles). Reaching enlightenment results in a pretty ASCII graphic, and a legitimate sense of achievement.

Before you start with the koans though you’ll need a working Ruby installation. I recommend you take a look at the excellent rvm project, which will allow you to install multiple rubies (1.8.7 and 1.9.2 for example, alongside each other) and multiple gemsets in your home directory. Former Frontiersmen and 2011 Ruby Hero Award winner Darcy Laycock was heavily involved in this project as part of the 2010 Ruby Summer of Code, so we really like rvm at TFG.

The GitHub repository even includes a handy Keynote presentation, which I used as the basis for my talk about Ruby Koans at last week’s Ruby on Rails Oceania Perth meetup.

Lastly, if you’d like to have a play with the koans before diving in too deep, they’re available online through your web browser at Ruby Koans Online. This is a no-risk way of trying out Ruby (hint: team them up with why’s Try Ruby project) in your browser.

Is this you?

You understand the difference between websites and web applications, and you want to write apps that matter for people that care about them.

You’ll have a track record of working on completed projects, and if you’re a Development Manager, you’ll have delivered some of these projects personally. You’ll have a few years commercial experience, probably working as part of a team doing solid but under-appreciated work. You will have experience with Mac, Linux or UNIX, but it might not be your daily environment. Similarly you will have an opinion about vi vs. Emacs or Python vs. Ruby, but you’ll understand that they’re just opinions.

You’ll care about your tools and will take real, genuine pride in the quality of the code you create. You won’t consider automated testing and continuous integration as optional components of a project, and will appreciate automated deployment procedures too. Learning new programming languages and getting more out of the languages you already know will excite you. Efficiency will be important too, and you’ll be looking for ways to automate your workflow and push the repetition off to a script.

You’ll be confident in your programming ability, regardless of the language you prefer, yet humble enough to seek guidance when needed. You’ll know how JavaScript can be used to enhance the web, and will have demonstrated experience with a leading JavaScript library. You might even care about SASS and HAML, if you’re really cool.

Using the right tools is important and we realise that. We don’t have a parent company dictating how we do things or what our “standard operating environment” is – you’ll get to make those decisions with us. We all use MacBook Pros for development, but you might want a new iMac, for example. You’ll keep up to date with current trends and care about using modern techniques and practices, as well as tools and technologies.

What we give you

• Variable salary, dependent on position (Starting at $63,000 on probation)
• 9% superannuation (on top of salary)
• A MacBook Pro with SSD (yours to keep, replaced every two years) ~$3,500
• $1,000 travel allowance per year (parking, bike servicing, public transport)
• Internet and mobile allowance ($80 each per month)
• Current and relevant books, training, tools and gear
• Opportunities to work from home/flexi-time
• Pay reviews every 6 months with no ceiling on earning potential
• Freedom to grow your role with our organisation

What you give us

• Agreed units of production (standard working week)
• Your creative genius and passion

How to apply

Send a short email to jobs@thefrontiergroup.com.au and reference your Github and Stack Overflow accounts, along with any Open Source projects you’re involved with. Include a resume if it’s three pages or less.

*International applicants are also welcome

I thought it was an interesting problem, so here’s the answer I prepared:

You can overwrite or set Rails’ singularizations and pluralizations (properly called inflections) in config/initializers/inflections.rb

For example:

Can’t see this Gist? View it on Github!

As you can see below, Rails now understands how to count “faxes” correctly. One fax, two faxes, three faxes, and so on. You can test that from within the Rails console:

Can’t see this Gist? View it on Github!

Due to an oversight on my part, the Cucumber feature that we use to search this blog was failing “in real life” but passing according to Cucumber-Nagios. I was searching for a text string that should have appeared only after conducting a successful search of the articles, however it was also appearing in the list of popular articles on the sidebar. Whoops!

After the test started failing for real, because the blog post was no longer referenced in the sidebar, I dug deeper in an attempt to find the problem.

In the end Aaron did most of the hard work, and tracked the problem down to webrat not submitting the form properly. As such the response data that was being parsed was incorrect.

Here’s the feature file:

Can’t see this Gist? View it on Github!

The trick that we used (and it is a nasty hack, to be sure) is to fool webrat into operating in “Rails mode”, whereby it POSTs the form properly. I added the last four lines to features/support/env.rb and it’s done the trick.

Can’t see this Gist? View it on Github!

So if you’re having a problem with webrat posting data, maybe this will help you. Alternatively, if you have a suggestion on how this could be fixed in a cleaner way, please leave a comment.

Our development team has recently grown and we’re looking at taking on a junior designer to work with our current designer, Karl.

Is this you?

Fresh out of design-school and eager to get creative, or with a few years commercial experience, working in a creative studio doing great but under-appreciated work. This is your opportunity to join a young, vibrant and passionate company.

You’ll care about pixel-perfect alignment, and will take pride in the quality of the HTML you use to reflect those designs. You’ll know how JavaScript can be used to enhance the web. You might even care about SASS and HAML, if you’re really cool.  There’s an abundance of mentoring opportunities available within our group.

You’ll be keeping up to date with current trends and care about using modern techniques and practices, as well as tools and technologies. For example, you’ll love working on the latest 27″ iMacs using whatever design tools you need.

What we give you

• $50,000 per year starting salary (with the potential for $63,000 after 6 months, and $76,000 after 12 months)
• 9% superannuation (on top of salary)
• $1,000 travel allowance per year (parking, bike servicing, public transport)
• Internet and mobile allowance ($80 each per month)
• Current and relevant books, training, tools and gear
• Opportunities to work from home/flexi-time
• Pay reviews every 6 months with no ceiling on earning potential
• Freedom to grow your role with our organisation

What you give us

• 38 hours of creative work per week
• Your creative genius and passion

How to apply

Send an email to jobs@thefrontiergroup.com.au linking to your online portfolio. Please be clear how much of the design you are responsible for, or if it was a collaborative process with other creative types.

Prepare a list of four sites – two that have elements you like and two that have elements you dislike. A critique of these, either in person or via the phone, will be part of the second round of interviews.

Is this you?

You understand the difference between websites and web applications, and you want to write apps that matter for people that care about them.

You’ll have a track record of working on completed projects. You’ll have a few years commercial experience, probably working as part of a team doing solid but under-appreciated work. You will have experience with Mac, Linux or UNIX, but it might not be your daily environment. Similarly you will have an opinion about vi vs. Emacs or Python vs. Ruby, but you’ll understand that they’re just opinions.

You’ll care about your tools and will take real, genuine pride in the quality of the code you create. Learning new programming languages and getting more out of the languages you already know will excite you. Efficiency will be important too, and you’ll be looking for ways to automate your workflow and push the repetition off to a script.

You’ll be confident in your programming ability, regardless of the web language you prefer, yet humble enough to seek guidance when needed. You’ll know how JavaScript can be used to enhance the web, and will have demonstrated experience with a leading JavaScript library. You might even care about SASS and HAML, if you’re really cool.

Using the right tools is important and we realise that. We don’t have a parent company dictating how we do things or what our “standard operating environment” is – you’ll get to make those decisions with us. We all use MacBook Pros for development, but you might want a new iMac, for example. You’ll keep up to date with current trends and care about using modern techniques and practices, as well as tools and technologies.

What we give you

• $76,000 per year salary
• 9% superannuation (on top of salary)
• A MacBook Pro with SSD (yours to keep, replaced every two years)
• $1,000 travel allowance per year (parking, bike servicing, public transport)
• Internet and mobile allowance ($80 each per month)
• Current and relevant books, training, tools and gear
• Opportunities to work from home/flexi-time
• Pay reviews every 6 months with no ceiling on earning potential
• Freedom to grow your role with our organisation

What you give us

• 38 hours per week
• Your creative genius and passion

How to apply

Send a short email to jobs@thefrontiergroup.com.au and reference your Github and Stack Overflow accounts, along with any Open Source projects you’re involved with. Include a resume if it’s three pages or less.

The Frontier Group is a boutique software development company based in West Perth. We have a strong focus on web software, and utilise Ruby on Rails.

Our development team has recently grown to eight staff and we’re looking to take on our first full time designer. Until now we’ve worked with design freelancers and subcontractors. Now we want to make a designer part of our team, allowing our developers to work closely with the interface expert. We need someone who’s part of our team and not just kicking the ball in the same direction.

Is this you?

We don’t micro-manage and we trust your design ability, so you’ll need to have a track record of delivering completed designs. You’ll have a few years commercial experience, probably working in a creative studio doing great but under-appreciated work.

This is your opportunity to jump-ship and drive the creative direction of a young, vibrant and passionate company.

You’ll care about pixel-perfect alignment, and will take pride in the quality of the HTML you use to reflect those designs. You’ll know how JavaScript can be used to enhance the web. You might even care about SASS and HAML, if you’re really cool.

You’ll keep up to date with current trends and care about using modern techniques and practices, as well as tools and technologies.

Your workload will be approximately broken down into:

• 50% web application
• 25% web site
• 25% other design

The other design component will include things like fashion (t-shirt design), art work and even interior design… anything colourful or creative that’s happening in our world will be your responsibility.

Using the right tools is important and we realise that. We don’t have a parent company dictating how we do things or what our “standard operating environment” is – you’ll get to make those decisions with us. We all use MacBook Pros for development, but you might want a new iMac, for example.

What we give you

• $76k per year salary
• 9% superannuation (on top of salary)
• $1k travel allowance per year (parking, bike servicing, public transport)
• Internet and mobile allowance ($80 each per month)
• Opportunities to work from home/flexi-time
• Private office (when we move to the new location mid-year, if preferred)
• Pay reviews every 6 months with no ceiling on earning potential

What you give us

• 38 hours per week
• Your creative genius

How to apply

Send an email to jobs@thefrontiergroup.com.au linking to your online portfolio. Please be clear how much of the design you are responsible for, or if it was a collaborative process with other creative types.

Prepare a list of four sites – two that have elements you like, and two that have elements you dislike. A critique of these, either in person or via the phone, will be part of the second round of interviews.

Our growth until now has been very controlled and organic, in that we have always been reacting to our business’ needs. We have taken on development staff one at a time. This resulted in our team being stretched for a little while before we take on a new hire. For example, when we moved from two directors (and took on Mark, our first employee) it was because Adam and I were working at 150% capacity. When Mark joined us, and we could spread that 300% over three people. As we get bigger, the extra capacity a single person can supply is reduced, relative to the total capacity of the company. This is great because it means we don’t get pushed to 150% anymore, but also means we need to start taking on multiple hires at once.

Late last year we had James and Dan join us, and we’ve just wrapped up our interview process and have hired John, Jacques and Jordan. We’ve gone from five developers to seven, to ten.

Now we’re looking for a full-time designer too, to join our team and balance our logic and structure with creativity and colour.

This raises the following ethical consideration: is it OK to actively head-hunt staff from other organisations? What if they’re your competitors? What if they’re you competitors, but you’re part of a social community? I think there’s two main schools of thought.

Firstly, there’s the attitude that we live in a capitalist world where the dollar rules and everyone’s looking out for themselves. If you can offer better employment opportunities than your competitor, then that’s your commercial advantage. If The Frontier Group is able to offer a larger salary and greater career prospects than our competitors, it’s to our benefit. Is it unethical for us to leverage that advantage?

Counter-balancing that argument, I feel, is the idea that the relationship between a company and their employees is comparable to human romantic relationships. If the pretty girl at the bar has a ring on her finger, it’s not considered appropriate to hit on her. Do you thing that translates?

Are “married” (employed) staff off-limits, or is it a case of “all’s fair in love and war (and HR)”?

To quote Joel Spolsky, we’re looking for people who are “smart and get things done”.

The Frontier Group is a boutique software company based in West Perth with a strong focus on web application development. We work with Ruby (and Rails), PHP, relational databases, VMware and Linux. We work in small, specialist teams. We’re a young company – our staff are all in their late 20s. Our interview process is a 10 minute casual chat over coffee, with a full day of (paid) pair-programming. If you like us and we like you, you’re hired.

We understand that you’re a student and will work to accommodate your schedule. We’re expecting about 10 hours per week, as an indicator. If you’ve got exams and can’t work, that’s cool. If you want more work, that’s cool too. We get it.

We are affiliated with Sun Microsystems and IBM. We use Sun server hardware and Apple notebooks. We’re members of AWIA. We host and sponsor the Ruby and Rails Oceania Meetup each month. We’ve got our own rack space in the city.

We use a converted apartment as an office and have a t-shirt and jeans dress code. Come check it out some time.

The positions are entry level part-time/contract with a view to full time upon graduation.

Email jobs@thefrontiergroup.com.au if you’d like more information, or to arrange the chat.

Within a few minutes I started receiving enquiries, so I thought it would be worthwhile elaborating on our interview process and expectations.

Here’s what I told one potential applicant:

We’re focussing on Ruby and Rails development for new projects, but have a lot of legacy PHP code that we’ve inherited or developed over the years. Both languages are readily available and I’m recommending applicants familiarise themselves with them. There’s heaps of Ruby and Rails resources online – I recommend Railscasts and the RailsEnvy/Ruby5 podcasts. The PHP documentation (at php.net) is awesome too – we use it daily.

Obviously we don’t expect you to become a Ruby or PHP rockstar over night – as I stressed in my initial email, we’re looking for someone who’s “smart and gets things done.” However, we do need to look for people that are able to actually do the work we require. If you’re smart and can get things done, learning Ruby and/or PHP to a level that you’re useful to us is not going to be hard.

The interview process is a 10-15 minute chat where we present a problem and bounce ideas around on how you’d solve it. You’ll work as part of the team. It’ll be a question like “what are the considerations when designing and implementing an online shopping cart?” You won’t write code, but will have a whiteboard if you want to draw diagrams to help explain things. A knowledge of plugins, tools and the Ruby gems available to you will help a lot here. For example, ActiveMerchant is a really popular gem for interfacing with credit card processing systems, and mentioning it during the chat would show us you have a finger on the pulse.

We usually know if we’re going to mesh with a potential employee or not within the first few minutes, so why drag out an interview over an awkward hour? All that first encounter is about, for me, is making sure they’re the kind of person I could get along with, and trust to get the job done. I’m not looking for someone who’s a cookie-cutter generic, but rather someone with personality and confidence as well as general intelligence and technical ability.

It’s during the day of pair-programming that we get to road-test you, and you get to road-test us. If we work well together, then you’re offered a job. We don’t pair-program all the time at The Frontier Group, but it’s a technique that we use with good results on suitable projects. Sometimes you drive and sometimes you’re the wingman.

This is the part of the interview process where you get to show us your technical skills, as well as how you operate as a team member. I don’t think there’s much value in intimidating someone with “solve this problem in C on the whiteboard in 5 minutes” during a formal interview. When was the last time you ever wrote real code on a whiteboard anyway?

Lastly, I love asking people if they collaborated on an assignment at uni. It normally catches people off guard, but their answer can be really insightful and gives a good indication to their personality. Some people will deny they ever cheated, whilst others will claim that they let their friends copy off them. Some will tell you that they worked on all their assignments with their friends, even when they weren’t group assessments. Here’s a tip: in the real world I want to work with people that have experience working in a team, using each other’s skills and abilities, so if you did get together with all your uni friends, work on an assignment as a group and then spend the last hour changing your variable names and obfuscating your code so it looked unique, it might not be something to hide.

How is our recruitment process similar or different to your organisations?

Outage Details
Sunday 24th May 2009

Outage Window
7:00am – 11:00am

Actual Outage
7:30am – 8:00am