Karmen Blake

Agile Developer and Instructor

Welcome!

You'll find my course content and collaborative discussion about technology.

I teach as an adjunct faculty in the Computer Information Systems department at Spokane Community College

Email

kblake DOT scc AT gmail DOT com

Presentations/Interviews

RubyLearning.com interview
Course Technology - Ruby on Rails Presentation

CIS 234 - Midterm Project Postponed

October 29th, 2007 |

I’ve decided to move the midterm project start date to next Tuesday, Nov. 6th. There are still plenty of people working on Chapter 4 labs. So Thursday will be the due date for Chapter 4 labs. Don’t forget Wednesday is CIS Preregistration day.

CIS 282 - Regular Expressions

October 29th, 2007 |

http://rubyurl.com/YGl or http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddhknw46_56cxtjx5

CIS Preregistration - Software Development

October 26th, 2007 |

Wednesday (Halloween)

Come see what exciting classes are offered for Winter 2008
Get free donuts, juice, and coffee
Fill out registration paperwork
Give registration paper work to me and I’ll personally submit for you :-)
Listen to Tom’s stories
Where?
- Room: 1116 (subject to change)
- Time: 8-ish to 11-ish

CIS 206 - Unix schedule

October 26th, 2007 |

Friday (today) – No class
Monday – Lecture
Tuesday – Review for Midterm
Wednesday – CIS Preregistration
Thursday – Midterm
Friday – Midterm

Friday Fun - Celebrity Nerds

October 26th, 2007 |

http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9043739

CIS 234 - Chapter 4 labs

October 23rd, 2007 |

Due Date: Thursday, October 25th by the end of class. If necessary, turning them in on Tuesday is ok too.

Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

October 22nd, 2007 |

I’ve been running gutsy gibbon for a few days now and it sure has been fun. My buddy had me run sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager to get to some wickedly cool desktop settings. I’ll report my experiences as I run into them. Furthermore, my linux class installed this today and one student commented that he was uninstalling Vista tonight.

What's a for loop?

October 19th, 2007 |

Now that I’ve been programming Ruby for a couple of years now I don’t write for loops anymore. I just read an interesting article making the same observation. http://beautifulcode.oreillynet.com/2007/10/writing_your_last_forloop.php

Comment driven development

October 17th, 2007 |

I work with Jim and we were joking around about some overcommenting that some developers do. Not that comments are bad but code should be as self documenting as possible. If you have to comment your code then you should look into refactoring it so that it is more readable. Any hoo take a read at Jim’s blog about ‘Comment Driven Development’, http://devillecompanies.org/2007/07/20/comment-driven-development/

While you are at it take a look at other “XYZ Driven Development”s: http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2007/asshole-driven-development

Technology moves quickly... keep up

October 17th, 2007 |

The future of software development

October 17th, 2007 |

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_future_of_software_development.php

Great article exposing the “Waterfall” method for what it is and highlighting the benefits of agile development. I liked this, quoting the article, “Equipped with a modern programming language, great libraries, and agile methods, a couple of smart guys in the garage can get things done much better and faster than an army of mediocre developers.”

Recent readings

October 16th, 2007 |

If you want to become a great web developer make sure you can answer these questions:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/interviewing-web-developers-20-good-questions-to-ask

Just when you (I) thought you knew Ruby you get humbled…

http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2006/03/interviewing_ruby_programmers.html

To build your programming chops and make yourself hirable:

http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch08_Actions_Not_Words.php

"Introducing the book" errr... learning something new

October 16th, 2007 |

E-commerce workshop and Extra Credit

October 16th, 2007 |

Please attend the E-commerce workshop this evening at 5:30 in Room 1120. It will be very informative! If you are in my CIS 282 class then I’ll give you 10 points extra credit.