#TIYAtlanta

[tiyatlanta]

Meet Brit Butler, Atlanta's new Ruby Instructor!

By Brit Butler, Ruby Instructor

Hey ya'll. My name is Brit and I'm very excited to be your new Rails instructor.

Though I've been fascinated by technology my whole life, it took me a long time to come around to programming. Honestly, I think I was intimidated. I was certainly scared I would fail. Eight years ago, I started to teach myself programming. Initially, I was using MIT's curriculum while working a 40+ hour/week IT job. I made decent progress for a few months but eventually caved and went back to school to get a CS degree.

In the following years, my programming passions have been split between the professional and the personal.

Professionally, I worked on a massive Python/Django-powered CMS for Cox Media Group and a mix of interesting Ruby/Rails-powered Data Analytics software with Emcien.

Personally, I have a longstanding love affair with Common Lisp. You'll quickly find we hackers have a very silly, fervent, almost religious affection for our tools. I've written a blog engine with it, Coleslaw, which powers my personal site and a number of others. More notably, I dabbled in Nintendo emulation and released cl-6502 in source form and as an annotated Readable Program.

I'm fascinated by the history of the software industry, the lifecycle of programs, and the unique difficulties of 'legacy code'. Some of my thinking on those issues, and my work on cl-6502, is summed up in a talk called 'On Programmer Archaeology'.

When I'm not writing or thinking about code, I'm making cocktails, hanging out with my girlfriend and our pups, practicing Smash Brothers Melee, and trying to learn a little about sound synthesis.

If The Iron Yard had been around 8 years ago, I strongly believe it would have been a better fit for my goals than going back to college. I'm thrilled to help our students find the fastest path into meaningful, rewarding work as programmers. I'm looking forward to January and exploring as many facets of this wacky, incredible industry as possible.

[tiystories]

Bob Holben: The Iron Yard Does a Real Good Job

Bob Holben, a student in our Atlanta Front End Engineering program, recently wrote a great reflection after being in the program for two weeks. 

While week one felt a little bit about going away to summer camp, week two is where a little bit of fatigue settled in. It’s going to be a long burn, and I can’t wait to get to the end and reflect on how far this process has taken me and my classmates.

Each day except for Friday consists of lectures in the morning and lab (exercises) in the afternoon/evening. On Fridays, we have lab all day.

…

The Iron Yard does a real good job. It’s not just about head-down coding. They make a point to foster a sense of community and create activities that don’t involve a keyboard. This week, we had sessions about personal brand building, design inspiration, and of course there was Friday Iron Pints.

…

It’s moving pretty darn fast (and I’m glad for that). Before this week, I was under the impression that map/reduce/filter are programming concepts that are intermediate level. Not here. We learned about the forEach loop and an hour later, we embarked on our Thursday night homework that included exercises with map, reduce, and filter.

The train has left the station…

You can read Bob’s full post on Medium. 

[tiynews]

The Iron Yard Atlanta Relocates Downtown

The Iron Yard - Atlanta is relocating to a historic building downtown. 

The Iron Yard will occupy almost the entire top floor of the M. Rich Center, where more than a century ago Morris Rich started what later became Rich's Department Store.

"Entrepreneurs love moving into spaces that already have history," said Iron Yard partner John Saddington.

For more information about the move and the building, check out the article on the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

[tiyatlanta]

Playing Erdős

By James Dabbs, Rails Engineering Instructor

I joined the Iron Yard at the 11th hour and missed some of the standard ramp-up, so I was super excited to finally get a chance to visit HQ in Greenville and work closely with some great people. The trip put me in mind of one of my favorite mathematicians, Paul Erdős - 

Erdős was a vagabond mathematician, known for showing up at a colleague’s, announcing “my brain is open”, and collaborating on a problem for a few days at a time before moving on. Over the course of his career (‘34-‘96), he collaborated with over 500 people and produced over 1500 articles. He was the original Kevin Bacon (even pioneering a lot of the graph theory that would lead to the “six degrees” idea), to the point that most published mathematicians know their Erdős number - that is, the number of co-authors needed to connect them to him.

I’m a big believer in cultivating knowledge transfer in an organization. In traditional dev shops, that means a lot of lunch-and-learns and pairing sessions. In a highly-distributed company like the Iron Yard, it requires being deliberate about collaborating with instructors from other locations. We’re adding new, awesome people to the staff all the time, and trips like this week’s remind me how much I have to learn from them.

Point being - drop by Greenville or Atlanta or wherever when you get a chance. And keep your brain open.

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Meet Our Intern: Cameron Dunson

By Cameron Dunson, Iron Yard Intern

Hello everyone my name is Cameron Dunson and I will be interning at The Iron Yard for this Fall and Spring!

Who am I?

I am entering my final school year as an undergraduate at Morehouse College with a concentration in Finance. I have always since childhood had a natural curiosity for understanding why things work the way they do. This natural curiosity spawned a new passion for me that would carve the very being that I am today. Technology. Specifically my passion is how technology is being used in everyday life. I love looking at technology from the aspect that its future application is unknown and could quite possibly change the global landscape. Another thing to know about me is that I'm a huge dreamer! I am thrilled to see what new possibilities (3d printing, Virtual Reality, Quantum Computing) are in store for technology and often dream about full home automation and bio-printing new organs. Hopefully it will be reality soon! 

My love for technology is the primary reason that I signed on to be an intern at TIY this year. How could I refuse to put myself in an environment where everything in a way revolves around software development. Creating something out of nothing? That is cool. Creating tools for others to use? That is cool. Creating opportunities for others to provide for their loved ones? That is cool. In a way this is really why I love technology: the opportunities for creating for others, are endless. I am really excited to be on board here at The Iron Yard for this year and cannot wait for what is to come!

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We're partnering with SEARS Retail Hackathon!

We're super excited to announce our partnership with the SEARS Retail Hackathon, happening this January 23-25 at the Atlanta Tech Village. We love the idea of pairing innovative tech startups with larger corporations to bring great products and ideas to the public. With everyone's powers combined, we can achieve some really incredible things. 

When we think hackathon, we think of a few major things:

1. Coffee

2. More coffee

3. Amazing partnerships, healthy competition, and serious idea generation!

This is why we're so excited to be supporting this event, and are excited that Atlanta has the pleasure of hosting. See details after the jump.

Developers, win $15K plus additional prizes and spend a weekend validating your ideas and impressing the top minds in retail. Sears challenges you to innovate in retail around mobile, social, and content. Build your idea, meet potential cofounders, and win cash prizes. You retain your intellectual property and the rights to your code. Take the challenge. Join us before the hackathon for a free workshop with Apigee and learn to build RESTful APIs using Node.js. Register to begin your entrepreneur journey today.

Check out more details on our Meetup group here: CLICK HERE

Or if you're ready, CLICK HERE to register!

Can't wait to see you there!

[tiyatlanta]

To Build a Fire

By James Dabbs, Rails Instructor

I remember how I felt the first time I made an API call - like a caveman who has just created fire.

A student made that comment (modulo paraphrasing) during my last Rails class at The Iron Yard. I know exactly the feeling he’s referring to - that sense of having grappled, built, and conquered. Those are the moments that got me hooked on programming. As cerebral as software engineering is, it’s a strangely primal feeling.

I want each of my students to have that viscerally satisfying experience of creating fire themselves, and I’ve been thinking about how I can make that happen. I think the trick is in the tools - don't give them a lighter, give them flint and kindling.

Questions, Not Answers

I first ran across this sort of idea in my Moore method classes in grad school. The idea of the Moore method is this - math texts are more or less all isomorphic: a sequence of definitions, propositions, and proofs. In a Moore method class, you take a textbook, delete the proofs, hand the book to the students, and let them fill it in.

The key is that the existing definitions frame and direct the discussion and lead students to a point where they can make their own discoveries. The instructor steps in only to keep progress moving forward if it lags, and to highlight trends or other approaches to solutions.

My Moore classes were hands-down the most instructive of my graduate career. I was solving problems, not memorizing solutions. I discovered for myself. I internalized. I was far more confident in my abilities because I had been doing the real work all along.

To Yearn for the Sea

For my next class, I’ll be taking more of a cue from those Moore classes, and not handing out nearly as many solutions. That means more ERB and less HAML; more `<form>`s and less `form_for`s; more Camping and less Rails; re-inventing a few wheels; taking the time to live with and internalize problems, not shying away from pain points, and coming to solutions collaboratively.

Rails has a lot of surface area, and it’s quite possible we won’t see as much of it this time around. But I think it’s more valuable to have a solid foundation for being confident exploring and speculating and considering. It lets students intuit “well, if I were writing Rails, it would work like this”. It puts them in a better position to consider their tools objectively and decide which (if any) is appropriate for a given problem.

Ultimately, worrying about what my students know at the end of our three months seems a little short-sighted. It’s at least as important to get them ready to continue learning for the next three months and the next three and the next three - and to get them excited the road ahead. That is my goal.

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. — _Antoine de Saint-Exupéry_

[tiyatlanta]

The Iron Yard Atlanta Family is Growing!

By Kyle Van Pelt, Campus Operations Manager

Here is a big warm hello from our beloved city of Atlanta. My name is Kyle Van Pelt I'm the new kid on the block. Therefore, I thought it would be proper to write a short blog post to introduce myself to you. I’m a yankee transplanted to the south by marriage with the good fortune of coming on board at The Iron Yard in Atlanta as their new Campus Operations Manager.

Other than being a yankee, there are a few things that I'd love for you to know about me: I love a great cup of craft coffee and I believe there is a story in every cup. I believe this so deeply that I dropped everything I had to open a craft coffee shop in the suburbs of Atlanta! I’m not just passionate about the coffee itself, but the depth that coffee seems to add to conversation. Because of that, I also love to drink those cups of coffee while meeting new people or strengthening current relationships. I'm really looking forward to having some coffee with Iron Yard students, hiring partners and fans of ours in the Atlanta community!

Next, I want you to know that I really love Iron Man. Perhaps it is all of the cool tech gadgets he has, but I've always been drawn to him. Avengers 2 premiere anyone?

Lastly, I think you should know that I'm married to the coolest girl ever, Lydia and we get to call the second coolest girl ever our daughter, Eleanor. I'm a family man, through and through.

Here are a few things I'm excited about:

1. Disrupting Education

I have always enjoyed learning. I read a ton of blog posts, I devour books and I listen to educational podcasts or audiobooks on my commute instead of music. I'm a sponge. However, I didn't succeed in our current education system at all. I believe the system is broken and crying out to be fixed. In my opinion, The Iron Yard is a giant leap in the right direction. I'm really excited to be along for that journey.

2. New Relationships

I'm a relationship junkie. I'm became addicted to deep, meaningful relationships when I realized that literally every good thing in my life was sparked by a relationship I have invested in. Because of this, I strive for a minimum of 50 coffee meetings a year with new people and roughly 50 more to strengthen current relationships. I'm really looking forward to using some of the 100+ coffee meetings per year to hear about the amazing Iron Yard students that are coming through my campus and their dreams. I'm excited to introduce them to the hiring partners that I will likely be meeting with over coffee and ultimately, I'm excited to use these relationships to speed up the disruption of education!

3. Playing a Greater Part in Growing #ATLtech as a Whole

I moved to Atlanta almost four years ago to help start a tech company. Even though A-town has had some success, the tech community here has grown in leaps and bounds since I moved here. Developer talent has always been scarce. There are many factors to the growth of #ATLtech, however, companies on the fast track need access to good developers all the time. 99% of the tech CEOs I know personally say that developer supply isn't even close to keeping pace with demand. I'm very excited that we are working to solve that problem!

Big things are coming and I'm really happy to be a part of it all.

Say hi! Atlanta@theironyard.com, @kylevanpelt

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The Test of Time

By Jo Albright, Mobile Engineering Instructor

Lifespan

Most people think about what new apps are out there, but few think about the ones they have been subconsciously using for years. If you were to stop and look at what apps you still have on your phone and how much you use them... I think you would have an epiphany as to how you think.

Psychology

The average device user collects apps... better yet hoards apps. We keep these little pieces of software on our phone just in case we need to use them someday. Many of the apps you haven't even opened up in over a year. Other apps you open every once in awhile, but aren't actually doing anything in it.

Survival

Read on for a small list of some apps that have stood the test of time!

These apps have been on my phone since first download (none of this, delete and re-download crap).

Nike+ Fuelband : I used this app everyday for the first 6 months... now I open it monthly

Foursquare : I use this about once a week to find dinner places... so indecisive

Evernote : haven't opened this in over 6 months... I used to save ideas in it

Dropbox : haven't opened this in over 6 months... but I might need it someday

LinkedIn : I like to browse "People You May Know" and quickly connect or respond

Twitter : I never tweet from this app... I only open when I get mentions

Clash of Clans : play almost everyday... they know how to get a user to consistently return

Minecraft : someday I might play this... but probably not

Netflix : just in case I have time to watch something... which I almost never do

Figure : more of a party trick kind of app... haven't opened in months

ConvertBot : this is the oldest non - Apple app on my phone ... just in case I need to convert something

Question

Do you have apps that you keep around just in case? Is it a security blanket? Why as humans do we have the need to hold onto things that aren't needed?

For Developers

Find out what your target audience is and what makes them fear deleting their apps. Build a reason to keep your app on their phone. Or even better, build a reason to keep them visiting your app everyday.

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The Importance of Community

By Tim Whitacre, Front End Engineering Instructor

Over the years, I’ve worked on different size teams. Whether it is a large, medium, or small company, there are always positives and negatives. I also worked for a remote company for about 4 years. While this was a lot of fun (think coding in your pajamas), I still felt like I was working on a really small team.

While at that remote company, I started to see my coding skills become stale. Even though I was working with some amazing developers, since I was not sitting in the same room with them and we didn’t have that lunch time chatter about the hot new tools, I felt my learning come to a slow crawl. This is very problematic as a developer, because you need to stay up to date as much as possible.

So, what can you do? Well I guess you could look for that ideal job where you are working side by side with some other amazing developers, but that is sometimes hard to find. The way that I solved it was two-fold. One, I found a local coworking space and started going there. The second was I started going to all of the tech related meetups I could possibly find.

One of the best (in my opinion) things about being a developer is the community. I’ve been to meetups, conferences and sometimes just out to coffee with people I don’t know all because of the bond over technology. To make use of this though, you have to be willing to go outside of your comfort zone. You have to be willing to start going to your local meetups and take advantage of what your local community has to offer.

At The Iron Yard, one of the things I tell all of my students from day one is that while it’s not required, you should try to make it to as many meetups as possible not only during your time here, but going forward. We’ve even had a handful of students actually get jobs through people they have interacted with while at different events.

No matter what field you are in, community is important. The great thing about the tech community is that it’s already massive and you just need to jump in. It doesn’t matter what level of a programmer you are, we are ready for you. 

Also, if there are no meetups in your area, start one! You won’t regret it.

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When Time Flies

By Sarah Lodato, Campus Director

In Atlanta, our engineering cohorts tend to fly by with three classes running. It makes for an exciting mix of activity to have folks covering different languages and frameworks, but also contributes to a serious sense of time flying. It’s incredible that we are just weeks away from graduating our sixth class in Atlanta, a major accomplishment to know the impact we’ve had on Atlanta’s developer community! How do you manage the thrill of progress happening quickly, but make sure you take the time to smell the roses? 

Three months in immersive code training can often seem daunting to applicants, but that quickly turns into “whoa, I can’t believe we’re this far already” at our weekly check-ins. One of our biggest mantras at The Iron Yard is be active the entire time you’re here, which can prove difficult when you’re chin-deep in code for 60-80 hours a week. However, making sure you both utilize your community and also contribute to it are some of the most important things a new developer can do — to have success in the industry, but also immerse yourself in the culture that will support professional development. Software engineering is an iterative, creative craft, so sharing ideas is essential. 

Life is short, and time will continue to fly: this is why we’re so excited about jumpstarting career shifts through our program. We try to make sure we’re relishing in the change as it happens, with weekly class huddles, meetups throughout the cohort, and a growing program of alumni opportunities. We’re encouraging our alumni to come back and work alongside us, and share with the current students what their post-Iron Yard trajectory has been. As this network expands, those stories will grow richer and more diverse, and we can’t wait to see where Iron Yarder grads spread (both in location, and talent). Tack on a lot of Twitter photos, and we think we’re doing a pretty good job of capturing our moments!

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Halfway There

By Tim Whitacre, Front End Engineering Instructor

We recently marked the halfway point of the current Front End Engineering class. Generally we have some sort of celebration consisting of a relaxing afternoon with some beer and wings. This time, my class wanted to have a “Macaroni and Cheese, and Whiskey” party. Ok, sure, why the heck not. After all they more than deserve it. There is not a single student who has not been pushing themselves hard for the last six weeks.

In fact, one of the things I’ve done a lot this course is given out bonus homework. Almost ever night, I add extra work to their assignments. Honestly, I don’t expect it to get done. Not because my students can’t do it, but let’s face it, the homework by itself is pretty intense and time consuming. I’ve been amazed at how many are doing this every night and some are even going back to do it at a later time. This is a trait of a good developer, people who are willing to go above and beyond. All of the courses at The Iron Yard are intense. They have to be in order to get everyone ready. With the courses being so intense, you would think a lot of people just do the bare minimum, because, in all reality, the bare minimum is still really intense. I’m proud to say, I rarely see this. Most Iron Yard students are here and ready to work hard. Of course, this class is no exception. So, with that said. It’s time to get back to the party.

Also, since it was Halloween, we decided to combine the two events.

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Find a Mentor, Make the Ask

By Laura Lindeman, Assistant Campus Director

I'm part of a Startup Chicks here in Atlanta. Six months ago "startup chick" was never a title I would have assigned to myself, but being part of the ever-evolving team at The Iron Yard has encouraged me to embrace the mindset. Every month a refreshing group of women gathers for breakfast, coffee, and inspiring conversation. Seriously, every time we meet I am challenged to think critically about how I approach my work and my life. It's an amazing thing.

October's session on mentoring was led by Nikki Nixon, Marketing Technologist extraordinaire for a startup called SalesLoft. The term "mentor" seems to get tossed around a lot, and Nikki put some specific parameters on it that helped me wrap my head around the concept better. Plus, it got me hungry for a mentor!

First and foremost, an important element of the relationship is transparency and accountability, on the part of both parties.

Nikki suggested seven qualities that she looked for in a mentor. Someone who is:

Already successful

Brutally honest

Trustworthy

Comfortable with transparency

Willing to make the time to help

Positive

In her network

If you don't have a network, you should create one! Believe it or not, online tools liked LinkedIn and Twitter can be great ways to connect to people in your field who you respect. You can use them to identify people who you already consider informal mentors. It's also important to consider people who have a different perspective from you!

When you reach out to someone, be specific and know what you want to accomplish. Have a plan in mind for working with your mentor, but keep in mind that the plan could change.

Be selective in choosing your mentor. Don't just choose a mentor for the sake of having a mentor. Make sure they have your best interests in mind as well.

As you're considering a mentorship relationship, examine the situation through the lens of "What do I have to lose?" 9 times out of 10, you have less to lose than you think you do.

Do you have a mentor? What are your tips for a successful mentoring relationship?

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Viral Monetization

By Jo Albright, Mobile Engineering Instructor

Videos Make Money

Monetization is so important when building an app. How much should it cost? Should I put ads in it? What about in-app purchases? But there is one type of monetization that doesn't normally cross app developers' minds: monetization through videos. Tons of YouTubers are paying lots of money on apps / in-app purchases to be the first to show off new features and grow their followings. 

Here are a couple videos where people spend money on gems to show off tactics. Many of these users are sponsored allowing them to blow money without hesitation :

$560 for gems

$2100 for gems

Developers

What kind of strategy problems can you build into your apps that will drive people to make videos of tactics that solve them? Can you build a cult following around something that no one else is doing?

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My To-Learn List

By James Dabbs, Rails Engineering Instructor

Reflection, learning, and growth are very much a part of the DNA of this organization and team. We just finished up an amazing cohort, which means I'll get a wonderful opportunity (mandate, even) to sharpen my own skills and crack open my backlog of technologies to explore before the next cohort starts up in January. (Have I mentioned that we're hiring like crazy?)

There's always so much to learn, but here are some of the topics near the top of my list. Some are new, some are just new to me, but I can't wait to dig in.

Functional Programming

In the future, more and more of our lives will be driven by complex software systems, and I believe that being able to understand and work in those systems will be more and more important. In part that's an educational challenge (which is part of why I'm here), but in part that's a challenge to build better, more maintainable and extensible systems. I've done a decent amount of Haskell hacking, and it feels like a massive step in the right direction, but there's so much going on in this space - Idris and dependent types, Elm and FRP (and a time-traveling debugger), Rust and sane memory-management.

Meteor

Meteor seems to finally be living up to the promise of having server-side javascript - write your models once, use them anywhere. It's a crazy world: the Chrome console is the database console; end-to-end live updates via pub-sub and data binding. It looks to draw from the same ethos that drove me to Rails - quick prototyping, developer productivity, batteries included (awesome for hackathon demos). I'm not sure how I feel about the level of coupling that Meteor seems to want as an app grows, but I want to build and live with a non-trivial Meteor app for a while to see.

React

I'm a big Angular fan, but didn't love teaching it in my Rails class. Too much black magic, too much non-transferrable knowledge required. That said, I absolutely don't want to encourage old-school storing data in the DOM with jQuery. React seems like a nice middle ground - lightweight enough to get your head all the way around, but still quite powerful. Like Angular: the Good Parts.

Camping

On a similarly pedagogical note, I love the idea of ramping up to Rails, but was a little unsatisfied with Sinatra - like Angular, it's its own DSL, so somewhat magical and non-transferrable. Camping, on the other hand, introduces the MVC terminology early, provides practice with plain ol' Ruby objects, and has a relatively clear upgrade path to Rails when the time comes.

What are you learning next?

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Let's Create Something Real

By Tim Whitacre, Front End Engineering Instructor

After successfully graduating our first front-end course in Atlanta, the second cohort is well underway. This time around we have a full class and a great group of determined students. It is fun to see how the course changes a bit with each new cohort and how the dynamics of the group impact daily discussion.

One of the most inspiring parts of leading a class is that each student comes in with a unique goal in mind. Sure, they are all here to learn to program and specifically in this course, learn JavaScript. However, they all have a different idea of how they will use their new found skill. Some just really want to work in this industry because they are excited about the fast pace and the ever-changing landscape, while others have a very specific problem in mind that they want to tackle. More importantly though, they are all here because they have a desire to create something real.

At some point in the first 3 weeks of each course, I give a talk on what it is like to be a problem solver and how to think for yourself. One of the points that I highlight, that has helped me as a programmer is to learn to treat the problem as something that has a greater impact than just getting some lines of code to work. I don't care what you are building or what language you are writing in, you are solving a problem. I don't know about you, but that gives me a lot of motivation to keep moving forward and learning as much as I can.

We are still early in this course, but I have already begun to see the passion in each student and the drive that it takes to not only complete this course, but also to finish strong and build something real and impactful.