Graceful.Dev News #0

Hey all! Avdi here. I figure a new site isn’t real until it has a news update, so here we go.

If you’re reading this in your email inbox, you’re either:

• A Graceful.Dev member because you’re a RubyTapas subscriber
• Enrolled in one or more of the courses formerly hosted at learn.avdi.codes (or the one that was hosted at Podia)
• One of the handful of people to subscribe as a Graceful.Dev member since it quietly opened for business (welcome!)

If you’re a RubyTapas member, you’ve probably noticed I haven’t created a new episode for a few weeks. That’s because I’ve been working full-time on getting Graceful.Dev rolled-out. The next time you see a notification for a new video (and yes, I AM fixing the email notifications 😁), it’ll be from Graceful.Dev, not from RubyTapas!

You’ve probably already seen an earlier email or two from me, explaining the transition from learn.avdi.codes and RubyTapas to Graceful.Dev. To reiterate, the short version is that both of those sites are being merged into this new resource. And if you’re a RubyTapas subscriber, your existing subscription grants you full all-access with no migration needed apart from logging in.

I’ve also written up a longer post about the story so far, the short history of RubyTapas, and some of my hopes for the new Graceful.Dev site. Here’s an excerpt:

The RubyTapas taste and sensibilities remain: Focused and polished. Video-centric. Topics factored down to a single new idea at a time rather than mixed and meandering. Strong narrative arcs: problem, approach, application, implications. Carefully selected guest presenters.

But the structure is changing. Rather than a single stream, a tended garden of living courses. A new emphasis on organization, rather than just on getting new content out.

Groups! Forums! Community!

Another thing that’s changing is a stronger focus on community and interaction. I may be biased, but I think the community that has gathered around RubyTapas is a simply brilliant collection of folks. I’ve always wanted to make more of a space for us to interact with each other beyond the episode comments.

Towards that end, one of the things I’ve been up to this week is creating some initial interest groups, such as Containerization, JavaScript, Devops and Infrastructure, self-and-community care, and more. Feel free to explore these groups, join them, and post in their associated forums. (And be sure to familiarize yourself with the new Code of Conduct! Let’s keep our conversations professional, caring, and generative).

This initial set of groups/forums is far from comprehensive, though. Feel free to pitch the group(s) you want to see!

Oh yeah, and speaking of forums, another thing I’ve added is a feature queue forum. By all means suggest site features you want to see, or vote up existing requests.

New Robust Ruby content

Another recent change to the site: I’ve added an eight-part module to the Robust Ruby course, focused on handling failures. This long-overdue addition was a proof-of-concept for being able to quickly and easily add RubyTapas/Tapastry episodes into a course. The new site passed the test with flying colors; factoring archive content into courses is no longer a hassle.

What’s next…

My focus right now is on making sure that folks coming in from RubyTapas and learn.avdi.codes have a comfortable, welcoming arrival at the new site. If you have questions, suggestions, or concerns, feel free to send them my way (you can reply to this email if you want). After that, the roadmap includes:

• Make a new episode, now that the site is established.
• Make the site nicer for multi-seat teams and their team admins.
• Membership discounts for recent course buyers, particularly MOOM buyers.
• Various improvements around new memberships, once the migrating members are well situated and comfortable.
• A new Capacitor Sessions video for MOOM (I have someone helping me edit those now)

So that’s it for now. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to seeing you on Graceful.Dev!