Written by Andrés Freyría, one of the inaugural RMU participants.  Andrés has volunteered to do periodic updates about the inner workings of RMU from the student perspective.

Ruby Mendicant University has not officially started. And yet, it has.

So, for the benefit of those who have recently joined, and for those curious about what's going on, here's the first RMU-insider announcement!

The response from the RMU students has been overwhelming. This is no hyperbole — I barely got any work done on friday just keeping up with the mailing list (alright, alright, there was the world cup also). Everybody is enthusiastic about the program and all the options that are shaping up already. Which options? Glad you asked...

#rmu-general @ freenode.net: Greg started the channel "half expecting it to be a ghost town". Not so! However, we could use more people. Don't let the fact that it's IRC scare you, as it's the official real-time communication channel. There's already been some interesting conversations about RubySpec, Rubinius, MongoDB, and fluffy pets, so don't miss out!  The IRC channels now feature transcripts, courtesy of locks, who hacked it together with the guidance of Volundr.

For those who are not students, but wish to know more about RMU (or just hang out), please join us at #rmu-public.

RMU's Class Administration App: Want to contribute to open source, but don't know where to start? Help us build the app that RMU (read: you) will use. This is a great opportunity to experiment with Rails 3, and to erase the fears and anxiety of the first-timers. Greg will be posting the features for the application next week, hopefully, but in the meanwhile please add your ideas here.

Focus Groups: Anybody who's interested in a particular topic is free to start a thread in the mailing list (please check Greg's original post, though). So far we have healthy discussions on metaprogramming, how to write better tests, and remote pair programming. Which, speaking of it, brings me to...

Remote Pair Programming: If you haven't had the chance to do pair programming, or wish to pair with fellow RMUers, this is for you. Anita Kuno has been an awesome host, and she's already organized the first pairings! Please check the thread if you wish to jump in — everybody is welcome, independent of previous experience or ruby skill.

Time for some general announcements:

• Applications for RMU are now closed. The final student count is 87.  All who submitted a completed solution passed.
• 10 brave souls will go through a pilot RMU session in August. Thanks for volunteering!
• Newcomers, please introduce yourselves in the appropriate thread
• The RMU exam is now publicly available for download, for those curious about the challenge.

RMU.send(:insider => :end)