Kete Technical Training

Kete Technical Training is aimed at programmers or system administrators who want to enhance or support Kete installations. It covers Kete's technical design and details. Particpants will take part in practical programming exercises that demonstrate how common types of enhancements can be made.

The Kete Technical Developer training has a few prerequisites, but we provide primers for these too. If the student can demonstrate suitable experience in these areas, they may be skipped. Here are the syllabi for the primers:

Ruby (1 Day)

The Ruby Primer for Kete Developers is intended to cover the basics of the Ruby programming language for programmers who wish to work with and support Kete instances and contribute to the Kete project.

• Installing the Ruby interpreter and related tools such as IRB and RubyGems
• Running Ruby code and using the Ruby interactive shell for debugging and experimentation
• Variables, message sending, methods and classes/types in Ruby
• Ruby Standard Libraries
• Basic control structures and operators
• Defining methods, classes, class methods
• Inheritance, mix-ins and method resolution in Ruby
• Common "Gotchas"
• Using RubyGems (Ruby library packages)
• Links to further learning materials and resources for continuing education

Ruby on Rails Framework (1 Day)

The Ruby on Rails Primer for Kete Developers is intended to cover the basics of the Ruby on Rails web-application framework for programmers with Ruby experience who wish to work with and support Kete instances and contribute to the Kete project.

• The philosophy, history and design principles used in the Rails framework
• Core Rails knowledge including MVC design and file structure
• Database schema and migrations (focusing on MySQL)
• Models and ActiveRecord
• Controllers, Actions and Routes
• Working with Rails views and templates
• View techniques such as helpers and partials
• Testing
• Rails environments
• Common debugging techniques
• Starting points for intermediate topics
• Resources for further learning including links to APIs, major community websites, blogs and screencasts

Introduction to Running and Customising Kete

Finally, we offer a 1 to 3 day course for Kete Technical Developers. Here's a more detailed description and syllabus:

The Introduction to Running and Customising Kete course is intended to cover the basics of Kete's internal structure and design and provide examples of some common customisations for programmers with Ruby on Rails experience who wish to work with and support Kete instances and contribute to the Kete project.
One of more of the days outlined below can be taken individually, assuming relevant experience.

Day 1 - Working with Kete

• Overview of the Kete project and community
• How to participate in the Kete community
• Setting up a development environment
• The Kete stack
• Major features in Kete
• Basic Troubleshooting of Kete
• Built in customisation options
• Running Kete in a simple production environment

Day 2 - Customizing Kete

• Making a feature request
• Introduction to Kete development
• Customising Kete views and templates
• Modules and plugins
• Kete development practises
• Contributing code to the Kete project

Day 3 - Advanced: Deployment

• Planning for Kete deployment
• Contingency planning
• Setting up a remote version control repository for your project
• Scenario 1: Deploying Kete from development host to production host
• Scenario 2: Deploying Kete from development host to staging host to production host
• Troubleshooting Kete Deployment
• How to get updates and contribute to Kete
• Learning and community resources

How Do I Find Out More?

Please contact Walter McGinnis at Katipo Communications for information on course costs and bookings.