RailsConf 2007 is over. 
Hard to believe; it went by so quickly. What a weekend though. Awesome. I met a crap-ton of people, and everyone was really friendly. I have like 50 web bookmarks to follow up on from just a few days. It’s been a really valuable experience; the community is great. It’s like my extrovert bit has been flipped on during the past few days.
I ended up drinking my fair share of beer (at least half of which was free). I went to the Rogue home-brewery, and I went to several “hospitable suites” that may have been a too bit hospitable (to quote one of the guys I met). One of the most valuable parts of going to this conference (aside from the beer) was getting to see what people are talking about in the Rails community, including what software people are using, and what people are excited about. Portland is also a pretty cool city. Their public transportation system rocks, and there is free city-wide wifi.
Another cool thing about the conference is that there was a good effort made by presenters to emphasize not following blindly. Rails is awesome, but making the principles and philosophies of Rails into a religion is wrong. It’s important to question things, otherwise you’ll end up with a shitty system one day. Reality checks ftw. There was also an effort made to change the perception of the Rails community. One of the Rails core programmers described the Rails community as “arrogant bastards”, and it’s true, but it’s getting better. When I first learned Rails I was certainly putting on the high-and-mighty act of, “Rails rules, everything else sucks.” There really are very good frameworks besides Rails out there, and it’s a mistake to belittle other people… ever (unless they’re real assholes, maybe). Oh yeah, another thing: 90% of all laptops at RailsConfs were Macs. 
Go see the Extra Action Marching Band. They performed for us a day or two ago at the conf. They rule. Also, check out the RailsConf photos on Flickr. I might be in one or two of them. 
Here’s some photos I took of the message board and teardown and what not:
Heading home tomorrow. Peace.
Posted in fun, geek, rails, trip |
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I’m in Portland, OR, for a few days for RailsConf 2007. It’s been pretty cool so far. I’ve met some cool people and learned some new stuff. There’s about 1600 people here, all Rails enthusiasts. Pretty exciting. Also I’ve found out that Portland is one of the best micro-brewery cities in the country, so I’m definitely gonna check that out before I leave.
My flight here on Wednesday was pretty typical I suppose, including the fact that my bag didn’t arrive until Thursday morning. My favorite airline now is Alaska Airlines; the flight attendants were happy and making jokes over the intercom.
Anyway, back to the conference.
Posted in beer, rails, trip |
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Been a fun weekend. Great cookout and porch jam session last night, and ultimate pickup today with Matt’s folks. Survivor finale tonight.
I watched more Fruits Basket today. Nice, light-hearted, feel-good anime. Makes me feel good about life.
I’m a little socially drained.
I’m off to Portland, OR, in a few days for RailsConf with one of my co-workers. I worry about him sometimes, because I think he might be fighting off depression. He’s mentioned going through some hard times while he was in college, and he seems to still be struggling. I just hope that he’s doing alright. I think it’ll be a fun trip though.
Posted in anime, friends, rails, ultimate |
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Rails 1.2 is out! I’ve been watching the creator’s keynote speech today, and it’s getting me excited. I like my code to be neat and orderly, and the “new” Rails philosophy gives me a framework to do that. It will force me to be a little creative about how I code things, and my brain won’t be as numb. The result is nice and tidy and consistent code, and that makes me happy.
It also encourages me that the creator of Rails is just three years older than me. I can follow everything he says; it’s not over my head. That feels good. Rails just feels right to me. Whenever I have to program in something else (like .NET), I have to switch modes back into the old way of developing. It’s not natural. First you have to build all these building blocks yourself, and that means this grand scheme of the program that you have in mind has to be put on hold while you think about the mundane details. Sure, there are a lot of convenient things in .NET and PHP and whatever else, but compared to Rails those conveniences seem like inconveniences.
It’s just a completely different way to look at things.
I try not to be a Rails elitist that thinks everything else sucks, because that’s not really true. To each his own. But for me there’s nothing better.
Posted in code, rails |
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