RubyNation Recap

Recently I had the honor of being able to speak for a second time at Rubynation in Washington DC. Rubynation is a two day, dual track conference that focuses on Ruby and related technologies.

Speaking On The Second Day

This year my talk wasn’t until the second day. On one hand that was a good thing because I really needed the extra day to tweak my presentation, on the other hand I wasn’t able to see some of the talks. While the entire lineup was interesting, two that I really wish I could have seen where the presentations by Sarah Allen and Davy Stevenson.

Other talks of note included the John Paul Ashenfelter’s “Machine Learning for Fun and Profit”, Alex Rothenberg’s “Don’t Let the Cocoa API Crush Your RubyMotion Code”, Evan Light’s “Remote Pairing from The Comfort of Your Own Shell”, Justin Searls “Breaking Up With Your Test Suite” and Yoko Harada’s “It’s Java, But Wait, It’s Ruby”. Russ Olsen closed things out with one of the best keynotes I ever saw called “To The Moon!”

Beyond Web Development

It was great see a number of presentations about using Ruby for things that go beyond web development such as TV displays, big data, mobile applications and artificial intelligence.

Some of my takeaways include:

• More groups are starting to use Ruby for things that go beyond web development.
• Hooking into existing libraries for things like AI algorithms and Big Data processing are great ways to allow Ruby to do what it does best, yet work with other technologies which are better suited for the lower level work.
• There is a general undercurrent that we as a community are going to need to move beyond web development to keep Ruby relevant.
• Gray and the entire team keep out doing themselves every year and it was great seeing them again!

Ruby Friends

Between Rubynation and Ruby DCamp I have had an opportunity to get to know some wonderful people in the DC community. Every time I go up there is nice to see old Ruby friends and to make new ones!