without_scope

This was my second RailsConf and the change in the community are stunning. Last year was all about “fuck everyone else, we know the way.” As a rule, I like this attitude. The problem was that it was applied to things such as “sound engineering” and “good ideas.”

Last year there was very little interest in alternatives. Alternatives to ruby, rails and rails’ ideology were all soundly shat on by everyone I spoke to. This year things like JRuby, Rubinius, MagLev, Merb and DataMapper all had solid showings, large crowds and lots of excitement.

Things have changed

The general tone was more accepting of new ideas. The Rails Core panel showed the trademark cockiness [well-deserved in my opinion] but, expressed finally openness to real valuable changes to things like ActiveRecord.

Not much in this world could excite me more than discussion of an identity map in ActiveRecord.

I also saw real excitement over the alternative Ruby implementations. I’m sure this has something to do with their massive progress but, it really seemed people were finally ready to hear new ideas. I didn’t hear a single person expressing anything but excitement about these project.

Everyone loves the enterprise…

…not just enterprise software, although there was actual praise for the concept of the enterprise (a big change in this community) but, more traditional software engineering ideas as well.

The keynotes by Joel Spolsky and Kent Beck were great. More surprisingly, I’m in the solid majority with that opinion.

I have arrived… kinda

I did a lightning talk on a JamLab project and it was very well received. There’s actual interest and there was almost no laughing. To be honest, I was shaking while giving my stupid little five minute talk. I’ve never talked in front of a crowd that big before. I definitely have a new found respect for the people that get up and talk for an hour.

In the talk “The Worst Rails Code You’ve Ever Seen (and How Not To Write It Yourself)” by Obie Fernandez he talked about my plugin for almost a whole 3 seconds and I felt like a 90s schoolgirl at a NKOTB concert.

I also worked much harder at meeting people and talking to people. I’m not a social person so, it’s not easy but, the awesome Oregon beers and meeting great people like Steven Bristol, Grame Mathieson and Jim Weirich made things a bit easier on me.

That reminds me

Jim Weirich, Joe O’Brien and Chris Nelson gave, what is in my opinion, the best “better your craft” talk I’ve ever seen. It was called “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Modeling Systems.” Words don’t do it justice, especially not mine. There’s a decent summary here but, it’s not just the content that made this talk a thing of legends.

More to come

I just wanted to get some of my initial thoughts posted. I have some more specific technical issues I want to mull over before posting about. I can’t say my level of excitement after RailsConf this year matches last year but, my hope for and interest in the community as a whole has grown tremendously. I need to try a pull my weight by contributing more.