tag:blog.hasmanythrough.com,2006-02-27:/tag/railsconfhas_many :through - railsconf2008-06-06T09:57:02-07:00tag:blog.hasmanythrough.com,2006-02-27:Article/1132008-06-06T09:57:02-07:002008-06-06T09:57:02-07:00me me me!Josh Susser<p>I'm finally recovered from RailsConf. Wish I could say the same thing for my car, which seems to have gone into a major funk from being ignored so much. Anyway, it's been cool reading all the aftermath posts and seeing people's thoughts and analysis of the conf. MagLev seems to be getting a lot of the attention, and I'm eager to see how things develop with it.</p>
<p>If you missed me at the conf, or saw me but just can't get enough of me, here's some links to a couple interviews people did with me there.</p>
<p>Gregg Pollack did some very nice video spots with many of the conf speakers. His <a href="http://railsenvy.com/2008/6/2/Railsconf-videos">RailsConf in 36 Minutes</a> video is great. If you don't want to watch the whole thing (but why wouldn't you?), he posted the <a href="http://www.vimeo.com/1104776">interview with me</a> separately too.</p>
<p>Fabio Akita did some great <a href="http://www.akitaonrails.com/2008/6/5/railsconf-2008-brazil-rails-podcast-special-edition">podcast interviews at RailsConf</a>. You can <a href="http://download.podcast.rubyonrails.pro.br/RailsPodcastBrasil_019_08_JoshSusser.mp3">grab mine directly</a> too.</p>
<p>As I said in my chat with Fabio, the next thing I'm going to do is release the Teldra code on GitHub. Stay tuned, it shouldn't be too long now.</p>
<p>Happy Friday!</p><p>I'm finally recovered from RailsConf. Wish I could say the same thing for my car, which seems to have gone into a major funk from being ignored so much. Anyway, it's been cool reading all the aftermath posts and seeing people's thoughts and analysis of the conf. MagLev seems to be getting a lot of the attention, and I'm eager to see how things develop with it.</p>
<p>If you missed me at the conf, or saw me but just can't get enough of me, here's some links to a couple interviews people did with me there.</p>
<p>Gregg Pollack did some very nice video spots with many of the conf speakers. His <a href="http://railsenvy.com/2008/6/2/Railsconf-videos">RailsConf in 36 Minutes</a> video is great. If you don't want to watch the whole thing (but why wouldn't you?), he posted the <a href="http://www.vimeo.com/1104776">interview with me</a> separately too.</p>
<p>Fabio Akita did some great <a href="http://www.akitaonrails.com/2008/6/5/railsconf-2008-brazil-rails-podcast-special-edition">podcast interviews at RailsConf</a>. You can <a href="http://download.podcast.rubyonrails.pro.br/RailsPodcastBrasil_019_08_JoshSusser.mp3">grab mine directly</a> too.</p>
<p>As I said in my chat with Fabio, the next thing I'm going to do is release the Teldra code on GitHub. Stay tuned, it shouldn't be too long now.</p>
<p>Happy Friday!</p>tag:blog.hasmanythrough.com,2006-02-27:Article/1122008-06-01T15:19:55-07:002008-06-01T18:05:26-07:00The Great Test Framework Dance-offJosh Susser<p>Got my RailsConf talk done yesterday. Seems to have gone over well, though my slides didn't show color well in the brightly lit room so they turned the lights down all the way to see them better and I ended up doing the talk as a ghost story for half of it. Guess I have to revise my rules for slide creation to account for ambient light.</p>
<p>Anyway, I have a PDF of the slides posted: <a href="http://hasmanythrough.com/gtfdo/">The Great Test Framework Dance-off</a>. I've also opened up the example code and tests on github as the <a href="http://github.com/joshsusser/teldra_prime">teldra_prime</a> project. That project is based on the application that runs this blog, but you should probably avoid deploying it to run your own blog. I'll be releasing the Teldra blog software as its own project very soon, and that will be the project where I continue development and people can contribute changes.</p>
<p>Also, it turns out I have a craaaaazy fan. Here's <a href="http://blog.almostaspacegame.com/2008/06/01/susser-rox-fanboy-silliness.html">a picture of us</a> at the end of the talk, me posing with his ballpoint tattoo of me on his bicep. Yes, somebody drew picture of me on his body! That so beats people introducing themselves at the urinal!</p>
<p><strong>UPDATE:</strong> Alright, it turns out there is a way to significantly simplify the <code>be_sorted</code> custom matcher I showed as an example for extending RSpec. <a href="http://blog.davidchelimsky.net/">David Chelimsky</a> sent me this alternate implementation that uses the <code>simple_matcher</code> helper:</p>
<pre><code>def be_sorted
return simple_matcher("a sorted list") do |actual|
actual.sort == actual
end
end
</code></pre>
<p>That doesn't have all the power of the example I gave, but it is pretty much equivalent in operation to the test/unit example I gave and said was so much easier to write than one in RSpec. Nice one, David.</p><p>Got my RailsConf talk done yesterday. Seems to have gone over well, though my slides didn't show color well in the brightly lit room so they turned the lights down all the way to see them better and I ended up doing the talk as a ghost story for half of it. Guess I have to revise my rules for slide creation to account for ambient light.</p>
<p>Anyway, I have a PDF of the slides posted: <a href="http://hasmanythrough.com/gtfdo/">The Great Test Framework Dance-off</a>. I've also opened up the example code and tests on github as the <a href="http://github.com/joshsusser/teldra_prime">teldra_prime</a> project. That project is based on the application that runs this blog, but you should probably avoid deploying it to run your own blog. I'll be releasing the Teldra blog software as its own project very soon, and that will be the project where I continue development and people can contribute changes.</p>
<p>Also, it turns out I have a craaaaazy fan. Here's <a href="http://blog.almostaspacegame.com/2008/06/01/susser-rox-fanboy-silliness.html">a picture of us</a> at the end of the talk, me posing with his ballpoint tattoo of me on his bicep. Yes, somebody drew picture of me on his body! That so beats people introducing themselves at the urinal!</p>
<p><strong>UPDATE:</strong> Alright, it turns out there is a way to significantly simplify the <code>be_sorted</code> custom matcher I showed as an example for extending RSpec. <a href="http://blog.davidchelimsky.net/">David Chelimsky</a> sent me this alternate implementation that uses the <code>simple_matcher</code> helper:</p>
<pre><code>def be_sorted
return simple_matcher("a sorted list") do |actual|
actual.sort == actual
end
end
</code></pre>
<p>That doesn't have all the power of the example I gave, but it is pretty much equivalent in operation to the test/unit example I gave and said was so much easier to write than one in RSpec. Nice one, David.</p>tag:blog.hasmanythrough.com,2006-02-27:Article/1112008-05-31T08:02:41-07:002008-06-06T09:57:26-07:00Quick RailsConf UpdateJosh Susser<p><a href="http://drnicwilliams.com/">DrNic</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/drnic/statuses/823963034">complained</a> about the lack of blogging from RailsConf, so here's a quick little update with some highlights. It's still early here and I have to get to breakfast soon, so I have to be brief.</p>
<p>First impression: lots of people. Second impression: "they want us all to fit in there?"</p>
<p>I called it exactly right. Joel Spolsky tried to pull a Ze Frank and did some random crazy presentation in his keynote, but it fell pretty flat. It was really polished and fairly amusing, but I was often insulted by either his blatantly sexist attempts at humor or his estimation of the audience's intelligence. It was nearly entirely content-free, and while he tried to develop a theme about the importance of esthetics, he never went anywhere with it. If you missed it, count yourself lucky.</p>
<p>On the other hand, <a href="http://loudthinking.com/">David Heinemeier Hanson</a> did a keynote where he transformed himself from a technologist into a life coach. His talk on <em>The Great Surplus</em> was interesting, if only to get a glimpse of the world from his perspective. I think most of what he said was right on, especially the bit about how everyone should code less and sleep more.</p>
<p>One of his points was his expectation about how Rails might lose its productivity advantage. He said there were three options: 1) Mainstream tech copies Rails' good points, 2) A radically new tech outdoes Rails, and 3) Rails becomes mainstream so there is no longer an advantage. But I think there is a 4th option. It's what happened to Smalltalk. I'm talking about C++. We Smalltalkers used to think the advantages of our language were so significant that it would take over the world. We had a huge productivity advantage over C coders. Then C++ came along and gave C coders just enough to let them improve their productivity and their ability to write larger more complex systems. It still wasn't as good as Smalltalk, but it was <em>better</em> than C, and much more accessible to most programmers than Smalltalk. C++ eventually sucked up all the oxygen and Smalltalk is now only a language for hobbyists and the occasional programming god. I think this is the most likely threat to the Rails surplus, that C# or Scala or something can do a good enough job that people can double their productivity with far less of a change in mindset or tools, and eventually no one will care about the ten times (or whatever) productivity of Rails. "Good enough is good enough."</p>
<p>Last bit before I gotta run. I've heard rumors about <a href="http://ruby.gemstone.com/">MagLev</a> for a while, and the early <a href="http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/04/maglev-gemstone-builds-ruby">announcement</a> last month got me really excited. The demo and discussion yesterday by Avi Bryant and Bob Walker was one of those jaw-droppers that had everyone in the room freaking out. What they showed was pretty spectacular, though I always like to keep in mind Lansford's Corollary to Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." The staggering performance boost together with the scalability and seamless integration of persistence could be a serious game-changer. I think the GemStone OODB technology beats the pants off of the ORM approach for most web applications, and if they can pull this off it's going to have a huge impact on how I write my software.</p>
<p>I'm giving my talk today at 4:25pm. Yes, I still freak out about giving talks. As critical as I can be of others, I'm hardest on myself. I hope I don't give myself too lousy a review when I'm done, heh.</p><p><a href="http://drnicwilliams.com/">DrNic</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/drnic/statuses/823963034">complained</a> about the lack of blogging from RailsConf, so here's a quick little update with some highlights. It's still early here and I have to get to breakfast soon, so I have to be brief.</p>
<p>First impression: lots of people. Second impression: "they want us all to fit in there?"</p>
<p>I called it exactly right. Joel Spolsky tried to pull a Ze Frank and did some random crazy presentation in his keynote, but it fell pretty flat. It was really polished and fairly amusing, but I was often insulted by either his blatantly sexist attempts at humor or his estimation of the audience's intelligence. It was nearly entirely content-free, and while he tried to develop a theme about the importance of esthetics, he never went anywhere with it. If you missed it, count yourself lucky.</p>
<p>On the other hand, <a href="http://loudthinking.com/">David Heinemeier Hanson</a> did a keynote where he transformed himself from a technologist into a life coach. His talk on <em>The Great Surplus</em> was interesting, if only to get a glimpse of the world from his perspective. I think most of what he said was right on, especially the bit about how everyone should code less and sleep more.</p>
<p>One of his points was his expectation about how Rails might lose its productivity advantage. He said there were three options: 1) Mainstream tech copies Rails' good points, 2) A radically new tech outdoes Rails, and 3) Rails becomes mainstream so there is no longer an advantage. But I think there is a 4th option. It's what happened to Smalltalk. I'm talking about C++. We Smalltalkers used to think the advantages of our language were so significant that it would take over the world. We had a huge productivity advantage over C coders. Then C++ came along and gave C coders just enough to let them improve their productivity and their ability to write larger more complex systems. It still wasn't as good as Smalltalk, but it was <em>better</em> than C, and much more accessible to most programmers than Smalltalk. C++ eventually sucked up all the oxygen and Smalltalk is now only a language for hobbyists and the occasional programming god. I think this is the most likely threat to the Rails surplus, that C# or Scala or something can do a good enough job that people can double their productivity with far less of a change in mindset or tools, and eventually no one will care about the ten times (or whatever) productivity of Rails. "Good enough is good enough."</p>
<p>Last bit before I gotta run. I've heard rumors about <a href="http://ruby.gemstone.com/">MagLev</a> for a while, and the early <a href="http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/04/maglev-gemstone-builds-ruby">announcement</a> last month got me really excited. The demo and discussion yesterday by Avi Bryant and Bob Walker was one of those jaw-droppers that had everyone in the room freaking out. What they showed was pretty spectacular, though I always like to keep in mind Lansford's Corollary to Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." The staggering performance boost together with the scalability and seamless integration of persistence could be a serious game-changer. I think the GemStone OODB technology beats the pants off of the ORM approach for most web applications, and if they can pull this off it's going to have a huge impact on how I write my software.</p>
<p>I'm giving my talk today at 4:25pm. Yes, I still freak out about giving talks. As critical as I can be of others, I'm hardest on myself. I hope I don't give myself too lousy a review when I'm done, heh.</p>tag:blog.hasmanythrough.com,2006-02-27:Article/1102008-05-27T23:17:00-07:002008-05-27T23:18:43-07:00See you at RailsConfJosh Susser<p>Seems like only last week that I was in Portland for RailsConf, but it was a whole year ago. That means it's time to do it again. I'm looking forward to the conference and getting to soak in all the Railsness. The program looks excellent this year, though I doubt Joel Spolsky can top Ze Frank or _why.</p>
<p>I always like to meet my readers, so please do say hi. If you want to know where to find me, I've got a few fixed points on my schedule:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>7:30pm Thursday - Pivotal Labs BoF.</strong> We were going to talk about our open source projects, but instead we're going to talk about the agile development process and Rails.</li>
<li><strong>12:30pm Friday - Book Signing.</strong> I've got a recipe in Mike Clark's new <em>Advanced Rails Recipes</em> book, and a bunch of us contributors will be signing copies. Look for us in the Powell's Books booth. I'm pretty sure Mike is buying me some Scotch for this, so make it worth his while.</li>
<li><strong>4:25pm Saturday - The Great Test Framework Dance-off.</strong> I'm doing a talk comparing the most popular test frameworks. I don't know if it will be Adam Keyes level great, but I promise there won't be karaoke.</li>
<li><strong>9:00pm-Midnight Saturday - Pivotal Labs Beer Night.</strong> Free drinks, food and pool. At the Rock Bottom Brewery, 206 SW Morrison St.</li>
</ul>
<p>Also we're raffling off a Nintendo Wii in our swiipstakes on Saturday. Come to the BoF on Thursday to get one of our shirts, or if you can't be there you can make nice with a pivot later to scam one if we have extras. If a pivot spots you in a shirt over the next three days you can get a raffle ticket. (Wear the shirt while presenting a talk to get two tickets!) Then come to the beer night for the Wii raffle (must be present to win).</p><p>Seems like only last week that I was in Portland for RailsConf, but it was a whole year ago. That means it's time to do it again. I'm looking forward to the conference and getting to soak in all the Railsness. The program looks excellent this year, though I doubt Joel Spolsky can top Ze Frank or _why.</p>
<p>I always like to meet my readers, so please do say hi. If you want to know where to find me, I've got a few fixed points on my schedule:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>7:30pm Thursday - Pivotal Labs BoF.</strong> We were going to talk about our open source projects, but instead we're going to talk about the agile development process and Rails.</li>
<li><strong>12:30pm Friday - Book Signing.</strong> I've got a recipe in Mike Clark's new <em>Advanced Rails Recipes</em> book, and a bunch of us contributors will be signing copies. Look for us in the Powell's Books booth. I'm pretty sure Mike is buying me some Scotch for this, so make it worth his while.</li>
<li><strong>4:25pm Saturday - The Great Test Framework Dance-off.</strong> I'm doing a talk comparing the most popular test frameworks. I don't know if it will be Adam Keyes level great, but I promise there won't be karaoke.</li>
<li><strong>9:00pm-Midnight Saturday - Pivotal Labs Beer Night.</strong> Free drinks, food and pool. At the Rock Bottom Brewery, 206 SW Morrison St.</li>
</ul>
<p>Also we're raffling off a Nintendo Wii in our swiipstakes on Saturday. Come to the BoF on Thursday to get one of our shirts, or if you can't be there you can make nice with a pivot later to scam one if we have extras. If a pivot spots you in a shirt over the next three days you can get a raffle ticket. (Wear the shirt while presenting a talk to get two tickets!) Then come to the beer night for the Wii raffle (must be present to win).</p>tag:blog.hasmanythrough.com,2006-02-27:Article/1012008-01-25T08:19:42-08:002008-01-25T08:19:42-08:00Speaking at RailsConf 2008Josh Susser<p>I received word this week that my talk proposal for <a href="http://en.oreilly.com/rails2008/public/content/home">RailsConf 2008</a> has been accepted. I'll be giving a talk called <em>The Great Test Framework Dance-off</em>. Doesn't that sound like fun?</p><p>I received word this week that my talk proposal for <a href="http://en.oreilly.com/rails2008/public/content/home">RailsConf 2008</a> has been accepted. I'll be giving a talk called <em>The Great Test Framework Dance-off</em>. Doesn't that sound like fun?</p>tag:blog.hasmanythrough.com,2006-02-27:Article/852007-05-24T17:40:00-07:002008-01-24T00:19:35-08:00Laying Tracks slidesJosh Susser<p>I had a great time at RailsConf 2007. Lots of good stuff to see, and it was great to meet so many people I've only known online. I was a bit overwhelmed by how many people introduced themselves as readers of this blog, but I appreciated every introduction. It's great to see who I'm talking to out there.</p>
<p>I was particularly pleased at the reaction to my presentation. Thanks for all the nice feedback. Here's the slides from the talk: <a href="http://hasmanythrough.com/layingtracks/">Laying Tracks</a>. They are slightly edited for online distribution, but the live show always has something that the studio recording doesn't. Like cutlery.</p>
<p>I'm still planning on converting this presentation to a guide that reads better than a slide deck. I'll get around to it in my copious spare time.</p><p>I had a great time at RailsConf 2007. Lots of good stuff to see, and it was great to meet so many people I've only known online. I was a bit overwhelmed by how many people introduced themselves as readers of this blog, but I appreciated every introduction. It's great to see who I'm talking to out there.</p>
<p>I was particularly pleased at the reaction to my presentation. Thanks for all the nice feedback. Here's the slides from the talk: <a href="http://hasmanythrough.com/layingtracks/">Laying Tracks</a>. They are slightly edited for online distribution, but the live show always has something that the studio recording doesn't. Like cutlery.</p>
<p>I'm still planning on converting this presentation to a guide that reads better than a slide deck. I'll get around to it in my copious spare time.</p>tag:blog.hasmanythrough.com,2006-02-27:Article/502006-06-27T00:07:00-07:002008-01-24T00:19:32-08:00RailsConf RecoveryJosh Susser<p>If you didn't get to make it to <a href="http://railsconf.org/">RailsConf 2006</a>, all I can say is you should make more of an effort next year (May 17-20 in Portland). It was an amazing gathering of some really great people, and the most fun and worthwhile event I've attended in years. Many people did the heavy lifting of blogging pretty much the entire conference so I didn't have to. You can find all sorts of write-ups and pictures on <a href="http://hagelb.org/railsconf/">Planet RailsConf</a>, and the <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tags/railsconf/">flickr stream</a> is worth checking out as well.</p>
<p>For me personally, it was wonderful to get to meet so many of the folks from <a href="http://caboo.se/">#caboose</a>, and to get to see some of the people I met at SVRC in April. Then there was everyone else... I just kept meeting one interesting person after another, and am still pretty exhausted because far too often it seemed conversation was more important than sleep. It was definitely cool to meet so many people who read my blog - all of you who said hi to me, thanks, it made my day over and over.</p>
<p>I'm hoping to see some good stuff happen in the next year. <a href="http://blogs.pragprog.com/cgi-bin/pragdave.cgi">Dave Thomas</a> threw down the gauntlet in his keynote, and if we rise to half the challenges he made then using Rails could be even simpler in many ways. And <a href="http://www.loudthinking.com/">David Heinemeier Hansson</a> set forth a different kind of vision in his keynote: a simplification of controllers using HTTP methods as verbs. It's essentially a clever use of polymorphism, something that always makes me smile. Over the next week or two I'm going to write some about my thoughts on this direction and do my best to explain this REST and ActiveResource stuff that all the cool kids are talking about.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, I think I'll have an obedience lacquer t-shirt design soon. Koala, stay tuned!</p><p>If you didn't get to make it to <a href="http://railsconf.org/">RailsConf 2006</a>, all I can say is you should make more of an effort next year (May 17-20 in Portland). It was an amazing gathering of some really great people, and the most fun and worthwhile event I've attended in years. Many people did the heavy lifting of blogging pretty much the entire conference so I didn't have to. You can find all sorts of write-ups and pictures on <a href="http://hagelb.org/railsconf/">Planet RailsConf</a>, and the <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tags/railsconf/">flickr stream</a> is worth checking out as well.</p>
<p>For me personally, it was wonderful to get to meet so many of the folks from <a href="http://caboo.se/">#caboose</a>, and to get to see some of the people I met at SVRC in April. Then there was everyone else... I just kept meeting one interesting person after another, and am still pretty exhausted because far too often it seemed conversation was more important than sleep. It was definitely cool to meet so many people who read my blog - all of you who said hi to me, thanks, it made my day over and over.</p>
<p>I'm hoping to see some good stuff happen in the next year. <a href="http://blogs.pragprog.com/cgi-bin/pragdave.cgi">Dave Thomas</a> threw down the gauntlet in his keynote, and if we rise to half the challenges he made then using Rails could be even simpler in many ways. And <a href="http://www.loudthinking.com/">David Heinemeier Hansson</a> set forth a different kind of vision in his keynote: a simplification of controllers using HTTP methods as verbs. It's essentially a clever use of polymorphism, something that always makes me smile. Over the next week or two I'm going to write some about my thoughts on this direction and do my best to explain this REST and ActiveResource stuff that all the cool kids are talking about.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, I think I'll have an obedience lacquer t-shirt design soon. Koala, stay tuned!</p>tag:blog.hasmanythrough.com,2006-02-27:Article/492006-06-24T06:26:00-07:002008-01-24T00:19:32-08:00RailsConf updateJosh Susser<p>Wow, <a href="http://railsconf.org/">RailsConf</a> has been amazingly cool. You can read all about it at <a href="http://hagelb.org/railsconf/">Planet RailsConf</a>. I'll have more to say later, but for now I want to jot down two things:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/">Paul Graham</a> spoke last night on the value of being an outsider. His talk is now <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/marginal.html">posted</a> so you can read the whole thing yourself. I loved this quote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The big media companies shouldn't worry that people will post their copyrighted material on YouTube. They should worry that people will post their own stuff on YouTube, and audiences will watch that instead.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The other thing is that why the lucky stiff is a unique phenomenon. I've never seen anyone do effective humor with lambda calculus and curried functions before. Now if only I had some obedience lacquer!</p><p>Wow, <a href="http://railsconf.org/">RailsConf</a> has been amazingly cool. You can read all about it at <a href="http://hagelb.org/railsconf/">Planet RailsConf</a>. I'll have more to say later, but for now I want to jot down two things:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/">Paul Graham</a> spoke last night on the value of being an outsider. His talk is now <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/marginal.html">posted</a> so you can read the whole thing yourself. I loved this quote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The big media companies shouldn't worry that people will post their copyrighted material on YouTube. They should worry that people will post their own stuff on YouTube, and audiences will watch that instead.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The other thing is that why the lucky stiff is a unique phenomenon. I've never seen anyone do effective humor with lambda calculus and curried functions before. Now if only I had some obedience lacquer!</p>tag:blog.hasmanythrough.com,2006-02-27:Article/482006-06-20T10:05:00-07:002008-01-24T00:19:32-08:00Twixt RailsDay and RailsConfJosh Susser<p><a href="http://www.railsday2006.com/">RailsDay</a> was pretty amazing. I teamed up with <a href="http://ozmm.org/">Chris Wanstrath</a> and <a href="http://earthcode.com/">Andre Lewis</a> to create a collaborative publishing thing that was a convergence of blog, wiki and forum based on the ideas that information evolves over time and context is decisive. What we got done in 24 hours was pretty impressive (given the constraints imposed by the contest rules), but unfortunately it's not quite ready for prime time yet. We may not have been as polished as some of the other apps, but at least we tried to do something original. All three of us want to keep working on it to get it running the way we want it to, so we should have something worth checking out fairly soon. It's so close I can see it's going to be pretty spiffy when it's done.</p>
<p>And of course <a href="http://railsconf.org/">RailsConf</a> gets going on Thursday. The conference organizers put up a <a href="http://facebook.railsconf.org/">facebook</a> for conference participants. What a cool idea. If you are attending, go create a profile and upload a picture, bio and contact info. Also check out the <a href="http://railsconf.org/pages/schedule">schedule</a> so you can start wringing your hands over which sessions you have to miss because they are up against another really good one. Choosing between Geoffrey and Amy is going to be hard!</p><p><a href="http://www.railsday2006.com/">RailsDay</a> was pretty amazing. I teamed up with <a href="http://ozmm.org/">Chris Wanstrath</a> and <a href="http://earthcode.com/">Andre Lewis</a> to create a collaborative publishing thing that was a convergence of blog, wiki and forum based on the ideas that information evolves over time and context is decisive. What we got done in 24 hours was pretty impressive (given the constraints imposed by the contest rules), but unfortunately it's not quite ready for prime time yet. We may not have been as polished as some of the other apps, but at least we tried to do something original. All three of us want to keep working on it to get it running the way we want it to, so we should have something worth checking out fairly soon. It's so close I can see it's going to be pretty spiffy when it's done.</p>
<p>And of course <a href="http://railsconf.org/">RailsConf</a> gets going on Thursday. The conference organizers put up a <a href="http://facebook.railsconf.org/">facebook</a> for conference participants. What a cool idea. If you are attending, go create a profile and upload a picture, bio and contact info. Also check out the <a href="http://railsconf.org/pages/schedule">schedule</a> so you can start wringing your hands over which sessions you have to miss because they are up against another really good one. Choosing between Geoffrey and Amy is going to be hard!</p>