my not-so-barbaric yawlp

While I should be finishing up some of the dozen half-baked entries, I elected instead to just post my upcoming speaking schedule. I was putting this off in hopes that RailsConf would let me in, but it looks like this will be the first year for me to sit it out (unless of course they are still in fact deciding).

Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise March 26-27

I’ll be in Phillidelphia on March 26-27 giving my talk, “Be Careful Your Java is Showing” a walk through the idiomatic and architectural traps that developers fall into when they first approach Ruby and the Ruby on Rails framework.

Mountain West Ruby Conf March 28-29

I’m off from Philly straight to Salt Lake City for Mountain West Ruby Conf. I’m very excited about this one. The local ruby conferences always have a ton of energy. With friends like Mike and Pat running the show, you know it’s going to be fun.

I’m giving my “Domain Specific Languages: Molding Ruby” talk. This is one of the two talks I’m the most passionate about and should be a a lot of fun. This is also the talk I was supposed to give in Ann Arbor last night, but I had to cancel on account of snow.

Scotland on Rails April 4-5

In April I’ll be traveling to the land where they make scotch. Oh man is this going to be fun. While I’m there, I think I’m supposed to give a talk or something :-)

Seriously, this is going to be another fun one. Jim and I are working on something lively for that conferences that should be a lot of fun. I can’t wait.

erubycon August

Yes, we will be putting on erubycon again. We will be giving the conference to show ruby’s readiness for the enterprise. Look for another announcement within the next couple weeks.

I’ll add more talks as they come up. God knows I’ve papered enough places with proposals.

Dave Thomas put out the challenge and we responded.

Last year Dave and Mike in conjunction with the Pragmatic Studios came up with a stellar idea, hold a one day guide book training session. The only caveat was that in order to attend you had to donate money to a charity. They raise over $12,000. This year, they did the same thing. When they combined it with the conference at large, they were able to bring the total up to $33,000.

The beauty of this idea was two fold. First, was the obvious idea of raising money for a good cause. In our case, we are supporting an individual charity that is responsible for helping fight hunger in children. Each $50 donation supplies enough to feed on child for a month in one of their theraputic food centers.

The other reason I love this idea is because it has identified a need that every conference has, to get people on the same level. Especially with new technologies, we have a problem of brining on new developers. The ‘guide book’ name was coined by Dave and Mike to represent a day of training that acted as a travel guide. When you visit Moscow, you take a guide book, not to give you the entire history of Moscow, but one that will give you enough to make your trip more enjoyable.

We have followed suit. We have added another ticket to erubycon called charity training. This gives you full access to the conference, in addition to a one day training course offered the day before the conference begins. erubycon will donate $50 from your ticket to the Action Against Hunger. We have are running a charity drive through ChangingThePresent.org

So take the opportunity to help us raise money, and make sure you get the most out of erubycon. Register today, seating is limited to the first 50 people.

The training session is an introduction to Ruby and Rails. It will give you enough of a background to allow you to get the most out of the conference and see for yourself what all the fuss is about. After the training, you can join us for three days of packed content showing you what you can do tomorrow to have an impact in your organization.

If you cannot make the dates, please consider donating to the cause anyway. RailsConf raised over $33,000, let’s see how close we can come.

We have finally posted the session list for erubycon.

We will be having two tracks and have some incredible talks to choose from. Stay tuned for the exact schedule. Some of the topics we are covering:

• Data Warehousing
• Large Teams and Rails
• JRuby, the DLR and other alternative platforms
• Security
• Domain Specific Languages

What are you waiting for? Register soon while we still have space.

Come be a part of the first Enterprise Ruby Conference. It’s being held n Columbus Ohio July 16, 17 & 18. Come get all the ammunition you need to convince your boss to take a good, hard look at Ruby. Maybe you too could be coding in Ruby this year!

As you know we have a contest going on to win free admission to erubycon. All you need to do is tell us some really cool thing you are doing with Ruby.

The latest post is from Josh Schairbaum, a leader in in the community who is working hard to get organizations to take notice. He writes about his experience getting Ruby adopted inside some major corporations. First JPMorgan Chase and now CardinalHealth, number 11 and 19 on the Fortune 500 list respectively.

From his post:

So, what am I doing? In short, I’m helping technology leaderships make the best investment decisions, while becoming an industry leader, not an industry follower. I’m proving to them that you don’t needs teams of consultants or a pricey support contract to business value out of the data that your organization holds. I’m proving that Ruby belongs.

His work at JPMC has grown quite well:

At JPMC, I led the team that created the 1st fully-supported and fully-funded Rails application inside the bank. ... The part that I’m most proud of is that 1 year ago, there were no full-time Ruby/Rails jobs at JPMC, today there are 3, and that’s a great thing for the community.

He’s now moved on to CardialHealth, but has not left his innovative ideas behind:

I’m doing something that I think is even more edge-leading and innovative. I’m in the process of deploying several small Camping apps, which work together to create a dashboard of information for IT leadership to make investment decisions

Read the full text here. You can also listen to the Ruby on Rails podcast with Josh and Dan Manges about their work at JPMC.

It’s exciting to see some of the inroads that Ruby is making, and the developers that are happier because of it.

So I thought it a bit odd to run into Roy, the founder of ThoughtWorks, upon my arrival to RailsConf today. I then get to the speakers lounge, register and find a two page spread announcing not only mingle but also the most interesting announcement of all:

Today ThoughtWorks Studios introduces the convenience, power and flexibility of Ruby / Ruby on Rails to Fortune 1000 companies.

RubyWorks is, what appears to be, ThoughtWorks supporting Ruby for the Enterprise. To say this is huge would be a drastic understatement. ThoughtWorks is releasing a production LAMP stack for Ruby on Rails that’s designed for both Red Hat Enterprise and CentOS (think free version of RedHat). According to their website, beginning in July they will begin offering 24×7 paid support. This is putting your money where your mouth is.

RubyWorks – a new products and support service for Ruby. Designed to help enterprises implement and use Ruby more effectively …

EdgeCase is pushing the meme of Enterprise Ruby with erubycon, and now ThoughtWorks is getting behind it with full support.

This is going to be a stellar year.

update: Edited to fix stupid grammar mistakes. Will stop blogging when jet-lagged.

Pat Eyler has just announced a contest that we are putting on.

What cool things are you doing with Ruby? has begun and runs through June 1. We want to find out what things you have done with Ruby. Write about your experience (good and bad) and post a link on Pat’s blog.

The purpose of erubycon has always been to put on a conference solely dedicated to demonstrating what Ruby can do in the Enterprise. These are not the kind of conversations you are going to find (or should find) at RailsConf, or any of the other fantastic conferences that are starting around Ruby. erubycon will be all about the issues, and architectures surrounding

• Integration with legacy systems
• Using Ruby and Ruby on Rails with large teams
• Integrating the Ruby culture into your organization
• and many, many other great topics.

Stay tuned here and on the main conference website within the next week to get more details about the sessions that will offered.

As always, we offer special user group rates, so please contact us if you would like to find out more.

See you in July!

Jim Weirich is joining the cast of erubycon. Jim is responsible for some of the killer Ruby tools including Rake and Ruby Gems, which he co-created in a hotel lobby using a thumb drive as a CVS repository (you have to ask him about it). Jim is one of the best known Ruby developers who is also spends a lot of his time in old legacy code bases. Jim’s insights into what Ruby has to offer will definitely help us get the point across. erubycon is honored to have him join us.

You can read more about Jim’s passion for open source, software development and Ruby at onestepback.org.

I’m very excited about this. Dave Hoover, a close friend and fantastic developer is going to be speaking at erubycon. Dave has become quite well known in the testing community and is one of the main reason we are able to have Selenium testing in Rails. Dave Hoover has recently moved to Obtiva where he has been giving a very successful Ruby on Rails bootcamp.

Also, note that we now have RSS syndication added to erubycon, so you can keep up to date with the latest developments

EdgeCase is proud to announce erubycon, the first conference specifically for demonstrating Ruby’s place in the Enterprise world. Many of you out there have stood back and watched as Ruby and Ruby on Rails have gained popularity. Many of you have had the same questions:

• Can I use it for real applications?
• Can I integrate it with my current systems?
• Will it scale?

We have gathered an exceptional group of speakers to come and share their experiences with Ruby in Enterprise organizations. These speakers will answer these questions and more. The speakers have had extensive experience and success in many environments such as Java and .NET. They have also found tremendous success and enjoyment with Ruby.

• Bruce Tate, international speaker and best selling author of nine titles including Better, Faster, Lighter Java, and Bitter Java has recently written the popular From Java to Ruby: Things Every Manager should Know will give us an overview of how he has helped organizations accelerate their development and increase effectiveness thanks to the Ruby language.
• Justin Gehtland, co-author of the recent Pragmatic Ajax and Rails for Java Developers will share his experiences and successes he has had recently as founding partner of Relevance, an organization that has successfully leveraged Ruby inside the Enterprise.
• Stuart Halloway, founding partner of Relevance, co-author of Rails for Java Developers, international speaker, and trainer who has trained some of the top consulting organizations in the country on Ruby and Ruby on Rails. Stuart will bring his exceptional teaching style and extensive experience to the conference and demonstrate what this language can do for you.
• Neal Ford, Application Architect for ThoughtWorks, author of The Art of Java Web Development, and international speaker who frequently speaks about Enterprise development for the popular No Fluff Just Stuff series will come and speak about the success ThoughtWorks has had with Ruby and Ruby on Rails in large organizations.

We will have announcements soon about many of the other exciting speakers you will get to hear from at the conference. We will provide a balanced view of the state of Ruby and what it can do for your organization.

erubycon takes place Feburary 9, 10, and 11 in Columbus Ohio. Registration opens November 15, and pricing will be announced soon. Tickets will be limited in order to offer a more intimate setting and chance for everyone to hear the speakers. A lounge area will be setup for speaker Q&A sessions, coding help, or just to hang out.

Stay tuned to erubycon.com for more details as the days progress.