• Read more about Windy City Rails 2010

It’s absolutely fantastic when a conference has Wi-Fi, power, and tables, and WindyCityRails had all three! Generously hosted by ChicagoRuby at the Westin, right on the Chicago River, WindyCityRails was a one-day conference that was packed full of awesome.

Unfortunately, I was only able to make it for the morning sessions, but Jake Scruggs (@jakescruggs) started us off with a bang, walking us through all the different aspects of metric_fu. Jake did a great job of explaining how to use metrics as a tool for where to focus your efforts in refactoring code, but explained that it’s not designed to be put in the hands of management – and probably not something you want to break the build-chain for.

John McCaffrey (@j_mccaffrey) kept the momentum going with some great tips for improving Rails performance. Some of the biggest tips: use indexes in your database, cache things when it’s practical, use sprites, and most importantly gzip your resources!

Finally, I gave my talk – first illustrating how easy it is to create your own Gems and release them to the public, and then talking about how dangerous it is that we can release those Gems so quickly. The slides can be found below:

I had to race back to Eau Claire after that, but it was an impressive conference. In addition to the standard talks, there was also a tutorial track, featuring Jeff Cohen and Noel Rappin discussing how to get started with Rails, and how to test a legacy environment, respectively.

Finally, there was a coding dojo hosted by the guys over at Obtiva (@ObtivaCorp) where attendees could drop in and practice pair programming, TDD, and learn about cool tech like Redis!

A big thanks to the ChicagoRuby group for hosting such a spectacular conference!

• Read more about Talkin' About Upgrading to Rails 3

This year at OSCON I had the pleasure of giving a talk entitled Upgrading to Rails 3. The talk served as a high level overview of the new features of Rails 3 that are both a boon for developers and something to watch out for when trying to upgrade your Rails 2.3 applications. I followed it up with a livecoding session in which I took a to-do application (built mostly by Intridea’s own Jeremy McAnally) from Rails 2.3 to Rails 3 in the space of just over 10 minutes.

The slides and video are available at the end of the post, and if you’re interested in really diving in-depth into the Rails 3 upgrade process, I highly recommend Jeremy McAnally’s Rails Upgrade Handbook as an indispensable tool. With the release of Rails 3 looming ever nearer, the timing couldn’t be better for you to dive in and learn what it will take to get your applications running on the next generation of Rails!

The above slides are fairly self-sufficient and give a high level overview of some of the changes Rails 3 brings and some of the tools and tricks to look for while upgrading. Below you’ll find the screencast I recorded livecoding (apologies for the “shouting” tone of voice, conference-voice doesn’t translate perfectly to screencast-voice) a transition from Rails 2.3 to Rails 3 on stage during the last 15 minutes of my talk.

• Read more about Hacking the Mid-End (Great Lakes Ruby Bash Edition)

I just finished giving my “Hacking the Mid-End” talk at the Great Lakes Ruby Bash. It was a bit longer format, so I updated the slides a bit and added a third example to the code. The slides are embedded below and the new code is available in the GitHub Repository.

I’m still at the conference, but I wanted to post up the slides and code immediately! Enjoy.

• Read more about Conference Comparison

Last week, along with a few of my Intridea colleagues, I had the opportunity to experience two entirely different Ruby-related conferences. The first was RailsConf Europe, an international Ruby on Rails conference in Berlin Germany. After giving our RCE talks, Pradeep and I got on planes and flew to Austin, TX for the Lone Star Ruby Conference, where Intridea presented a full-day training session. Both conferences had their own unique feel, and it was interesting to compare the community eco-systems inherent in each.

At RailsConf Europe, Intridea had two talks accepted “ Michael and Pradeep gave a tutorial on Rails Internals, and Michael and I presented a talk and coding session on Mid-End Rails Development. For our talk, the crowd was attentive, but very quiet. Generally when speaking in a packed room, there will be a quiet rumble as attendees comment on the ongoing presentation. The entire event had more of a formal feeling to it. This could perhaps be due to the language barrier brought on by attendees from all over Europe, the US, and the world coming together “ but it was a departure from my other presentation experiences.

Likely related to the varied backgrounds, the RailsConf Europe crowd did not seem to be very cohesive “ there appeared to be fewer hallway hack sessions and in-depth discussion that you often find at similar events. The venue also contributed to lack of cohesion. The hotel did not offer breakfast, so attendees didn't have that early morning mingling that usually occurs. Being held in a hotel in downtown Berlin, there were also many potential distractions. A quick nap in the room, a run out to the street corner bratwurst vendor, a wide variety of local pubs – there were many opportunities to be drawn away from the conference.

Because of the variety of backgrounds, along with the number of distractions, the community feel seemed to be a bit lacking.

The Lone Star Ruby Conference was an entirely different experience, I think a large part due to the venue. At LSRC, the venue was not attached to a hotel, all meals were provided, events were scheduled from morning until night, and there was not a great deal to do within walking distance of the venue “ not to mention it was almost too hot to go outside! All of these contributed to a more cohesive group that grew even stronger as the event went on.

Adam, Pradeep, and I presented our full-day training “ Rails Refactoring: Triage, Prevention, and Performance “ to a great group of developers. Having just come from RCE, where people were from all over, it was different to have a class full of people mostly from the same geographic area (Texas). Perhaps the nature of a training vs a session, but there was much more communication going on between attendees and instructors. The vibe was definitely more laid back.

That vibe extended to the rest of the event “ there were lots of hallway hacking sessions, people helping other developers with code problems, and many in-depth technical discussions outside of the actual talks.

Overall, both events offered some great technical talks and the opportunity to meet some great Ruby/Rails minds “ but for a community feel, Lone Star wins hands-down.

• Read more about Intridea at RailsConf Europe and Lone Star Ruby

Intridea will be speaking at two Ruby/Rails conferences this week. If you're attending either conference, make sure you come by and say hi!

RailsConf Europe

Pradeep Elankumaran and Michael Bleigh will be presenting their RailsConf Europe tutorial: The Renegade's Guide to Hacking Rails Internals, on September 2nd.

This far-reaching tutorial will give Intermediate and Advanced Rails developers a crash course in hacking and extending Rails internals. The topics covered will include: Ruby Meta-programming Techniques; Rails Abstractions, Idioms & Mixins; Rails Structure & Initialization; A Tour of the Rails Class Loader; Plugin Locators and Loaders; Codebase Modularization using Rails Plugins; Extending ActionView Form Builders; Site-wide Settings; and much more¦

Michael Bleigh and Chris Selmer will be presenting a RailsConf Europe talk: Hacking the Mid-End: Unobtrusive Scripting and Advanced UI Techniques in Rails, on September 3rd. Here's the talk overview:

As web application development advances beyond the static page, a whole new field of development is emerging. In the Javascript behavior layer and markup abstracting helpers lie the 'Mid-End': advanced user interface problems that don't fit traditional ˜back-end' and ˜front-end' models. Explore this new field with case studies and real code such as usage of Lowpro Javascript behaviors to keep the behavior separate from the markup. Learn how to give back-end developers the tools to create simple, repeatable, quality markup through block-accepting helpers. Discuss the methods that allow for rapid development of complex interactions in new and exciting ways and see real examples. Finally, look into the future of the Mid-End and what lies ahead for user interface development.

The Lone Star Ruby Conference

Adam Bair, Pradeep Elankumaran, and Chris Selmer will be leading a training on the first day of the LSRC. The training is titled: Rails Refactoring: Triage, Prevention, and Performance. And the overview:

Maybe you inherited a mess of a Rails project “ or perhaps your own codebase is poorly-tested, not very DRY, or just generally confusing. Worse yet, maybe your Rails site has slowed down to a crawl or even stopped working entirely. Whatever the reason, it's time to consider refactoring these rough spots and boosting your site's performance.

In the first half of the day we'll go through real-life examples of (shameful) code we've written and refactored, give tips on how and when to start, and show you how to avoid the need for a future refactor. In the second half, we'll introduce common Rails performance pitfalls, how to diagnose them, and how to solve them. We'll also talk about other ways to speed up your app.

• Read more about Josh Owens and Chris Selmer to speak at Railsconf 2008

Intridea will be represented at Railsconf 2008 by Josh Owens and Chris Selmer. They will be speaking about their experience rapidly building web applications during the first Rails Rumble, a 48-hour contest for developing a Rails site from concept to completion.

Railsconf 2008 will be held in Portland, OR on May 29th - June 1st. Stay tuned for scheduling details.