RAILSCONF 2009

Every year Rails developers all over the world eagerly look forward to the most awaited mega event Rails Conference. This year RailsConf 2009, the annual event for the Ruby on Rails community was held May 4-7 in Las Vegas, and was a huge success. It gave new and experienced Rails users practical tools for staying agile and maintaining a competitive edge in an industry that is being transformed by rapid innovation. For four intense days, developers engaged directly with over 100 expert speakers, learning how to exploit the popular framework’s newest features to solve problems and build businesses.

The RailsConf, co-presented by Ruby Central, Inc. and O’Reilly Media, Inc., is the largest official conference dedicated to everything Rails. This time around more than 1,300 web developers, IT managers, web-based business entrepreneurs, and others gathered to learn the basics, catch up on the latest developments, and sharpen their expertise, through a variety of presentations and events arranged by Program Chair Chad Fowler and Associate Chairs David Black and Rich Kilmer. Additionally there was a free parallel unconference called CabooseConf where skilled Rails coders from all over the world met in one room to work on their Rails projects.

David Heinemeier Hansson, Creator of Rails, on stage at RailsConf 2009in Los Vegas.

RailsConf is a unique opportunity for people who use Rails to meet some of the core development team, discuss real-world issues with them, and get their take on the future. This time the conference was set at an important crossroads in Rails development, with an upgrade and multiple enhancements just being completed and an imminent merger with Merb. Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals, filled conference-goers in on plans for the upcoming Rails 3 version, and in a keynote address he discussed "Rails 3 and the Real Secret to High Productivity."

In other keynotes, Hansson conducted an on-stage interview with Timothy Ferriss of The 4-hour Workweek, and Chris Wanstrath of GitHub discussed the importance of sharing code, contributing to open source projects, and focusing on community in a talk he titled "How To Become a Famous Ruby Rockstar or Rails Ninja." Jon Crosby of Engine Yard talked about "Agility in Deployment – Rails in the Cloud," and Robert Martin of Object Mentor discussed "What Killed Smalltalk Could Kill Ruby, Too." A Rails Core Panel gave conference-goers a chance for a Q&A with key Rails developers, including Hansson, Yehuda Katz with Engine Yard, Jeremy Kemper with 37signals, Michael Koziarski of Koziarski Software Limited, and Rick Olson with ENTP.

Chad Fowler, Conference Chair, on the stage at Railsconf 2009 in Las Vegas.

Every year they announce winners of the Ruby Hero Words which are given to the unsung heroes of the Ruby/Rails world who teach, create and contribute without recognition or payment. This year’s winners of the coveted Ruby Hero Awards were John Nunemaker, Pat Allan, Aman Gupta, Luis Lavena, Dan Kubb, and Bryan Helmkamp.

Engine Yard chose RailsConf 2009 as the occasion to preview its new Flex service that gives developers new ways to access the benefits of Rails when developing for the cloud. Flex will be available on Amazon EC2 in June. Also at the conference, Blue Box Group and Gear6 announced a partnership to develop and deliver a Memcached-as-a-Service solution to all Blue Box Group customers.

The Rails core team – Joshua Peek (Consultant),Yehuda Katz (Engine Yard Inc.),Rick Olson (ENTP),Michael Koziarski (Koziarski Software Limited),Jeremy Kemper (37signals), David Heinemeier Hansson (37signals) on stage at RailsConf 2009 in Las Vegas.

Sponsors for RailsConf 2009 were Engine Yard, Heroku, Sun Microsystems, Blue Box Group, and New Relic.

You may like to visit http://www.railsconf.com for complete information on RailsConf2009, as well as watch keynote videos, speaker presentation files, and photos.