Rails Conf after thoughts
Now that I am home and have managed to sleep a bit I have been thinking about my overall experience at Railsconf 2007. Overall it was great. It was fun to meet so many people working in Rails. The community is filled with friendly individuals who are willing to share everything they know or just sit an chat. I even managed to get in a fun game of chess on the giant board by the vendor booths.
My favorite talks were the ones that included code. That is probably because I am a programmer, but somehow code makes the talk real. I went to a few talks that were explanations of processes. Those are OK, but they include a lot of common sense stuff that you will already know if you have been in the field for a few years. The very best talks were ones that included code and showed best practices. I don't want to be a Rails core team fan boy, but I love to hear Jamis Buck talk. He and Koz did a great job showing off the 'Rails Way'. DHH's talk was great. He is a nice guy with great ideas and he is a good presenter. He deserves the credit he gets.
The food at the conference sucked. Breakfast needs to be better. Lunch needs to be better.
Rails Conf felt a little to corporate for a rebellious framework like Rails. Something more like IIW would fit this community perfectly. Somehow O'Reilly manages to make their conferences a little to rock starish. However, O'Reilly support also shows the support and power behind Rails which is cool.
I wouldn't attend the tutorials before the conference. They are pretty much an introduction to whatever topic they introduce.
Overall the conference was enjoyable. I would probably go again. I look forward to more local Rails events. I think the community is growing and we should start seeing more regional conferences in the 50-150 person range.
See you next year.
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Dawn Applegate
Justin Ball is a software consultant and entrepreneur with a passion for Ruby. He evolved from a C++ and .Net monkey into a python programmer and finally found Ruby. In the rare moments when he isn't writing code, talking about code or measuring his code productivity in profanity per hour, you can find him on his bike in the mountains or on the roads surrounding Cache Valley. 
