presentations
Ruby for non-Rubyists
Yesterday I spoke to a pleasant mix of Java, .NET, Ruby, Python and PHP developers at Dallas TechFest. My goal when speaking to enthusiast crowds of this sort is to show the light that I’ve found in my programming journeys over the past couple years. This time around I tried to take a page from the inimitable Richard Feynman by structuring my talk into two sets of “Six Easy Pieces”.
The first part starts off with the stance that programming shouldn’t suck. From there I talk about the intercontinental railroad, Sapir-Whorf, Pattern Languages, the Gang of Four and flattery. In the end, we have an idea of how to better approach programming so we can have fun doing it.
The second half is partially showing off Ruby and partially a gauntlet thrown down to other languages. The main point is to show a progression of ideas I see in lots of Ruby code, from sensible naming to closures ending up with metaprogramming powering declarative programming and internal DSLs. You can implement the ideas from the beginning in any language. However, the ideas towards the end require a more progressively designed language. I’d love to see non-Ruby implementations of the programs towards the end of the presentation, if only for comparison and Rosetta Stone purposes.
Thanks to everyone who was in attendance and especially those who stopped to chat with me before and after the presentation. Without further ado, please enjoy Six Easy Pieces (Twice Over).
Rands helps you with your presentations
Out Loud. Conference season looms, folks. Rands is here to help.
I Like Rails 2
Tonight I gave a presentation on Rails 2 at Dallas.rb. Within, I note some of my favorite new things in Rails 2. Some things small, some things large.
If you weren’t there, I should probably explain a couple of the slides. I think Rails 2 is, despite its whole-numberness, an evolutionary release. It makes the Rails “language” smoother around the edges. Granted, its still somewhat blob-esque, but its getter rounder. I dig it.
Besides that, I think Active Resource, or ARes as they call it in the biz, is going to prove useful mostly behind the firewall in your datacenter. As you build more and more applications, you’ll find you need to use resources across multiple apps. This is exactly where ARes shines – providing a common user service, for example.
You can dowload I Like Rails 2 it if you missed it or, for some reason I can’t even fathom, aren’t even in Dallas.