So it just finished, and I already can’t wait until next year. The talks ranged from very general to very specific and were all pretty solid. My favorite general talk was AC/DC, Stravinsky, & Rails by Adam Keys. I was psyched for this one, since, although not a huge fan, I appreciate AC/DC’s Keep It Simple Stupid approach to music, and also because I took a Stravinsky class in college. One point I thought he’d mention though, is how Rails is like Stravinsky on the inside, and like AC/DC on the outside, exposing a domain-specific language that is simple and follows tried-and-true conventions.
My favorite specific talk was Rails Deployment by Ezra Zygmuntowicz. I think Ezra has discovered the way to make Rails apps truly scalable, and I think I need to jump on the Mongrel bandwagon. I wanted to wait until it was a bit more stable. I’m a little hesistant to run a beta application server, but I just haven’t heard any complaints about Mongrel.
I also thought MetaRails by Stuart Halloway was very beneficial to those curious about the inner workings of Rails. I was also blown away by Bryan Wood’s demo of Lendmonkey.com, a media trading community developed by one guy, except for the logo.
Update: Cool, Adam appreciates my insight.