June 2008 SF Ruby Meetup & RailsConf Impressions

WE GOT A VENUE!!! The good folks at Ooga Labs are hosting our Meetup this month.

There is a security desk at Ooga's building so they'll check your ID against the RSVP==YES list. If your Meetup user name (as it appears in the RSVP==YES list) doesn't match your ID, you'll need to change your Meetup user name to reflect the ID. Otherwise, you will not be allowed in.

PRESENTATIONS

Developing Desktop Apps using jruby and Java by Alex Wong

Get the best of both worlds by using a multi-language approach to developing applications. Better support for dynamic languages on the JVM has led to more integration and opportunities to use combinations of technologies to develop functional code rapidly while promoting loose coupling. Impressions of using jruby and Java together on an actual application will be presented along with thoughts about how to effectively take this approach even further.

Rails under the hood" (...a hood raised just a few centimeters :-) by Raul Parolari

We may know how to use Rails, and program its Controllers, View, Helpers, Plugins, etc. What is less known is (and, as far as I know, never explained): how does Rails organize itself internally at startup? what happens when a web request arrives? how are Controllers, Helpers, Modules, Views linked together?

Without pretending to explain (heaven forbid) everything, this presentation shows how (fragments of) the internal organization occurs; an animated graphical demo displays the structure progressively, from startup until the first stages of a web request processing. The attention is centered on Controller, Helpers, Views (sorry: I did not include Models yet in my study).

For Ruby enthusiasts (who sometimes feel suffocated by "all Rails, all the time"), we will show how some cool Ruby metaprogramming tricks renders "the Rails magic" possible.

New Features in Rails 2.1 by Bala Paranj

Rails 2.1 is not far off the horizon. This presentation will cover some of the new features in this release:

• Gem Dependencies
  
• Dirty tracking with partial updates
  
• has_finder in the form of named_scope
  
• Built-in timezone support
  
• Better caching infrastructure

Recap of RailsConf by whoever wants to speak up

• What cool things did you see at RailsConf?
  
• What sucked about RailsConf
  
• Did DHH do a good job as a life coach? :-)
  

MORE, MORE, MORE

Stand up and do a Lightning Talks (no prep needed). Participate in our open discussion carried over from the March thread started by Dominic Son.

SWAG

I have another Pearson (the Addison-Wesley folks) publication to raffle off. Props to Heather Fox at Pearson User Group Program. Recall at the last Meetup, Jeff P. won The Rails Way by Obie Fernandez.

Let's see if I can get a copy of 3rdRail to give out. Cross your fingers.

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