Registration is $50 and includes access to all conference session as well as a nifty t-shirt.

Details:
March 16-17, 2007
Salt Lake City Library
For more information, contact mtnwestruby at gmail dot com or go to Mt West Ruby Conference

To register directly go to Mt. West ruby registration page
See you all there.

We feel however that it can go way beyond the Java, .NET,  php/mysql (or whatever your preferred language was) sites that many of us used to make. We’re seeing more enterprise level applications built in Ruby on Rails and we’re pushing that envelope as well. Thanks for tuning in.

The votes are in - I’ve asked around and received a few responses from folks on their favorite Ruby editors.

Here’s the short list without commentary or reviews. Will take a peek at these and a longer list when we have time.
Vim on Windows
PSPad
Eclipse
JEdit
Textmate on OSX
Dreamweaver (some tweaking to config files required to color code)

(more…)

It wasn’t until some of the best PHP developers I knew wondered why I was doing things so “inneffeciently” that I started probing RoR. Now I’ll admit - I’m far from conversant in Rails as I’m a webmaster/designer type, but I have learned a few things that have influenced me and our organization to switch over to the rails framework for new applications. Here are a few reasons we made the (95% of the time) switch. I say 95% of the time because there are still cases when we find the framework may not be the best option - but that’s for a later post.

I’ll admit - I’ve learned these benefits from the pros I work with who write the language. Adrian Madrid of HyperX first introduced me and I’m glad he did. Others have had to force the logic into my brain - but I’m starting to ‘get’ it.

1. Rails has an interactive shell that lets you write and execute code directly. No queries…just simple code.
2. Database abstraction. Being able to loop through rows with just one simple command rocks. Remember php while … In rails the same thing would be something like this: table.each do |column| is pretty cool. Of course you can still run queries, but the most common ones are taken care of. It also understands relationships if you let it.
3. Working with databases as objects is a great time saver.

So there you have it - yes it is better then PHP. Where is it headed? I’m not sure - but folks around here cringe if I mention doing new projects in PHP, and smaller projects are typically finished in half the time - so I’m sold.