Friday, May 31, 2013

My Favorite Presentations from RailsConf 2013

Confreaks has been busy over the past few weeks, putting together the videos from RailsConf 2013. Now that they've posted over 90% of the presentations, you've got a lot to choose from. In case you're having a hard time figuring out which ones to watch, these were some of my favorites.

  • The Magic Tricks of Testing, Sandi Metz - If you're like me, you wanna like your unit tests. You really do. But when you're honest with yourself, you have to acknowledge the times when they slow you down. Sandi Metz clearly delineates what cases to test, and how to test them.
  • Patterns of Basecamp's Application Architecture, DHH - Naturally, DHH had the opening keynote. Here, he dives into some of our history in Rails and the larger Web community, and gets into some of the improvements in Rails 4. I found the caching part particularly fascinating. If you find yourself getting thirsty while watching it, that's because it's got a dash of salty language. Just so you know.
  • Embrace JavaScript, Yehuda Katz - One of the big names behind ember.js, Yehuda Katz talks about why life is sweet on the client side.
  • Rails vs. the Client Side, Noel Rappin - Noel somehow managed to update his slides in the handful of minutes between Katz' keynote and his own presentation. After hearing DHH and Katz' takes on server side vs. client side, Noel did a great job wrapping it all up in a bow with a presentation that lines up the trade-offs in a way that's easy to understand.
  • An Intervention for Active Record, Ernie Miller - Demonstrates just how much beef there is to our beloved ActiveRecord class, and just how few developers really know what's going on inside.
  • Two-Step Deployment for Rails, Doug Smith - Gotta give a plug for my friend and colleague's brief lightning talk about why a two-step rails deployment might make sense for your team! Way to go, Doug!

I didn't get to see them all – which ones were your favorites?

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Dave Leeds
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