Monday, August 28, 2006

RailConf Europe 2006 - I Will Be There!

It's official! Travel arrangements are currently being made for me to attend and present at RailsConf Europe 2006 in London!

I had not expected to make it, so this comes as a bit of a surprise. I guess I need to put together some sort of presentation now, don't I? Oh, and make sure I'm happy enough with JRuby's Rails support to be comfortable...

I'll take comments on this off-the-top-of-my-head agenda:
  • Who Am I
  • What is JRuby (dime tour, nothing too deep)
  • Why Rails on JRuby (probably a few slides on JDBC, alt persistence layers, EJB integration, legacy code integration, why JRuby is better in some ways than Ruby)
  • Why not Java-based web framework X
  • Demos
  • What doesn't work
  • What's next, future plans, how can you help
  • Q/A
I'm also hoping the JRubyist Mongrelites are able to get things working before then. I'll probably try to help them, wrap up enough bugs so that most walkthroughs in AWDwR work nicely, and create the presentation over the next two weeks.

I hope to see you in London!

P.S. If anyone wants to give me any pointers on travel from the US to the UK, please do. I'll be travelling alone and I've never been across the pond. Thankfully, I already have my passport, but other than that I'll be flying blind. If any Brits feel like taking me under their wing once I arrive (or just grabbing a pint or two), that would also be much appreciated. I plan to arrive during the evening of the 13th, flying back the morning of the 16th.

5 comments:

  1. Glad to hear it; I'm looking forward to your presentation.

    I'm a London resident who has flown across the pond several times, so I'd be happy to give you some pointers. (My wife is American so I can probably figure things out from that perspective too) My email is jaq at ethelred dot org if you'd like to ask any questions.

    Do you know if you'll be flying into Heathrow or Gatwick airport? That will affect your best way of getting into town.

    It would be worth checking out hand luggage allowances and rules for your trip - the recent 'terror alert' here has made everything a lot stricter for the moment.

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  2. I plan to arrive during the evening of the 13th, flying back the morning of the 16th.

    I'll be there earlier, but I'm thinking that the evening of the 13th might be a good time for a pre-conference gathering. Anybody got any suggestions?

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  3. That's actually a pretty good idea, if I can get there early enough for it to work. I'll try to clarify my travel arrangements (being handled by my employer) and maybe arrange to be there a little early. I'll post something about a meet-up as soon as I know more.

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  4. On the beer front, make sure you try some Fullers "London Pride" and "ESB".

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  5. I'll land in London at around midday on the 13th, so I plan to do some sight-seeing and be available for some food and beer in the evening. Let's keep in touch.h

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