RailsConf 2007: Keynote
I just left the keynote. I also found out today that Con-way has some sort of web blog bot thing sniffs out any mention of “Con-way.” So, “Hello, HR!” Con-way. Con-way. Con-way. Paul J. Christopher has been doing a bang-up job and deserves a large raise.
There are 1,600 people at RailsConf — there were like 60 at RailsConf 2005. Show of hands: 80%+ of audience is getting paid to write Rails code.
Our fearless leader, David Heinemeier Hansson talked mostly about Rails 2.0, after a few digs at Java, a couple F-bombs, and a few boasts about Rails book sales.
The Rails release cycle is lengthening. Lots of people are using it, and everything doesn’t need to change all the time any more.
Important information from DHH: Rails 2.0 is not a unicorn! In other words, focuses on REST and other evolutionary improvements. All the features are in Edge (that’s a fancy term for HEAD/trunk) and should work now.
FormBuilder mentioned again.
DHH doesn’t like config files because he doesn’t like being bothered by decisions that he doesn’t care about. You and me both.
Most of DHH’s talk was a demo of how to use REST in an example address book app. Nice to have a keynote that is essentially a developer talking to other developers about coding. DHH starts with one model via scaffolding. “Adding anything new would be a pain in the ass … not!”
There was a cool demo of using the console to work with XML object. Call save() and it makes a HTTP PUT call to update the database.
Nine other things that DHH like about Rails 2
1. Breakpoints are back
2. HTTP Performance. DHH: OK, OK, it does matter. Framework can cache JavaScript files into one bug gzip’ed bundle. Asset_host: allows browsers to open up more simultaneous connections.
3. Query cache.
4. Action.mimetype.renderer. E.g., index.rhtml -> index.html.erb. This fixes mixing of template type and output type. (I like.)
5. Config/initializers: organizes config details into files.
6. Sexy migrations: basically flips column name and column types
7. HTTP authentication: Bad for UI for humans, good for computer clients.
8. The MIT license is the default
9. Spring cleaning: removing a lot of deprecated stuff; moving some thing like in-place editors out of Rails core and into plugins
