Accidental Technologist

Musings about Entrepreneurship, Technology and Software Development

  • Home
  • About
  • Still River Software
  • Privacy Policy

Powered by Genesis

You are here: Home / Ruby / acts_as_conference 2009 in the Rear View Mirror

acts_as_conference 2009 in the Rear View Mirror

February 13, 2009 by Rob Bazinet

Tweet

aac2009

I attended the second annual acts_as_conference 2009 on February 6th and 7th and had such a great time.  The conference was put on by Robert Dempsey and company from Atlantic Dominion Solutions.  The venue this year was different than last year, it was the Ramada Orlando Celebration & Convention Center.

The two-day event is packed with a bunch of great speakers filled with great content.  I attended last year as well and think this years talks were even better than last year.  The single-track event included a variety of topics from Rails (of course) to software engineering and running a successful Rails-based business:

 

Day 1 – Friday, February 6, 2009

  • Gregg Pollack & Jason Seifer, The Rails Envy Guys: Innovation in Rails
  • Live Video Q&A with David Heinemeier Hansson
  • Jim Weirich: A Critical Look at Fixtures
  • Jon Larkowski: Testing as Communication, Real-World Techniques
  • Guy Naor: Writing Multi-Tenant Applications in Rails
  • Yehuda Katz: Writing Modular Applications Using Merb
  • Nathaniel Talbott: Keynote

 

Day 2 – Saturday, February 7, 2009

  • Steven Bristol: How to make a Successful Rails App
  • Patrick Peak and Paul Barry: BrowserCMS: From Proprietary Java to Open Source Rails
  • Bryan Liles: TATFT, The Layman’s Guide to Getting It Right The First Time
  • Tim Rosenblatt: OAuth and APIs: Sharing your data without leaving your zipper down
  • Will Leinweber: Relaxing with CouchDB
  • Dan Benjamin: Keynote

The room where the sessions were this year had a much better screen to see the session slides and was more comfortable in general.  You can see the picture above what I am referring to.  The photo isn?t too bad either, considering it was from the back of the room via my iPhone.

One of the great things about conferences these days is the availability of the sessions online after the conference.  It?s a great service to those who cannot attend and gets the word out of the speakers even further.  Confreaks was on-site and recorded all the sessions and has them available already up on their site.

Summary

AAC 2009 was well-worth the time to come down from CT and get to mingle with some really great folks.  I had planned on writing up a pro-and-con list for the even but it would be mostly pros and very few cons.  The only thing I would change, for me personally, is the venue.  I didn?t find anything displeasing with it other than the fact of not being within walking distance of a place to get a cup or coffee or dinner.  Last year was really close to so many things.  I would be will to pay more for the event if it was centered around a busier area and in a single, modern building.  Granted, this is a very minor criticism of the event, which should go to show how good it was.

One other little minor thing would be to have time between sessions for a little more ?hall talk?.  The two-days of the event were packed full of content so I don?t know how this would really be possible other than starting the day earlier and/or making it run later.

I really like these single track conferences so much more than the larger ones.  Each type has its place but with a single-track you get to take in everything.  I find myself gravitating toward talks more geared toward running a business, such as the one from Steven Bristol or more philosophical ones from Dan Benjamin and Nathaniel Talbott, which are truly thought provoking.

I hope there will be an AAC 2010 and I plan on attending if it happens.  Maybe next year I will submit a talk proposal but I find it relaxing just to sit back and listen to everyone else.

Technorati Tags: acts_as_conference,#aac2009,Rails,Conferences

Share this:

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • More
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Pocket
  • Reddit

Related

Filed Under: Ruby

Care about your privacy? I do and use Fathom Analytics on this site.

Fathom Analytics

Comments

  1. Jason Cartwright says

    February 13, 2009 at 11:28 pm

    Robert – thanks for the great write-up and the positive feedback. Robert and I felt like this year was even better than the first, and I’m glad you felt the same way.
    It’s hard to schedule hallway time, but we make no apologies for packing the conference with can’t miss talks. In fact, we tried to squeeze in a couple more talks, but just couldn’t make it happen. I would have liked a mid-morning break, and it seems the schedule would have allowed that.
    You can rest assured that there will be an #aac2010 as Robert and I are both passionate about bringing the best content and hottest topics to the Rails community. We tried to make a lot of improvements and still keep the cost at a minimum, cause that’s how we like it. And let’s face it… there’s simply no better place to be than Florida in February. Hope to see you there in 2010!

  2. Jason Cartwright says

    February 13, 2009 at 11:28 pm

    Robert – thanks for the great write-up and the positive feedback. Robert and I felt like this year was even better than the first, and I’m glad you felt the same way.

    It’s hard to schedule hallway time, but we make no apologies for packing the conference with can’t miss talks. In fact, we tried to squeeze in a couple more talks, but just couldn’t make it happen. I would have liked a mid-morning break, and it seems the schedule would have allowed that.

    You can rest assured that there will be an #aac2010 as Robert and I are both passionate about bringing the best content and hottest topics to the Rails community. We tried to make a lot of improvements and still keep the cost at a minimum, cause that’s how we like it. And let’s face it… there’s simply no better place to be than Florida in February. Hope to see you there in 2010!

Recent Posts

  • Status Bar in iTerm2
  • Supporting Multiple SSH Keys on macOS
  • Using the Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard on macOS
  • 10 Steps to Survive Working from Home
  • “Are you building a business or learning a stack?”

Categories

Services I Love

HatchBox - Easy Rails Deploys Fathom Analytics
Follow @rbazinet

Rob Bazinet
@rbazinet

  • Spending the evening working on some new Ruby on Rails code. As one with no life does on a Saturday night.
    about 9 hours ago
  • I have me daily hike listening scheduled. https://t.co/IpEMqk5KXk
    about 20 hours ago
  • I’ve been contemplating creating a newsletter for a long time. It would be for Ruby developers and highlight variou… https://t.co/zb3b4sF2yd
    about 20 hours ago
  • This! https://t.co/SYXR9eE9Ls
    about 21 hours ago
  • I’ve spent the last year working on a handful of Ruby on Rails enterprise applications. I’ve learned a ton and real… https://t.co/RHU1kbrlRq
    about 2 days ago
  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.