Summary

I believe this meeting will go down as one of the strangest meetings in CVREG history. Ben arrived early and as people started coming in it was noted the projector was missing. Oh No! While the projector was getting retrieved I did my best to entertain, but I failed miserably. Thankfully Ben and a few of the Viget Labs crew was on hand to talk about Developer Day and RubyNation.

I must say someone did ask what happened to my hair (my ponytail, actually) and if I was going to grow it out again. Ummm…no comment and maybe ;-)

But the real excitement was Ben’s presentation. Ben devised a way to drastically reduce time to display using a combination of page caching, AJAX and Rails Metal. I believe someone Ben trademark it. :-)

If you were in attendance please consider rating Ben’s presentation on SpeakerRate. I’ve included the link in the Additional Information section.

Attendance

We had 15 people at this month’s meeting. The third double-digit attendance. You guys Rock! We even had three brand new faces in attendance. Very encouraging. Please, keep spreading the word.

I would also encourage you to make suggestions on how we can serve your Ruby needs. Remember we have the mailing list and the IRC channel in which to post your questions and suggestions.

Additional Information

• SpeakerRate

Next Meeting

Stay Tuned for details on May’s Meeting. I don’t have a speaker booked for May because of RailsConf. So, if you or someone you know is attending RailsConf stop by and give us your impressions. If nothing else we can all go to the pub for a pint or two. ;-)

Announcements

beCamp 2009 is happening again. If you’re not familiar if a BarCamp-style two-day conference held in Charlottesville, VA. This year is being held on 8 and 9 May. It looked like several people from the group will be attending. I encourage you to carpool. There will be a one-night hotel stay.

Developer Day is a one-day, developer-centric conference in DC. And did I mention it’s only Fifty Bucks (USD$50) [there is an additional $1.25 Fee when registering]? It’s being held on 30 May, that’s a Saturday if you don’t have a calendar handy. The website has additional information, like speakers, agenda, and a map!

Also, RubyNation 2009 is once again being held in Washington DC on 12-13 June. Registration is still open and be sure to use the discount code NovaRUGFan to get $20.00 off.

Last but definitely not least I want to say something about tonight’s sponsor: Viget Labs. They were kind enough to pay for this month’s dinner.

Summary

This month’s meeting was a first: two speakers!

Syed Rayhan, of Code71, started off the evening with an architectural overview of his company’s product: ScrumPad. Utilizing Amazon Web Services, ScrumPad is implemented “in the cloud.” He also covered scaling and performance enhancements.

We finished off the night with Kevin Smith, of EngineYard, giving us a brief but engaging look into Erlang. He covered the basics of the bizarre syntax, reliance on pattern matching, and the reuse of concepts within the language.

It was great having both speakers. However, they both had material that would have covered an entire meeting on their own. At this point I don’t think I’ll be scheduling more then one speaker per meeting.

Attendance

We had 13 people at this month’s meeting. The second double-digit attendance. You guys Rock! We even had three brand new faces in attendance. Very encouraging. Please, keep spreading the word.

I would also encourage you to make suggestions on how we can serve your Ruby needs. Remember we have the mailing list and the IRC channel in which to post your questions and suggestions.

Additional Information

• ScrumPad
• Amazon Web Services Blog
• Amazon Web Services

• Erlang.org
• Google Search for Erlang
• Erlang Community

Next Meeting

Be sure to come out next month (14 Apr) when Ben Scofield, of Viget Labs, will be talking about Page Caching in Rails.

Announcements

Developer Day is a one-day, developer-centric conference in Durham, NC. And did I mention it’s only Fifty Bucks (USD$50) to register? It’s being held on 21 March, that’s a Saturday if you don’t have a calendar handy.

Also, the Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise Conference is once again being held in Philadelphia, PA on 26-27 March. I’ll be posting more information on this conference on the mailing list.

Last but definitely not least I want to say something about tonight’s sponsor: Engine Yard. They were kind enough to pay for this month’s dinner and provide t-shirts for give away.