RailsConf 2009 gives practical tools for success

For Immediate Release

CONTACT:   
Maureen Jennings
707.827.7083
maureen@oreilly.com

RailsConf 2009 Gives Practical Tools for Success
Deeply Technical Sessions Fill Days Dedicated to Rails

Sebastopol, CA, May 26, 2009 - RailsConf 2009, the annual event for the Ruby
on Rails community held May 4-7 in Las Vegas, gave new and experienced
Rails users practical tools for staying agile and competitive in an
industry being transformed by fast-paced innovation. For four intense
days, developers engaged directly with more than 100 expert speakers,
learning how to exploit the popular framework's newest features to solve
problems and build businesses.

RailsConf, co-presented by Ruby Central, Inc. and O'Reilly Media, Inc., is
the largest official conference dedicated to everything Rails. More than
1,300 web developers, IT managers, web-based business entrepreneurs, and
others gathered to learn the basics, catch up on the latest developments,
and sharpen their expertise, through a variety of presentations and events
arranged by Program Chair Chad Fowler and Associate Chairs David Black and
Rich Kilmer. At CabooseConf, a free, parallel unconference, skilled Rails
coders from all over the world met in one room to work on their Rails
projects.

RailsConf is a unique opportunity for people who use Rails to meet some of
the core development team, hash out real-world issues with them, and get
their take on the future. The 2009 conference was set at an important
crossroads in Rails development, with an upgrade and multiple enhancements
just being completed and an imminent merger with Merb. Rails creator David
Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals, filled conference-goers in on plans for
the upcoming Rails 3 version, and in a keynote address he discussed "Rails
3 and the Real Secret to High Productivity."

In other keynotes, Hansson conducted an on-stage interview with Timothy
Ferriss of The 4-hour Workweek, and Chris Wanstrath of GitHub discussed
the importance of sharing code, contributing to open source projects, and
focusing on community in a talk he titled "How To Become a Famous Ruby
Rockstar or Rails Ninja." Jon Crosby of Engine Yard talked about "Agility
in Deployment - Rails in the Cloud," and Robert Martin of Object Mentor
discussed "What Killed Smalltalk Could Kill Ruby, Too." A Rails Core Panel
gave conference-goers a chance for a Q&A with key Rails developers,
including Hansson, Yehuda Katz with Engine Yard, Jeremy Kemper with
37signals, Michael Koziarski of Koziarski Software Limited, and Rick Olson
with ENTP.

This year's winners of the coveted Ruby Hero Awards, given to the unsung
heroes of the Ruby/Rails world who teach, create, and contribute without
recognition or payment, were John Nunemaker, Pat Allan, Aman Gupta, Luis
Lavena, Dan Kubb, and Bryan Helmkamp.

Engine Yard chose RailsConf 2009 as the occasion to preview its new Flex
service that gives developers new ways to access the benefits of Rails
when developing for the cloud. Flex will be available on Amazon EC2 in
June. Also at the conference, Blue Box Group, and Gear6 announced a
partnership to develop and deliver a Memcached-as-a-Service solution to
all Blue Box Group customers.

Sponsors for RailsConf 2009 were Engine Yard, Heroku, Sun Microsystems,
Blue Box Group, and New Relic.

For complete information on RailsConf 2009, including keynote videos,
speaker presentation files, and photos, visit: http://www.railsconf.com

For news, coverage, and comments, go to:
http://en.oreilly.com/rails2009/public/content/news-coverage

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http://radar.oreilly.com/

For information about exhibiting at or sponsoring RailsConf, contact
Yvonne Romaine at yromaine@oreilly.com

If you would like to discuss forming a media or promotional partnership
with O'Reilly for an upcoming event, contact mediapartners@oreilly.com

For a conference overview, visit: http://conferences.oreilly.com

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