12/08/2013

RubyConf 2013 - What Changed?

I have noticed that the last few Ruby Conferences I have attended, Ancient City Ruby and Ruby Conf 2013, have not lived up to some of my expectations. This is not a fault of the conferences but of how I perceive improvements.

In the early days of Ruby, relatively speaking, when all the giant advancements were being made, like Rails, gems, migrations, rake, Capistrano and _why's latest ideas. I am sure we can all have our own lists of world altering ideas that fundamentally changed how we work every day. Some of this radicalization has waned.

I have been reflecting on how progress can be measured by tiny changes as well though the impact is slower and less measurable. For example, Jim Weirich works on Argus and, then Artoo changes how we approach Robotics in Ruby. Independently they are simple API's, but that simplicity becomes a fundamental driver of adoption and the growth of new ideas.

John Mair works on an improved Ruby shell and that simple improvement drives some re-birth of Small Talk ideas. What I can edit and interact with code at runtime? Small Talk got to where it is for many reasons both good and bad, but what will happen when we re-grow the good ideas into something new?

For me, I am going to pay more attention to the micro-drivers of our future. Keep it simple so that we can all be part of the growth.

Ruby is creating a thrilling world.