One of the best things about my new job in Grasshopper Labs is that we’ve made it part of my goal plan to attend some Ruby/Rails conferences. I made a good choice to attend Windy City Rails in Chicago a couple weekends ago.
The location == great. I wish I had more time to explore Chicago while I was there, but its a fun city and being on the river at the Westin was awesome.
I particularly enjoyed the tutorial session “Behavior Driven Rails with RSpec and Cucumber“. We’ve settled on following a BDD style using RSpec and Cucumber at work, so I was keenly interested in this one. It started a bit slow for me – the experience level of the attendees varied widely, so we were forced to start “at the beginning”. Despite this, the real treat was being able to just watch David Chelimsky and Corey Haines pair program. I’m fairly new to pair programming, although what I’ve done so far has shown its value to me. Observing two guys like David and Corey pair proves that value. You can witness them discover things, push each other, help each other, and focus more keenly than they otherwise would alone. It really is magic.
Thanks to everyone who was a part of Windy City Rails. I fully intend to return next year, hopefully with a little more time on my hands to really enjoy the city.
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Windy City Rails 2009 Recap
One of the best things about my new job in Grasshopper Labs is that we’ve made it part of my goal plan to attend some Ruby/Rails conferences. I made a good choice to attend Windy City Rails in Chicago a couple weekends ago.
The location == great. I wish I had more time to explore Chicago while I was there, but its a fun city and being on the river at the Westin was awesome.
I particularly enjoyed the tutorial session “Behavior Driven Rails with RSpec and Cucumber“. We’ve settled on following a BDD style using RSpec and Cucumber at work, so I was keenly interested in this one. It started a bit slow for me – the experience level of the attendees varied widely, so we were forced to start “at the beginning”. Despite this, the real treat was being able to just watch David Chelimsky and Corey Haines pair program. I’m fairly new to pair programming, although what I’ve done so far has shown its value to me. Observing two guys like David and Corey pair proves that value. You can witness them discover things, push each other, help each other, and focus more keenly than they otherwise would alone. It really is magic.
Thanks to everyone who was a part of Windy City Rails. I fully intend to return next year, hopefully with a little more time on my hands to really enjoy the city.