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timchater

  • 09:35:57 pm on March 29, 2009 | # | 0
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    As my train heads back to Sheffield from Edinburgh it’s time for a brief reflection on Scotland on Rails 2009.

    Looking towards the east coast

    Looking towards the east coast

    The conference

    It was even better than 2008! Great job @alancfrancis, @mathie and @paulanthonywils on attracting so many top speakers.

    US invasion

    It was interesting to note that the vast majority of talks were delivered by speakers from across the pond. So here’s a rallying call to UK-based Rubyists (including me, of course): let’s follow the example of our cross-Atlantic fellows and submit some proposals next time!

    TDD and BDD (and EDD and CDD)

    Probably the biggest theme throughout the conference – exemplified by the four consecutive talks in the main room on the Friday afternoon – was the consensus on the importance of testing properly. In short: we developers should

    • test all the time
    • use BDD with an “outside-in” approach to drive app development, and adopt Cucumber
    • stop using fixtures (and instead look towards using Object Daddy/Factory Girl/Machinist to generate objects)

    Until next time

    What a great few days in Scotland! Roll on next year’s conference…

     

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