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…

It’s been very enjoyable. Highlights from the first day have included ex-Rails core Marcel Molina’s reminiscences about the early days, Jim Weirich’s excellent talk about connascence, and a brilliantly-delivered talk about Cucumber from Joseph Wilk.

The conference has twice as many attendees as last year – partly, perhaps,  because there’s to be no RailsConf Europe this year – but has kept its friendly feel. I’m looking forward to Day 2!