Pelargir

I’ll be speaking at the Agile ITX conference in Reston, Virginia on June 27th. My presentation is titled Pragmatic Pair Programming and is based on the many diverse pairing experiences I’ve had over the past six years. Mention pair programming in any crowd of programmers and you’ll get two responses: adoration or outright hatred. Why is pairing so controversial? Does it have any tangible benefits? That’s what we’ll be exploring together. Agile ITX is shaping up to be a great conference with many top-notch presentations. I’m excited about getting the chance to participate. Hope to see you there.

You’ve got about a week left to get your proposals in for a talk at the Ruby Hoedown, the South’s regional Ruby conference. Speakers will receive free admission and an as of yet undetermined honorarium along with dinner the night before the conference. (C’mon, you can’t possibly pass up free food.) Ping proposals@rubyhoedown.com if you have any questions.

The Ruby Hoedown moves to Hunstville, Alabama this year. I’m filling Nathaniel’s place as co-organizer this go round, along with Jeremy McAnally who was the driving force behind the conference last year too. We’re cooking up a good mix of Ruby talks. It’s not too late to get your own proposal in: the deadline is June 2nd. David A. Black and Chris Wanstrath are keynoting so you’re in good company.

This year’s conference is shaping up to be another rip-roaring success, with several companies already onboard as sponsors and some nice giveaways in the works. I expect to see y’all down south in Alabama come August to celebrate our favorite language: Ruby!

Registration for this year’s BarCampRDU is now open. This is an event I unfortunately had to miss last year due to a prior commitment. I’m really looking forward to attending this year. It’s shaping up to be a fantastic experience.

For those of you interested in a trip to sunny Austin, the Lone Star Ruby Conf is now accepting speaker proposals. LSRC is a regional conference similar to the Ruby Hoedown that’s coming to Raleigh in August. It’s great to see these regional conferences taking off.

For the homeschoolers who read my blog, I’ll be speaking at the North Carolinians for Home Education (NCHE) state conference in Winston-Salem again this year. I’m giving my distance education talk on Saturday, May 26th, from 12:30 to 1:30 PM in South Main 3. A few of the points I’ll cover include:

• Why distance education is a good alternative to traditional college for homeschool graduates
• How I earned my own four-year degree through distance education
• Which colleges currently offer distance education and how to choose wisely from among them
• An overview of the different methods that can be used to earn credit through distance education (portfolio review, CLEP, etc.)

There will be a few surprises too! I hope to see you there.

For those who may have missed my talk at RailsConf, you can download the slides to get a better idea of what the talk was all about.

I had a blast, by the way! The audience seemed to enjoy it, and I was pleasantly surprised at the number of questions people had about Teascript and the process of building it. About a dozen people came up to me afterwards saying that they had an idea they were mulling over, and my talk had inspired them to get started on it.

I’ll probably be writing a couple of follow up articles that go into more detail on how homesteading worked for me. I didn’t have enough time to cover everything I wanted to at the presentation due to the enthusiastic response from the audience. To those who attended, thanks for being there and making the talk a success!

Portland is rapidly fading into the distance as I fly back towards Raleigh. I’ve enjoyed the past six days immensely. The Ruby/Rails community continues to surprise me with its passion, dedication, and downright uber-geekiness. The highlight of the conference for me was the time spent between talks and during meals, sharing ideas and experiences with other developers. I’m totally worn out now, but I’m already looking forward to next year’s Conf.

Not everything was peachy keen, though. There are several things that bothered me about the Conf this year…

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I just arrived in Portland a few hours ago for RailsConf ‘07. I’m looking forward to attending the tutorial sessions tomorrow, not to mention watching presentations by fellow Rails geeks on Friday and Saturday. My own talk on homesteading and Teascript will be given on Saturday at 10:45 AM for those who are interested. Hope to see you there!

This is another brief reminder that I’ll be giving a preview of my RailsConf talk at tonight’s Ruby meetup. The meetup starts at 7 PM at Red Hat headquarters. Hope to see you there!