Red Dot Ruby Conference, Take 2!
Exist supported the Red Dot Ruby Conference for the second year in a row, and this time our Ruby on Rails developers, Nelvin Driz and Gillian Dugay represented us in the event last May 18-19.
Last year, 250 Rubyists gathered in Singapore for the first Red Dot Ruby Conference. Surprisingly, Philippines is the second country with the most number of delegates following the host country, Singapore.
This year, around 240 attendees all over the world attended the conference held at the NUS University Cultural Centre. Philippines is still the top represented foreign country. Our delegates even increased this year as well as Australian delegates, a good indication of the event's success last year and an increasing interest in Ruby among APAC region. You can check out the attendees by country and some feedback on the event in the report of Andy Croll, the event organizer.
"The conference had a very good mix of talks on Ruby, best practices and even work environment," shared Nelvin.
"Some of the talks are quite new to us like the CSS testing and API Driven Applications, some are not Ruby specific but most of the talks are really helpful for our craft as an engineer," added Gillian.
Talks:
Here's the list of talks together with their slides:
Day One
• Ilya Grigorik Building a Faster Web
• Richard Schneeman The 12 factor app
• Sau Sheong Chang Ruby, Rock & Roll
• Winston Teo CSS Can be Tested Too
• Hemant Kumar Dive Inside Ruby 1.9
• Tim Oxley Benefits of Client-side Templating
• Wei Lu A Journey in Pair Programming
Day Two
• Obie Fernandez Redis on Rails
• Zach Holman Git+Github Secrets
• Terence Lee Bundle Y U So Slow?
• Sebastian Burkhard Run Ruby Run
• Gabe Hollome Level up with Coffeescript
• Darcy Laycock API Driven Applications
• Michael Koziarski Lessons from the Other Side
*some slides are not yet available
Highlights:
We'd like to share some field notes of Nelvin and Gillian on the talks they found interesting.
Building a faster web, at Google and beyond
llya Grigorik from Google shared tools, tips and lessons on building a faster web.
Notes from Nelvin:
*TCP Connections are expensive!
*HTTP overhead ~ cookies session?
SPDY- chrome://netinternals/#spdy
webpagetest.org
*Know how the page load helps!
Chrome: Performance. Timing Chrome, Milliseconds
Google Analytics: #Pics Check!
*Resource Timing
1) Measure User Perceived Latency
Netowork Weekly dev tool
DM Content Loaded ~Blue ~Red
CSS ~ Top ; JS ~ Bootm
Script Tag Difference:
Regular: Wait for Networks -> Execute -> Procees
Defer: DL -> Execute After Onload
Async: DL -> Execute After DL
*Timeline
PNG > Crushed PNG > JPG 100%
-> Asset Pipeline Plugin
PNG Crush/Smash.it, WebP
2) Google Analytics + Site Speed
3) Unblock Onload
4) Optimize Devtool
CSS Testing: Designs Can Be Tested Too
Winston Teo discussed the idea of CSS testing. He presented a Proof of Concept CSS Testing Framework, Cactus, which he created.
Notes from Gillian:
-test css with Javascript
cactus.expect (selector)
Notes from Nelvin:
Benefits of testing:
-code quality
-reduce code change cost
Style Guide ~
Cactus Gem ~ CSS Testing
Base Style Guide CSS
File -> Parse and all should pass it
-no artifact
-known error
A Journey into Pair Programming
Among all the talks, this one is Nelvin and Gillian's favorite. In this talk, Wei Lui of New Context presented the benefits of pair programming approach.
Notes from Gillian:
-rocketfuel-> more future co-workers
-pingpong pairing - TDD +pair
-pairing increase correctness; job satisfaction
what about freedom?
-cubicles are not friendly
-open & friendly environment
-productivity and excellence
-someone to talk to all day
-get a hold of the keyboard
-ask questions
-observe & learn
-2 1/2 times as effective as 1 employee
Notes from Nelvin:
-Typer <--> Obeserver
-Test creator <--> feature coder
Relationships
-undercover
-dopelganger
-Jedi master
-best friend (bonus)
Environment Effects
-Dev Happiness
-Two is better than one
"Do it, try it, it may be hard at the start"
-Auto peer review
-Faster way to get into project
-Can Hire cheaper developers (as long as you have an expert)
-Better code value
Btw, inspired by the talk, Nelvin and Gillian conducted a presentation on Pair Programming in our recent internal Ruby on Rails meetup last Friday.
Some photos at the conference:
Red Dot Logo
Our delegates -- Gillian and Nelvin
Day 1 of the event
Winston Teo presents CSS Testing: Designs Can Be Tested Too
Presentation on A Journey into Pair Programming
#fridayhug at @reddotrubyconf image from @terence lee
For more relevant links and resources, check out cheeaun's post in Github.
Overall, the event is a huge success considering the great turn out and the feedback from the developers. We're looking forward for the next year’s RedDotRubyConf! And hopefully the plan of conducting a Ruby conference here in the Philippines in 2013 will push through. We at Exist would be glad to support the event.
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Comments
great talks.. thanks for the
great talks.. thanks for the links :)
Red Dot Ruby Conference 2012
If those stories from my acquaintances about what work life is like at Exist, I began to wonder where did I go wrong with my career (chuckle). Time to put my (almost) useless web development degree and get it cracking. A very nice read, thank you!
RedDotRubyConf
<Repost from Philippine Ruby Users Group>
26 people travelled from the Philippines to attend.
33 Filipino nationals attended (presumably living outside the Philippines)
With these numbers we just edged out Australia behind only Singapore itself where the conference was hosted.
This bodes well for our own conference plans next year. We need to develop good speakers. Next year we want to see some Filipino developers on stage there.
We need practice. A few polished presentations early next year at our own conference here will elicit invitations to speak abroad.
I'm happy to help in any way!
-Steven Talcott Smith-
Organizer of the RedDotRubyConf 2012
http://andycroll.com/2012/05/22/reddotrubyconf-2012-wrap-up/
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