I Came. I Saw. I Mingled.

I don’t know any more than those two sentences, but I was hoping just knowing Ruby on Rails exists would give me some geek cred.

I went to the New Haven Business/New Haven Magazine awards dinner tonight at Amarantes. If you’re ever invited to something like this if the “should I go longer/shorter” question comes up: shorter! That being said it was a well put together event with some impressive people and projects being honored.

The Bilco Door folks were honored as were a few local bankers, the architect (and driving force) behind 320 State Street and Covidien in North Haven.

My big score was meeting Ben Berkowitz and crew from SeeClickFix.

SeeClickFix allows anyone to report and track non-emergency issues anywhere in the world via the internet. This empowers citizens, community groups, media organizations and governments to take care of and improve their neighborhoods.

I asked Ben how the site was built. As soon as he said “Ruby,” I added, “on Rails.”

Ruby on Rails is an open source web development framework. It’s a structure to build data driven websites. I don’t know any more than those two sentences, but I was hoping just knowing Ruby on Rails exists would give me some geek cred.

RoR got me invited to a “hackathon” which is sort of a 21st Century hootenanny, but without the folk music and girls. I suspect there will be Doritos! I am honored and looking forward to it.

I did a lot of handshaking tonight. Some folks tsk’ed and said I’d been mishandled at work. I get that a lot nowadays.

Glad I was invited. Glad I went. I’m saying that even though I had to shave and wear a tie!

4 thoughts on “I Came. I Saw. I Mingled.”

  1. Hey, Geoff!

    If you want to fit in, Bring Snickers Bars & Cokes. The staple of Geeks, worldwide!

    I’d enjoy that- too bad that it’s so far away and New Milford is under water!

    Best & miss ya,

    Mich

  2. You’ve posted someplace that you’d built the site by hand, which leads me to infer either PHP or PERL (aka, Perfectly Eclectic Rubbish Lister, L. Wall). If the latter, then you know how Ruby got its name and some of its original syntax, largely supplanted now.

    RoR has seen its zenith. Have a look here:
    http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html

    Dynamic languages are waning, again. Python seems to be holding its own, but not Ruby, which is a Good Thing IMHO. Ruby folks tried to make out that Ruby was the successor to Python. Guido’s way smarter than Matz. (If that sounds like Martian, and you want to find out, try Wikipedia.) It’s not in the top ten now (don’t recall if it ever was), so it’s not graphed over time.

    RoR had some spectacular flops with sites that went huge. Twitter swapping its engine from RoR to something in Scala is most well known.

  3. I might be considered a nerd by some but am not a computer nerd. I had heard about Ruby on Rails a couple of years ago from my son-in-law who works in the data industry. The main reason I know about it, is that it was in part the inspiration for the name of my grandpuppy Ruby, a wonderful Havana Silk dog. You see, her mother’s name is Pearlie since she has snow white fur, so a “gem name” was a good choice. Our sweet, adorable Ruby has lived up to her name and is a total gem of a dog. Her grammy just loves her to pieces.

Leave a Reply to Michele in Gaylordsville Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *