TITLE: A Few Days at JRubyConf
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: May 22, 2012  7:53 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
It's been fourteen months since I last
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2011-03.html#e2011-03-09T23_31_36.htm">
   attended</A>
a
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2011-03.html#e2011-03-10T21_21_02.htm">
   conference</A>.
I decided to celebrate the end of the year, the end of
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2012-05.html#e2012-05-14T15_26_29.htm">
   my compiler course</A>,
and the prospect of writing a little code this summer by attending
<A HREF="http://jrubyconf.com/">
   JRubyConf 2012</A>.
I've programmed a fair amount in Ruby but have only recently begun
to play with
<A HREF="http://jruby.org/">
   JRuby</A>,
an implementation of Ruby in Java which runs atop the JVM.  There
are some nice advantages to this, including the ability to use
Java graphics with Ruby models and the ability to do real
concurrency.  It also offers me a nice combination for the summer.
I will be teaching our sophomore-level intermediate computing
course this fall, which focuses in large part on OO design and
Java implementation, as JRuby will let me program in Ruby while
doing a little class prep at the same time.

<CENTER>
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/conferences/jrubyconf2012/stone-arch-bridge.jpg">
<IMG SRC="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/conferences/jrubyconf2012/stone-arch-bridge-thumb.jpg"
     ALT="the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis"
     WIDTH="500"
     BORDER="0" />
</A>
</CENTER>

Conference organizer
<A HREF="http://blog.nicksieger.com/">
   Nick Sieger</A>
opened the event with the obligatory welcome remarks.  He said
that he thinks the overriding theme of JRubyConf is being a
bridge.  This is perhaps a natural effect of Minneapolis, a city
of many bridges, as the hometown of JRuby, its lead devs, and
the conference.  The image above is of
<A HREF="http://stonearchbridge.com/?page=history">
   the Stone Arch Bridge</A>,
as seen from the ninth level of the famed Guthrie Center, the
conference venue.  (The yellow tint is from the window itself.)

The goal for the conference is to be a bridge connecting people
to technologies.  But it also aims to be a bridge among people,
promoting what Sieger called "a more sensitive way of doing
business".  Emblematic of this goal were its Sunday workshop, a
Kids CodeCamp, and its Monday workshop,
<A HREF="http://workshops.railsbridge.org/">
   Railsbridge</A>.
This is my first open-source conference, and when I look around
I see the issue that so many people talk about.  Of 150 or so
attendees, there must be fewer than one dozen women and fewer
than five African-Americans.  The computing world certainly has
room to make more and better connections into the world.

My next few entries will cover some of the things I learn at
the conference.  I start with a smile on my face, because the
conference organizers gave me a cookie when I checked in this
morning:

<CENTER>
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/conferences/jrubyconf2012/eugene-cookie.jpg">
<IMG SRC="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/conferences/jrubyconf2012/eugene-cookie-thumb.jpg"
     ALT="the sugar cookie JRubyConf gave me at check-in"
     WIDTH="400"
     BORDER="0" />
</A>
</CENTER>

That seems like a nice way to say 'hello' to a newcomer.
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