Derailed: The Denver Rails User Group

I attended the Denver on Rails User Group, aka “Derailed” last night at the Tattered Cover bookstore downtown Denver. There were about 20 folks there in various stages of Rails experience. Some having worked with it from the start and some just starting. Some guys were excited to be working in Rails full time and others were enviously watching from their non-Rails day jobs.

While I just sat quietly and contributed nothing, what struck me most about the group in general was everyone’s willingness to share knowledge and the general excitement over Ruby on Rails. Despite the looks of bewilderment in many IT professionals’ eyes while they scratch their head and wonder what all the fuss is about, I can tell you that people do get excited about the framework and what it means to their work. People are making serious systems with Ruby on Rails. The excitement level is growing at such a fast clip that the next Railsconf is going to be one like never seen before (RailsConf 2007 – May 17-20, 2007 – Portland Oregon) – everyone is going to be wishing they were at Railsconf.

Until then, find a local Rails user group or other Rails conferences and training events. If you are in the Denver area and interested in Ruby on Rails, I recommend joining this fine group of developers. More information at the Derailed google group.

There were two live, hands-on presentations. Both presenters did a good job and the work they put into their talks encouraged me to visit again and hopefully someday have something to present. I will not repeat the presentations here but urge you to visit:

Phil Ripperger’s presentation on Rails and Web Services.

Kevin Williams also gave a talk on What’s New in Rails 1.2. Example code is available here.

Thanks Phil and Kevin.

I plan on being at the next Derailed meeting.