April 27, 12:29

Having O'Reilly on board the Rails

For as long as I've been dabbling in programming, O'Reilly has been an institution in that good, authority-inducing sense of the word. Thus, I'm incredibly happy to have them on board not only with the work we're doing at 37signals (Marc Hedlund is the current guest author at SvN, for example), but also behind Ruby on Rails in such a significant way.

They're doing two Rails books of their own and distributing two more from the Pragmatic Bookshelf. Rael Dornfest, their CTO, is programming away on an upcoming application using Rails (and I've been as lucky as to help guide him through that on AIM).

And I'm really excited about how much Rails is going to be a part of OSCON in August. I interviewed with Nathan Torkington not too long ago about the keynote and it seems like he's getting it like no other:

Ruby on Rails is astounding. Using it is like watching a kung-fu movie, where a dozen bad-ass frameworks prepare to beat up the little newcomer only to be handed their asses in a variety of imaginative ways. I've got David Heinemeier Hansson giving a session, tutorial, and keynote. That's how much I love "convention over configuration" and the other philosophies behind Rails. Rails shows us a very interesting future for web applications, and is a great example of innovation from within the open source community.

Flatter will get you anywhere. Especially when you're the content coordinator of OSCON, as Nathan is, and responsible for shepherding a power-house of Ruby developers onto a super track for this year's conference.

Add to that, Tim O'Reilly himself picked up on another Rails philosophy the other day with Frameworks are Extractions:

For example, basecamp wasn't built on top of Ruby on Rails. Rather, Ruby on Rails was extracted from basecamp. This approach seems obvious and commonsense — but hardly common in this era of heavy web services standards-ware designed by technical committees far in advance of actual implementation.

So before I break into song, I'd like to wrap up the lovefest by simple saying: Thanks, O'Reilly and friends!

Challenge by Vui Lo on April 27, 14:14

And I thank you, Mr. Hansson, for the new paradigm of Web application development.

Challenge by on April 27, 15:17

That has got to me the most choice quote ever! "Using it is like watching a kung-fu movie, where a dozen bad-ass frameworks prepare to beat up the little newcomer only to be handed their asses in a variety of imaginative ways."

Challenge by Marc Hedlund on April 27, 17:09

In my opinion this part of my job is incredibly easy and fun: I find cool people doing cool things and then I hang out with them and see how I can help them. Isn't that, like, nearly the best job description ever?

I have to say, though, that sitting down for lunch at Web 2.0 and finding myself next to Jason Fried has been more fun and productive than any other such "job responsibility" I've taken on. You guys combine great products with a great way of working and a low tolerance for nonsense, and the result is amazing.

(Okay, I'll stop. What's the opposite of a flamewar?)

Challenge by Marcus on April 27, 23:07

It would be a good idea to collect endorsement like these and collect them somewhere on RubOnRails.com. We're seeing developer uptake increase hugely - now we've got to get the employers on board to put all of these Rails geniuses to work.

Challenge by Marcus on April 28, 2:34

Oh, I just noticed this:

http://weblog.rubyonrails.com/archives/category/praise/

(You've thought of everything...)