Fingerprints of Casper Fabricius

RailsConf was a blast. But I barely had the time to consume all the impressions, since my vacation was just after the event in Chicago. So I went directly to Roskilde Festival, North Europe’s biggest festival with 100.000 partying people near Copenhagen, Denmark, and from there I got on a bus to Rumania as part of choir singing Danish songs in the Rumanian churches. When I got back, I realized my blog had gained quite a lot of attention (at least compared to its very silent past), not at least my posts on David Heinemeier Hansson’s and Paul Graham’s key notes. While 70 subscribers and 200 visitors a day doesn’t sound like much to some, it fills me with a certain amount of humility: “Surely people will expect my future to be of high professional quality and deep insight”, I think.

See, my problem is, that while I seem to do pretty good on referencing what really, really smart people say and adding a bit of my own pocket philosophy, I find it a wee bit harder to provide genuinely usable Rails knowledge on my own. I have plans for posts about my on-going experiences with Substruct, and about my struggles with actually being RESTful when developing, but for now, as a way to scare most of my newly gained audience away again, I’ve decided to write a completely non-technical and probably quite un-insightful blog about some the great people I met at RailsConf.

Always taking the analytical approach to things, I have divided those people into two categories: The VIPs and the VFPs. The first are VIPs of the Rails community; key note speakers, widely read bloggers, authors, etc - people I wanted to meet because I admired they work, but who won’t actually remember they met me afterwards. The second are some of the Very Friendly People I met at the conference, that is; people that I didn’t know beforehand, but that I ended of talking a lot to during the event. Of course the VIPs where also friendly, and the VFPs are probably also important (to some people), but most likely being a clever geek, I’m sure you get the idea.

VIPs

David Heinemeier Hansson: Of course everybody at the conference wanted to meet DHH, and my twist was supposed to be to surprise him by talking Danish to him. In fact I happened to be talking to David Black when DHH came along, and Black was so kind as to introduce us and take our picture, but there wasn’t any time to talk further, so I can’t say I have any insight on DHH I can share.

Geoffrey Grosenbach: I had a great deal of respect for Geoff because of this persistent work with the Ruby on Rails podcast and his many insights about deploying, so I really looked forward to attending this talk and meeting him. It was strange to look at the guy and hear his unique voice I knew so well from the podcasts; kind of like meeting some one talking like Darth Vader.

Amy Hoy: Amy is - literally speaking - a colorful part of the Rails community. Probably the most well-known girl in the community and the only female speaker at the conference, I of course had to meet her. I did, and she willingly lined up for a photo. What I don’t like about Amy is that she keeps reminding me that good - and fun - writing is hard work, and I just don’t have the patience to rewrite a sentence five times like she does, which means that my blogs will never match hers in enjoyability, I’m afraid.

David Black: I meet Black at “day 0″, where I didn’t get to participate in the Guidebook session, so I went early into the room reserved for improvised events, where he sat all by him self with his Mac. I didn’t know who he was - in fact, I thought he looked completely wrong in the setting (remember, the conference wasn’t started yet, and I hadn’t yet realized that Ruby gurus generally mature, bearded men), but he explained to me that he was the organizer. Later that day, I bought Black’s book in Chicago and got it signed by him - nice!

VFPs

Tim Trautmann: Migrated from Germany, Tim was the closest thing to a European I got to know at the conference. We enjoyed a nice dinner Friday, and he was part of the drinking buddies sitting outside the bar. Tim is a consultant, having a one-man company with a funny name I seem to have forgotten.

Jeremy Seitz & John: When I realized that nothing was going to happen at “day 0″ besides the Guidebook, I went to Chicago. I met Jeremy and John waiting for the shuttle bus, and we ended up buying a brand new Macbook for John at the Chicago Apple Store. I can’t seem find John’s last name or blog, but both of J’s was great fun to hang out with through out the conference days.

Brian Eng & Jeff Cohen: Meeting the Softies was definitely one of my goals at the conference since I really like their blog, and they turned out to be extremely friendly and great company. These guys actually works in cubicles like they do in Dilbert (which only seems to amusing to Europeans), so you’d think they be grumpy and bitter, but they where all smiles and even paid for our dinner at Chilies - I owe you one, guys!

Hisa: This cool Japanese actually wrote the RubyCocoa framework, which I definitely want to try out once I get my hands on a Macbook, and we talked many times during the conference. Hisa wasn’t bothered about his English being a bit rusty, and a really funny thing he explained to me, was that he found it just as to distinguish between western people, as we often find it to distinguish between Asians. Fair enough!

Jim Greer: Once the conference ended Sunday afternoon, Jim was one the people that - like me - was staying at the hotel till Monday. A minor hack fest formed in the bar that evening, and I sat opposite to Jim, writing on my blog about DHH’s key note. I discussed the whole normalization issue with him, and this actually inspired Jim to start up his blog and write his first post, which was later referenced in DHH’s blog about the issue. Jim is starting a web game company in England, and I’m pretty sure he will be a success.

Victoria: I had a great conversation about everything from the Rails community to the differences between USA and Denmark with one of the very few girls at RailsConf, while I was trying to spot James Adams, the creator of Rails Engines, with out any luck. Victoria was attending the 37signals workshop the following week, and I believe she promised to blog about it…

I met plenty of other nice and friendly and important people, but this has to end some where. I wish I could finish telling you how I much I look forward to RailsConf 2007 and seeing some of these people again, but the fact is that it’s very unlikely that I’ll be there. The conference is in May, and I’m in school - what do you do in school in May? You have exams. Tough break.