RailsConf Europe saw another sensational edition of RejectConf take place. This was my second RejectConf, the first being at this years US RailsConf in Portland, and it was a resounding success.
The idea is essentially to provide a platform for anyone to speak about anything related to Ruby/Rails/etc in a forum where presentations are 5 minutes or less (at the US RejectConf the speakers even nominated the length of their talks upfront).
In the past, prototypes, ideas, and demo’s of future applications, gems, plugins and frameworks have been presented that have later turned into valuable projects, and its also a fantastic social night with loads of cheering, heckling and fun had by all.
This year I presented a camping application called GuitarZero I wrote together with Lachlan Hardy at RailsCamp to handle our highscores for Guitarhero, which was extremely popular during the camp :)
I also recorded two of my fellow Australian’s presentations on my MacBook Pro - John Barton and Dr. Nic. The recordings turned out well considering they were made with the inbuilt camera/mic on my MacBook Pro.
Australian presenters were particularly prevalent on the night, as you’ll be able to tell from the cheering in the video’s (fantastic!), with Ian, Max, Nic, myself and John all demoing cool things we’ve been working on.
Bratwurst on Rails had a great vibe and was one of the best pre-conference events I’ve attended. The event took place at the Kalkscheune, just near the Maritim pro Arte where RailsConf itself will be held. Quite a few people attended, and with the conference starting the next day the atmosphere was really great. Lots of excitement and activities in preparation for the following days.
I particularly enjoyed meeting many of the people I’d met over at RailsConf US in Portland, and it was also great to see local German folks again. Great food, great beer and great entertainment, looking forward to a top conference!
Arrived in Berlin yesterday, and will be here for a week covering this coming weekend and RailsConf EU. Berlin is such an interesting and cool city, with so much history, vibe and culture surrounding it, it’s going to be an awesome week. We spent the day touring various museums and historical places in town including Checkpoint Charlie, Potsdamer Platz and various others in between.
I’ve also noticed an abundance of very slick looking coffee shops in Berlin, most of them also offering free wireless internet access (like the one I’m right now), they’d make for quite a nice office :)
The first RailsConf EU event starts on Sunday night, Bratwurst on Rails, at the Kalkscheune, which I’m very much looking forward to. More RailsConf EU posts to come soon! :)
After Berlin, it’s back to Frankfurt and then on to Munich for a few days before returning to Weimar again. I’ll post some more photos on flickr as well soon too.
