ScotlandOnRails news

Scotland on Rails 2009

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:40:53 GMT

Scotland on Rails 2009 will be on March 26 to March 28. Same place, same atmosphere. Stay tuned for more news.

The party's over

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:27:39 GMT

Until next time, anyway. And didn’t it go well? The feedback we’ve received is overwhelmingly that the Scotland on Rails 2008 was a success. It’s a bit unfair that we, the organisers, have received a lot of praise. We just booked the room: what really makes a conference are the speakers and the delegates. The quality of the talks was outstanding, and the delegates were friendly and engaged.

We had a great time. If you came, thanks for making the conference.

Directions to the conference

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:57:11 GMT

We’ve just updated the location page with details on how to get to the conference.

http://scotlandonrails.com/location

Registration for the main conference has closed

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:33:06 GMT

Thanks to all our attendees, there’s going to be more than 100 people gathered on April 4/5.

If you didn’t make it in time, there’s still room to come and meet the speakers at the charity day

Otherwise, see you next year !

Thank You!

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:05:28 GMT

A big thanks to Guy Mortenson, who just broke us through a thousand pounds for the charity tutorial,

Thanks from us, and from CHAS, to all the speakers for donating their time, and the attendees for giving so generously.

You can see the list of donations at justgiving.com

Registration closes tomorrow

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 10:30:57 GMT

We’re approaching our drop dead dates for the venue, so we’ve switched off the ‘pay later’ option and will accept paid attendees for only another day or so. We now have over 100 people coming, so will only be able to accept a few more. Get in soon if you still want to attend.

There is, however, still plenty space for the charity day (which is a little disappointing). If you’re keen to be involved, and meet Jim Weirich, Bruce Williams, Giles Bowkett and Joe O’Brien come along for a days Ruby and Rails for only 75UKP (all of which goes to charity ). Sign up at justgiving.com

Newbie on Rails

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:04:12 GMT

There’s a bunch of things in Edinburgh, for those new to Ruby and Rails in the week running up to the conference.

BCS Ruby on Rails Professional Awareness Course – 28 March

The British Computer Society is running a one day introduction to Rails course on Friday 28 March. The course costs £125 for non-BCS members (£110 for members), and now includes a £25 discount on Scotland on Rails registration. Details are here.

Scotland on Rails Charity Tutorial

Of course there’s the Scotland on Rails Charity Tutorial, where you can learn about Ruby and Rails from some of the top people in the community – tutors are Jim Weirich, Joe O’Brien, Bruce Williams, Giles Bowkett, and Craig Webster. To register all you need to do is donate £75 to the Children’s Hospice Association Scotland at this page.

Scotland on Rails Conference

Attending the conference is a great way to get a feel for how Ruby and Rails can help you. Hang out with Rails developers from around the world, and listen to talks ranging from experience in adopting to Rails to the cutting edge of coding and test/behaviour driven development.

And don’t forget that conference attendees are eligible for a 15% discount on Skillsmatter Ruby on Rails Courses booked before October 4.

Bonus Erlang Session

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:35:06 GMT

At the last minute we’ve added a session from Gordon Guthrie on Erlang, which has been gaining traction in Ruby circles.

Erlang is a functional language, and we’ve scheduled the talk opposite Steven Baker’s talk on OO Design. Objects or Functions, the choice is yours !

Charity Day Progress

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:22:23 GMT

So far we’ve raised 825 pounds for the Childrens Hospice Association Thanks to everyone who’s signed up for the Charity Tutorial Guidebook day.

If you haven’t sign up yet, and are keen to come, just head on over to http://justgiving.com/scotlandonrails and make a minimum 75UKP donation for the day. You don’t have to sign up for the conference to come to the charity day, just make your donation at justgiving and mail conference@scotlandonrails.com to let us know you’re coming.

Bruce Williams, Craig Webster, Joe O’Brien and Giles Bowkett (along with a few other informal speakers) have all donated their time for free, and the venue costs are being met by us and SkillsMatter. A small donation to the Childrens Hospice Association for a full days flexible access to Ruby and Rails training ? Seems like a good deal!

Free Scotland on Rails Ticket

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:55:13 GMT

Scotland on Rails Sponsor, Morph Labs are giving away a free Scotland on Rails Ticket.

In order to qualify for the draw, you need to sign up to the Morph Exchange Newsletter between 17th and 22 March.

Good luck!

Final Payment Dates Approaching.

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:22:02 GMT

Shirts have been ordered, so that option’s been removed from the registration form…from now on you’ll just have to take what’s left, I’m afraid :-)

Food has to be ordered by March 25th so that’s the drop dead date for pending registrations. If you have registered, but not paid, you need to get the money in, or give us a really convincing story by that date. All pending registrations will be deleted on tha date and there’s a good chance well close the door to further registrations.

Sorry folks, cashflow is an issue.

More on the Google Group sigh

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 11:20:16 GMT

So it looks lime Google have turned my ‘auto-join’ into an invite send which means I now have to deal with 80-odd membership approvals.

sigh Why is life never simple.

Thanks Google. Bear with us folks if this involves a bit of faffing around on you, or our parts.

Resolution: next years conference will do as much in house as possible. No to PayPal, No to Google Groups. No to hosted “solutions”.

Google Group

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:41:59 GMT

Okay, nobody panic. It looks like Google have delayed sending the invites out while they spam-verify me (adding 70-odd people seemed suspicious).

No-one will have recieved an invite yet.

Sorry!

Google Group created

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:23:15 GMT

I’ve created a Google Group for the conference. It seemd a good way to communicate with the paid attendees and speakers about anything happening in the next 2-3 weeks. I also hope it will be useful after the conference for feedback etc.

I took the liberty of automatically adding all paid attendees and all speakers to the list and you should have received a notification in the last 12-24 hours.

If you’ve paid, or are speaking, but haven’t received it, please check your spam filters, and then mail me at alancfrancis at scotland on rails dot com and I’ll get you added.

In other news, we’re making a small number of student discount tickets available and have distributed a coupon code through a few university contacts.

If you haven’t seen it yet, and are interested, please mail conference@scotlandonrails.com from your university/college email account and we’ll send you the coupon code. There are limited numbers and the system will auto-expire the coupn when we reach a certain number of paid student delegates. If you have registered and not yet paid, your place is still at risk.

3 weeks to go.

Accommodation tips posted

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:09:41 GMT

We’ve added some tips on booking your accommodation to our location page.