If you’re just going to get one thing out of this article, it’s this: Vegas is a bad idea for RailsConf ‘09.
Here’s the story. At the end of RailsConf ‘08, in Portland for its second year, Chad Fowler tentatively announced the location of next year’s RailsConf, saying something like “We’re not sure what you’ll think about this, but what about Las Vegas?” Upon which the crowd erupted in cheering, thereby supposedly confirming the Vegas idea. But afterwards, I talked to a dozen people who said they thought Vegas was a bad idea. And in the month since then, I haven’t talked to a single person who was excited about it. That’s how crowds work, I guess – the 10% of Rails developers who enjoy gambling, strippers, and steak applauded loudly, and the 30% of don’t have a strong opinion one way or another got swept up in the excitement.
Of course, it doesn’t really matter – holding the next RailsConf in Las Vegas won’t kill Rails, and won’t set the Rails community on a future of drunkenness, adultery, and gambling. I’m sure most conference-goers will fly in, attend sessions, have dinner, and hack in their hotel lobbies, just like any other conference.
But it’s still a bad idea.
DARE to keep RailsConf different
If you haven’t already, check out Giles Bowkett’s recent post on the situation. He talks about Ruby Central’s desire to “keep RailsConf weird.” What’s especially confusing, as Giles points out, is that the Vegas announcement came after DHH’s keynote, which said that we should get more sleep and use our advantages for good, not evil (in the form of hookers and fur coats). Charles Nutter made a similar point, saying that Rails + enterprise doesn’t have to mean steak and strippers.
As Giles puts it,
DHH is saying, “No hookers! Choose a life well-lived!” And RailsConf is like, “Screw Portland! We’re going to Vegas!”
Portland was a great place for a conference. Portland has great food & beer, cool hotels, the world’s biggest bookstore, and a dozen movie-theater-pubs. Every night after the conference, a thousand Rails geeks would descend upon the city’s first-rate brewpubs and coffee shops to meet people, eat and drink, and discuss programming, politics, philosophy, or whatever. $5.99 steak buffets just won’t be the same. I really enjoyed my twice annual trip to Portland, and would love to go back again. If Ruby Central wants to keep RailsConf edgy, it can’t do much better than Portland.
Of course, if we don’t want to do RailsConfs ‘09, ‘10, ‘11, and ‘12 in the same place, there is no lack of great cities to consider. What about Seattle? Boston? Austin? San Diego? San Francisco? New York? Kansas City? Toronto? Vancouver? Minneapolis?
Is RailsConf worth it?
So enough about Vegas. I get asked from time to time if RailsConf is worthwhile. My answer is: “Yes (I think).”
The first RailsConf was small(er), high energy, and novel. Rails was just on the brink of mainstream acceptance, which is a fun time in the life of a technology – it’s growing rapidly but is still edgy. The sessions were generally high quality, and the keynotes were excellent (Dave Thomas, Martin Fowler, David Heinemeier Hansson, Paul Graham, and _why).
RailsConf 2007 was a completely different conference, what with O’Reilly and 1600 attendees. Ze Frank was great, but the overall session quality was pretty weak. There were some great talks, to be sure; but there weren’t enough really deep technical talks, and some of the presenters didn’t seem to have really practiced. Things were probably set off on the wrong note from the beginning: Day 0’s 3-hour tutorials were mostly disappointing. Also, there seemed to be an abundance of non-programmer business folks, probably there to check out this new thing called Rails.
This year’s conference was quite a bit better. It had the same polished feel that O’Reilly brings, which is both good and bad. Keynotes were mixed. But mainly, the sessions were mostly really good. Whatever David Black, Chad Fowler, and Rich Kilmer did to improve the session quality, it worked. Interestingly enough, it seemed like the non-programmers were gone this year.
RubyConf 2007 (the only one I’ve attended) felt a lot like RailsConf 2006. It had a similar size, a similar venue, and somewhat similar atmosphere. Sessions were good, and I learned quite a bit. Most of the people there were Rails developers, but they were the ones who were interested in Ruby as a language and not just as the technology behind Rails.
So my answer is that RailsConf is worth it, as long as it follows the 2008 path. It will never look like 2006 again; big RailsConfs are here to stay. But 2008 was reasonably graceful for a big conference. I just hope it doesn’t fall into the 2007 trap, which will happen if it tries to cater to managers and the mainstream. It’s impossible to know what next year’s conference will look like, though I think the success of 2008 was a conscious rejection of some of the failures of 2007. And if you’re looking for something smaller and edgier, there’s always RubyConf, RubyFringe, and the regional conferences.
(Two updates.
First, the title of this article was ambiguous, so I changed it from “Just say ‘no’ to RailsConf Las Vegas” to “Just say ‘no’ to Vegas, RailsConf”. The title was supposed to say “Vegas is a bad idea for RailsConf,” not “Don’t attend if it is in Las Vegas.” If you decide not to attend because of the location, that’s fine – but I’ll consider being there either way.
Second, thanks to Chad Fowler and David A. Black for weighing in. Conferences are a lot of work, as Luke knows on a smaller scale, and I can’t imagine what kind of work Ruby Central puts into RailsConf each year. Especially when they’d probably be hacking. :) So thanks for the work, and the conferences that result.)
