The last day of RailsConf 2006 and a few more sessions to remark on.

• I started with the session that Mike Pence gave on OpenLaszlo. I’ve kept up with this project for a little while now and am glad to see that the DHTML support has been released now. Unfortunately, accessibility is not a strength of this implementation and it seems that the Laszlo community is far too focused on client-side eye candy and not enough on the development of good applications. I might be misunderstanding the intent but, in general, it felt like there was far too much Laszlo prosletization and not enough demonstration about the OpenLaszlo on Rails project that I think most of us came to hear about.
• My second session on OpenID was a little more technical in nature than the first, largely because Matt Pelletier has actually worked with OpenID service implementation at EastMedia. Unfortunately, it seems even more obvious now that this technology is still very much under development and in need of design work. Still, I’m hopeful that this kind of technology will become more refined and present as we move forward.
• Next up: Stuart Holloway starts looking into MetaRails and diving into the rails sourcebase in order to build more powerful applications. Much of this is still over my head, but I already see a lot of value in learning about these underpinnings of Rails and, for that matter, of Ruby itself. Slides are available here.
• Had a really nice discussion with Dave Thomas just before lunch that was really informative about a number of the projects I’ve been working on. Dave is a great guy and, by my experience and others I’ve met here, incredibly generous with his time and advice in the middle of this conference. Thanks Dave!
• One last session—James Duncan Davidson has a nice collection of experiences and case studies to inform about deployment. Much like Ezra’s session yesterday, I don’t think I have a need to work with the scale he describes yet, but I think there are a number of things that I can apply to my projects in the near future. The land mines, on the other hand are really good and really important—and I’m glad that I’ve already addressed most of them!
• Core Panel Meeting Highlights
  • Django made a big point of removing magic. Ruby/Rails thrives on magic.
  • 1.1.3 most likely released today. 1.2 in the next couple of months with RESTful additions. 2.0 will involve removal of things that don’t belong in core and cleanup and will be released when appropriate.
  • ActiveResource will not be as rich as ActiveRecord—We’re not cloning WSDL.
  • Much new functionality will be in plugins rather than through the core to prevent J2EE style bloat.
  • Accessibility is something the core team is interested in being educated about. Preferably they will get this education through well written patches.
  • Fixtures need improvement. Creation and management costs need to be lowered—probably through the use of scopes
  • To get a patch noticed:
    • Build it with tests, documentation, explanations, and motivation.
    • If the implications are large, try a plugin first.
    • Don’t take non-application personally. Standards are high and the core are busy with projects.
  • While a non-profit foundation could probably be created quickly, there doesn’t seem to be a need for that at this point in time.
  • Armageddon (push AJAX)—not being worked on by DHH, but other people are working with the idea and trying to make something real of it.
  • Repairs of CGI.rb are not as important as at one point, but, if the patch is done and refined, there might be considerations, but this is probably better targeted at the Ruby team.
  • Call for help with documentation. People who don’t completely understand the framework are possibly the best to submit documentation patches.
• Closing: Don’t make this a once a year thing. Keep this dialogue moving. Things have already begun to move during the conference—for instance, Barnraisr has already been deployed to run with the ideas from Nathaniel Talbott’s talk last night. Take this drive and these challenges from RailsConf 2006 and run with them.