The final day at Rails Edge

Yesterday was the last day at the Rails Edge conference. I learned a good bit of Rails tricks, as well as some advanced topics on rake (and many other things that I’ll save for later). Assuming I can find the time, I’m planning on a few intermittent posts about the conference, if for no other reason than to better document what was covered over the all valuable, 21 sessions. Based on the level of trickery mixed in, they’ve made a colossal assumption that you’re more than familiar with the Ruby language and Rails—but that’s why I liked it.

After watching the Rails core developers work for a few days, I’ve found new inspiration to write better code. I know you aren’t supposed to repeat yourself, but for me, it happens. The Rails core doesn’t repeat anything. Not one single line-of-code. They simply don’t (and maybe can’t) tolerate it. And while that might seem obvious, there was something I can’t explain about their style. You’d just have to watch them write code. It’s amazing to witness the abuse and/or utilization of the Ruby language to make already perfect code above and beyond what anyone could fathom. I believe I heard one of them claim that Basecamp has no more than 3-5 LOC per action. And the way they’ve been able to extract the ugliness out of the view is amazing. In general, it was a level of cleverness far beyond explanation.

Of all the things I’ve seen and learned these last few days, the one thing I’ll always remember is this: question everything. If something seems a little off, and you get this feeling like there is a better way, I can guarantee you there is. Stop what you’re doing, figure out the better way, and fix it. And treat the duplication of an entire view the same as the duplication of one line: they’re both equally wrong.