The Future of Ruby is Bright

July 27th, 2009by Matt Constantine

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Last week I represented FortiusOne at the FutureRuby conference. A bit of background first. Ruby is the language we’ve used to build our applications. The flexibility of syntax, the focus on programmer productivity and the vibrant community around Ruby have helped make it a success here and in many companies. So it only seemed fit that we make an appearance at FutureRuby, the conference aimed at “expressing a long-term vision” for this quickly maturing language.

To say FutureRuby is another tech conference would be to sell it short. From it’s edgy theme to it’s widespread evening venues it’s a conference designed to inspire rubyists towards the ideals that have made Ruby the language of choice for thousands of startups.

So I’ve seen the Future of Ruby, now what is it?

The Future of Ruby is Javascript

Javascript, not to be confused by Java, is the language used to enrich the UI of many web applications. It takes what used to be static pages that load one at a time and makes it possible to turn them into fully dynamic desktop-like applications. One of the stars of the conference was Cappuccino, presented by Francisco Tomalsky. Cappuccino is a Javascript framework and development environment that allows programmers to create applications in a way similar to building applications for Apple’s OS X. It is generating excitement among developers who are seeing the fulfillment of a vision of creating truly desktop-quality applications using open web standards.

Why so much Javascript at a Ruby conference? Because the languages complement each other very well. Ruby for the back-end, Javascript for the front-end.

The Future of Ruby is the Mobile Web

JavaScript starred in another role in the PhoneGap presentation by Brian LeRoux, Brock Whitten and Rob Ellis. Say you want to create a iPhone App. All the cool kids are doing it. But you spent your career building web applications and you’re not too bad at it. Until PhoneGap your options were a bit limited. Go learn ObjectiveC and the closed source ideologies of Apple and in the end, you’ll have a beautiful app that runs on one smartphone.

The PhoneGap team has shown another way. Using the open web technologies developers have already mastered, Javascript, CSS and XHTML, PhoneGap makes it possible to build mobile apps that are indistinguishable from native apps. Oh, and that app you just made? It’ll run on a Blackberry, and an Android smart phone too.

Adam Blum of Rhomobile showed us another way. What if you could write a mobile application in Ruby and have that application translated to the native language of an iPhone, Blackberry, Symbian or Android phone? Rhodes aims to make that possible. While not quite as fully developed as PhoneGap, Rhodes is well on the way to providing another option for Rubyists to build mobile apps.

The Future of Ruby is Failure

If you want to succeed, fail faster. So goes the motto of FailCamp which set sail a day prior to FutureRuby at the beautiful Queen City Yacht Club. FailCamp provided a venue to express our failures. Only by understanding and accepting our failures can we find what truly works.

Back on land, Avi Bryant dazzled the attendees by showing in painstaking detail, all of the screenshots that lead to the gorgeous and refined UI in Trendly. We witnessed a downright ugly interface evolving through hundreds of failed experiments into a masterful and thoughtful page design.

Joseph Wilk brought us an entertaining look at an often dull subject, automated testing. Joseph demonstrated a technology called Cucumber which allows programmers and non-techies to come together to write easy-to-read stories about how a web application ought to work. These stories are then executed and initially result in great failure. Line by line, sentence by sentence, developers then write the code that makes the story come alive in a fully realized web application.

The Future of Ruby Will Not Be Stored in a Relational Database

Relational Databases, the venerable database methodology employed in computer systems since the early seventies will always exist. But their dominance for all tasks large and small is increasingly challenged. Ilya Grigorik introduced us to the fascinating world of Tokyo Cabinet, a database that eschews many traditional constraints and provides a wealth minimalist data structures.

It’s worth noting, that much of the power of the GeoCommons platform is derived from a custom object store that in a way similar to Tokyo Cabinet, surpasses the limitations of traditional relational databases.

The Future of Ruby is Eclectic

Not many tech conferences would you find a room full of programmers creating noises together. In a much needed mental recess, Misha Glouberman, a Toronto based performer and artist lead the attendees in a sort of improvisational audio experiment.

The FutureRuby curators included a number of presentations on diverse topics related to the culture of programming. Jon Dahl spoke on Programming and Minimalism drawing parallels between the history of art, music and writing. Brian Marick renewed the call for the kind of unconventional ideas that displace industry giants. Jesse Hirsh focused that call towards ending what he terms the Imperial Californian Ideology. Nathaniel Talbott showed how personal responsibility can save Ruby from loosing it’s vitality to soulless corporations.