From: ptkwt@...1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2003-06-22T06:44:19+09:00
Subject: Re: Euruko 2003 (1st European Ruby Conference) news

In article <20030621200210.GA12738@student.ei.uni-stuttgart.de>,
Mauricio Fern�ndez  <batsman.geo@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>1st day over.
>
>Had the following presentations:
>
>* The Rubyesque API -- Hal Fulton
>What makes a good API in Ruby?
>
>* Garbage in Extensions -- Tobias Peters
>How to play nice with the garbage collector in Ruby extensions --
>(includes: how does the GC work, patterns of managing extension library
>objects, using swig, common misconceptions)
>
>* RDF storage for Ruby: the case of Samizdat -- Dmitry Borodaenko 45
>min   Samizdat is an open publishing and collaboration engine ba sed
>on RDF model and using Apache mod_ruby, Ruby, PosgreSQL via Ruby/DBI,
>and YAML. Samizdat RDF storage was started from ideas in Dan Brickley's
>RubyRDF, but was written from scratch with more focus on relational
>storage and performance and less focus on XML and other serialization.
>The talk will describe Samizdat RDF storage design, underlying algorithms,
>and use cases.
>
>
>Open space: did the planning game (papers on the wall :-) 
>Discussions:
> * High-performance computing, druby, etc
> * Ruby for "other" platforms: PDA, Windows. Focus on multi-platform
>   GUI, references to jruby, etc
>
> * Ruby & the world (non-technical): quick and dirty summary
>
>What do we need to increase Ruby awareness?
>  * documentation
>  * RAA:
>    - categorization, keywords, etc
>	- lower entry cost: interface
>	- rate on dependencies: the more people depend on you the better you
>	  are (or should be :-)
>  * lessons from CPAN?
>  * too much duplication: why 3 if cpan makes it w/ 1?
>    <= less maturity. Do we need 10 years to make another cpan?
>  * comm. problem: division linux devels/ windows users
>    have to think of the end user (?)
>  * do we really want a killer app? find a niche market?
>    hardly doable if we're a general language and act as glue, which you
>	don't see when it works right
>  * get beginners: why would they choose Ruby instead of say Visual Basic?
>  * need bolts-included dist?
>  * should include decent editor for windows within?
>  * Java lessons
>    - ads: we'll never get them
>	- university: definitely. We've got  Stefan Schmiedl to try it :)
>  * try to leverage already existent technologies to be buzzword
>    compliant yet still in the ruby way: JRuby 
>


Are any of the presentations available online? (Especially the one on 
garbage collection and extenstions)

PHil