14 Jan
Just came back from Enterprise Camp, one of many BarCamp-style events organized by the Toronto technology community, this time for discussing enterprise development, infrastructure, solutions, and so on.
If you’re unfamiliar with the BarCamp format, as I was going in, anyone’s allowed (and encouraged) to lead their own session. Topics included how to apply web 2.0 technology and concepts to enterprise-level software (think tagging, news syndication), getting users and managers to buy into it, other domains for the BarCamp format, and at least one software demonstration that I totally missed. Okay, maybe that sounds a little dry, but every session enjoyed a high level of participation, and I feel I sat in on some pretty exciting conversations.
When Enterprise Camp rolls around again, I would love to lead a session on how Ruby on Rails can work inside the enterprise. How can we convince managers and IT departments that Rails-solutions are robust, cost less, scale well, and will play nice with their legacy systems? Jay Fields and the ThoughtWorks bunch seem to be leading the charge on that front.