RubyConf: Lighting Talk
Because Josh Susser was unavailable for his RubyConf session, the organizers opened the time slot to the audience members, allowing each 5 to 10 minutes for demos or presentations. Here are some of the noteworthy presentations from this time slot.
Someone from NOAA presented on Ruby Queue. Ruby Queue is a tool for building linux clusters. The speaker recommended that Ruby Queue be used in small research teams with between 5 to 30 nodes. Here is a description of Ruby Queue from its website, “ruby queue (rq) is a tool used to create instant linux clusters by managing sqlite databases as nfs mounted priority work queues”
Someone else presented on irb tips and tricks. One great tip was a short script that allows irb to maintain a shell-like history. If you are like most Rubyist, you use the irb console for a lot of prototyping. Make your life a bit easier and trick out your irb. The Tips and Tricks page listed above mentions several other useful tips such as tab completion.
Andre Lewis gave a small and powerful presentation on a Google Maps zoom control he calls GZoom. GZoom allows users to draw a rectangle on a Google map by dragging the cursor. When the cursor is released, Google Maps will zoom into that rectangle.
Another great presentation was by a Seattle.rb member on Hoe. Hoe is a rake helper that helps to generate rdocs, runs tests, and build the project packaging.
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