With the explosion of Ruby on Rails and the Java community interest in features like closures and continuations, the Ruby programming language is an excellent one for all developers to know. As the JRuby virtual machine picks up steam, Ruby becomes a must language to understand. The best way to learn Ruby is to see it in action.

In this session, you'll learn the basics of the Ruby language, from a Java developer's perspective from a CTO who has taught and used both languages for production applications. You'll learn:

• The basics of the Ruby programming language, including the object model, collections, and closures.
• Basic metaprogramming techniques that allow Ruby programs to build domain specific languages
• JRuby characteristics that enable you to access Java classes from a Ruby interpreter

When this session is over, you'll have a stronger understanding of Ruby, and where you might put it into practice in your day to day job.

The productivity of Ruby on Rails cannot be denied, but the explosion of Ruby on Rails left many developers, with hard commitments to Java deployment platforms, out in the cold. The continued evolution of JRuby can change that. JRuby is a Ruby implementation on the Java virtual machine. And yes, it runs Rails. In this session, you will learn Rails as it was meant to be learned, within the context of building a live site, from scratch.

We'll take the first hour or so to learn the basics behind Ruby on Rails. You'll see the basics behind each of the model, view, and controller layers. You'll see testing and debugging techniques, as well as the basic mechanics of building a basic web application. Then, learn how you can deploy those applications on Java environments with JRuby. Finally, you'll see some production code used to build a working web site.

ChangingThePresent is the increasingly popular charity donations portal that lets you give donation gifts instead of another pair of fuzzy slippers. The site is built and maintained under unusual circumstances. The team is distributed, with no more than two developers in any one place. The team uses agile techniques such as automated testing, heavy customer involvement, and a SCRUM-like release plan to deliver the core features.

ChangingThePresent was built with extraordinary speed, with a very effective development process. In this session, learn how to use agile techniques and common sense to build great software under high-pressure conditions. You'll learn how a typical day, or week, flows in a team with several high-powered developers. Learn about our core practices:

• How do we do tests?
• How do we manage requirements?
• How do we maintain tight communications with our customer?
• How do we manage the tension between junior and senior developers?

When the session is done, you'll have a better understanding of real techniques used to build a real-world site, and how you can apply them to many development jobs.