At the January meeting of Austin on Rails, we had a couple visitors from the Austin American-Statesman newspaper (which everyone around here just calls “The Statesman”), covering Rails’ mindshare and market penetration in the city for an article published today.

The first thing you’ll probably notice, looking at the page, is the huge Rails logo; you can even enlarge it, if you’d like. Beyond that, there’s a fairly even-handed article to read, and even a couple pictures (thankfully, the one with me hunched over my MBP hastily cobbling together the last few slides on my presentation has disappeared). If you’re interested in Ruby/Rails from either a development or a business standpoint, it’s probably worth a read.

Crazy how this little language grew up.

Austin on Rails

A lot of credit needs to go to Damon Clinkscales and the others who were around when the group first started. There’s a lot of value in actual, face- to-face, cross-company technical and social interaction for developers, and I’ve been really happy to hang around with these guys this year. This type of thing makes for a tighter knit community, a better support network, and opportunities for collaboration. If you’re a developer and you’re not taking a couple hours out of every month (or every week, with a Cafe Bedouin or ARCTAN style meeting) getting to know like-minded developers in your community, you’re shooting yourself in the foot, period.

Anyhow, a bit of code and beer never hurt anyone. Theoretically.

01/28/0128ruby.html

http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/technology/01/28 /Ruby-on-Rails-logo.html