Ruby on Rails Oceania

As most of you know, RailsCamp 2.0 was on last weekend – and, just like the last one, was a fantastic success. The sessions rocked (as did Guitar Hero), the food was tasty and plentiful, and as far as I can tell, everyone had a ball.

A few of my highlights (keep in mind, the entire weekend was awesome):

• Werewolf on Friday night – no one had played it before (although one or two were familiar with the similar Mafia) – but that didn’t stop everyone from diving in and accusing each other of having questionable character (and of being werewolves, too). One group had their games brilliantly run (I’m told) by Myles Byrne – the other group was stuck with me.
• The venue, Sunnystones Country Retreat – the spaces we had suited RailsCamp perfectly, even if the beds were a tad short.
• Sessions run by Cogent Consulting’s Steve Hayes and Marty Andrews on extreme programming practices and continuous integration – often not the most riveting of subjects, but these guys approached it in a way that had everyone listening closely.
• Marcus Crafter and Lachlan Hardy’s Piccr – to sate those who couldn’t access Flickr – and Lachie Cox’s resulting Cocoa client that took photos from the webcam and uploaded them via the API.
• Seeing Duke – a shared jukebox project from the first camp – actually working. Then watching it get gamed by everyone who wanted control of the music selection.

Massive thanks to all who helped along the way – especially Ben and Karen Askins, who did a brilliant job making sure we were all fed. I’m looking forward to the next one, whenever and wherever it is.