Chicago ALT.NET User Group

September 2009 Meeting

Top 10 Things in Ruby that Every .NET Developer Needs to Know

6:00 pm
Pizza and networking time

6:30 pm

Ruby on Rails has brought Ruby out of the shadows of "that scripting language from Japan" into the mainstream. But as a result, Rails often takes the spotlight, instead of the real power behind it — the beauty of the Ruby programming language. Microsoft's IronRuby project and impending integrations with ASP.NET MVC makes this topic important even for those who want to stick with the Microsoft technology stack.

In this talk, I'll review the key differences between statically-typed languages like VB and C#, and the dynamic nature of Ruby, shed some light on the history of the Ruby language, and do some live coding demos so everyone can get a taste of what Ruby programming is really like.

Topics include:

• The object-oriented nature of Ruby
• Messages instead of methods
• Common Ruby idioms
• Duck-typing
• Why Ruby doesn't need interfaces
• and more ...

Video

Jeff Cohen has been writing about Ruby on Rails since 2005 for Softies on Rails, a resource for all newcomers to Rails and the Ruby programming language. In 2008 he started Purple Workshops to provide friendly training classes on computer programming topics. He has appeared on the official Ruby on Rails Podcast, is a Rails core contributor, and is co-author of the Pragmatic Bookshelf book Rails for .NET Developers.

Jeff lives and works just outside of Chicago, Illinois. He's married and has two wonderful daughters. His favorite sport is hockey, his favorite comic strip is Calvin & Hobbes, and he thinks his jokes are funnier than they really are.