---
title: "Viget Devs Storm Chicago"
date: 2009-09-15T00:00:00+00:00
draft: false
canonical_url: https://www.viget.com/articles/viget-devs-storm-chicago/
---

<img src="53100874_f605bd5f42_m.jpg" class="inline">

This past weekend, Ben and I travelled to Chicago to speak at [Windy
City Rails](http://windycityrails.org/). It was a great conference;
highlights included [Dean Wampler](http://www.deanwampler.com/)'s
discussion of functional programming in Ruby, [Noel
Rappin](http://www.railsprescriptions.com/)'s talk on handling
difficult-to-test portions of your applications, and our own [Ben
Scofield](https://www.viget.com/about/team/bscofield)'s very polished
presentation about modeling difficult domains. This was the second time
I'd seen [Yeduda Katz](http://yehudakatz.com/)'s keynote on the history
and future of the Rails framework, and that the talk has come so far in
the last three months says promising things for the progress of Rails 3.

Speaking at Windy City Rails was just as much an excuse to hang out in
Chicago as it was a chance to share knowledge with the Ruby community.
We knocked out the major [food](http://www.portillos.com/)
[groups](http://www.loumalnatis.com/) on the first day, and I set aside
a few days after the conference to wander the city. Big thanks to the
conference organizers and attendees. Videos of all of the talks will be
appearing on the [conference website](http://windycityrails.org/) soon.
