The presentation that really impressed me was the first - building a
simple blog in 15 minutes.
Personally, I would use something like that highlighting:
* the dynamic database capabilities
* Highlight MVC
* scaffolding to get it up and running quickly (good for first
impressions)
* quick overridding of a scaffold page with a custom one
* Throw in some RJS to show how simple it is (if you have time)
* Mention easy testing, plugins, routing and REST
If you could get all that going in 20 minutes you will blow their
socks off, but you will need to be very comfortable coding live
(unless you have some pre-canned code to cut and paste).
Personally, I would use something like that highlighting:
* the dynamic database capabilities
I have known teams that tried to solve the Persistence Layer Problem
up-front, by over-engineering some monstrosity of a database wrapper,
typically in a static-typed language, typically irreversibly locked to
one database vendor.
Know your audience. If they have experience with the bad solutions to
that problem, show them how few lines can go in a Model. (Cheat with
DrySql [?] if you like.)
However, if they instead have experience with flakey JavaScript, show
them the RJS wrappers.
Know your audience. If they have experience with the bad solutions to
that problem, show them how few lines can go in a Model. (Cheat with
DrySql [?] if you like.)
Then toggle between MySQL, SQLite3, and some Iron Hog, on the fly,
from the command line.
