Hello all! The Ruby Hoedown, the southeastern regional Ruby conference, is happening again this year! This year's conference, hosted by Hsv.rb and sponsored by Engine Yard, will be happening on August 8th and 9th at the University of Alabama, Shelby Hall in Huntsville, AL. Without further adieu, we have three really important announcements for you today:
First, two keynotes have graciously accepted our invitation to speak: David A. Black and Chris Wanstrath. As a director of Ruby Central and author of Ruby for Rails, David A. Black has established himself as a pillar of the Ruby community. You'll know Chris Wanstrath as one of the Err Free guys and the author of Ambition, cache_fu, and sake. More recently Chris has been active as one of the developers of GitHub. We're really excited to see what these two luminaries can bring to the conference.
Second, while our invited speakers will do a great job book-ending the conference, the real meat will come from the community. Enter the Ruby Hoedown 2008 Call for Participation! We're asking you, regular Ruby folks of all types and stripes, to propose talks about topics you're passionate about. You can find all the details at http://www.rubyhoedown.com/cfp.html, but just so you know, we have room for about five full-length talks and eight lightning talks (with possibility for more of each!), and competition is expected to be fierce. You have until midnight EST on June 2nd to get your proposal in to us, but the earlier the better. So again, head on over to http://rubyhoedown.com/cfp.html, read up on the details, and get us your proposal ASAP!
Lastly, we've just opened early registration. If you register now, you can save $50 off the registration price (with a ticket price of $149)! Jump on this great deal while it lasts (until June 2nd, if you must know) by going to our registration site: http://rubyhoedown.eventwax.com/ruby-hoedown-2008/register
With David and Chris and the great proposals we expect from the community, the 2008 Ruby Hoedown is shaping up to be an excellent conference. See y'all in August!
- The Ruby Hoedown Organizers
