This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by David Heinemeier Hansson. Original Post: From RubyKaigi to RailsConf Feed Title: Loud Thinking Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LoudThinking Feed Description: All about the full-stack, web-framework Rails for Ruby and on putting it to good effect with Basecamp Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by David Heinemeier Hansson Latest Posts From Loud Thinking

I had a wonderful time in Japan over the past two weeks. First, I enjoyed the good company of a large portion of the Japanese Ruby community at RubyKaigi. Including funny poses, signings of laptops, books, and t-shirts, and the barrage of photographs that were taken.

I really had no idea that Rails was so big in Japan. Pretty much all of the sessions at the conference that I attended mentioned Rails in one way or the other. I learned about cool plugins, such as ActiveHeart, made especially for the Japanese that I never knew about. I got to meet and greet quite a few of the contributors, including Maiha who gave a convincing talk on acts_as_view.

Many thanks to Koichi and Takahashi for making the event and my presence there possible. And equal thanks to my English translator Zev Blut and his girlfried Iomi, who both went above and beyond to make Mary and I's stay a truly pleasurable experience.

Now back in Chicago, RailsConf is set to start tomorrow. That's certainly no less exciting. 550(!) people gathered for four days of Rails. Who would have thought we'd come this far in just under two years? I'm humbled again and again (even if my one tough-guy face doesn't reveal it in recent photo shots ;)).