Well, we ended with a bang! The morning started off with an Ajax lab (right up my alley) and I just have to say…Rails makes Ajax about as easy as it gets (hmm, I’m sensing a theme here). I especially like the fact that I can quickly get an app working, add in Ajax, and (with almost zero effort) have a degradable system. Oh, and RJS is just slick though it did make me question my opinions of GWT. Unlike a couple of my coworkers, GWT doesn’t make me swoon - don’t get me wrong, I think it’s neat as all get out I’m just not ready to jump on the bandwagon. But after playing around with RJS I might have to reconsider.
Most of today was a blur - we covered a lot of topics at a mile a minute. I think routes (especially named routes) are extremely cool and considering my new role at work the support for testing is just top notch. I asked a few questions about test infecting organizations and I’ve got some great notes about testing in general. The rest of the day included talk of REST, hooks and filters and caching finishing off with a discussion on deployment.
All in all I was quite happy with the training. A faster pace would have been good, perhaps a few more labs, but there is a limit to what can be covered in three days with a mixed audience. I suspect the Advanced Studio would be fantastic and I’m really thinking a Rails Edge would be useful (perhaps more so than Rails Conf…but that’ll be a tough call). I’m happy to call myself an alumni of the Studio - as expected Mike and Dave are great - if you need Rails training, I’d highly recommend Prag Studio!
