Sunday provided a wonderful conclusion to RailsConf 2008. Here are some brief notes for the sessions I attended to whet your appetite with links to their RailsConf pages (where you can grab slides).

Waxing Ballroom Floors on the Titanic (and Other Less Seaworthy Vessels) - Rick Bradley, Yossef Mendelssohn, Kevin Barnes (OG Consulting) (RailsConf page)
Plugins:
object_daddy
timely
shmemeter
autochronic
freshtrack
nihilist_bot
flame

Genomes on Rails - Matt Wood (Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute) (RailsConf page)
Frequently and rapidly changing data

• Don’t have fields – store data as Descriptor/DescriptorValue objects (key/value pairs)
• With careful indexing it’s not that slow
• If one field is consistent across versions, that can be added to the db
• Can map Descriptors between different versions

They specify task the same way and allow users to create pipelines for various projects
Throughput: Data → 320tb/450 cpu cluster → Archive (2 Petabytes of data)

• Multiple instances of multiple applications (loosely coupled)
• Deployment is difficult because you need to push to all your instances
• reverse proxying with fairnginx in front of mongrels, deploying with cap

The Profitable Programmer: Creating Successful Side Projects - Geoffrey Grosenbach (Topfunky Corporation), Tom Preston-Werner (Powerset, Inc.), Chris Wanstrath (Err Free), PJ Hyett (Err Free), Ben Curtis (Catch the Best) (RailsConf page)
Project Ideas:

• Build something simple
• Build something you want to use
• Take something that’s already popular in one area and move it to one where it doesn’t exist

Implementation:

• Build it yourself
• Sub-contract

Promotion:

• Allow free accounts with limited, but useful functionality
• Piggyback on already established people and sites
• Form symbiotic relationships with existing sites
• Drive traffic to their sites
• Promote their product through yours

Success:

• Don’t listen to critics as you go through issues while expanding
• Try to build apps that are a source of constant income and require little effort to maintain
• Avoid VC → basically just getting a boss

Notes:

• Donationware? Ads?
• Ads are tricky because you have to become a marketer
• Market Research
• Track how people interact with the app and not how they say they interact or are going to interact with it
• Try to do something where its easy to get to people you want to sell to
• Think about how often people will use it (including you)
• Keep in mind who’s actually going to be paying for it

That's it. What an amazing conference. Can't wait until next year!