Over 100 developers participated in inaugural Hackfest during MountainWest RubyConf; more expected at upcoming events in New York and Toronto
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (April 4, 2008) – Engine Yard, provider of the leading Ruby and Rails hosting, rails deployment platform, today announced a series of Hackfests, informal community events open to Ruby developers, where sharing, learning, and hacking rule. The inaugural Hackfest was a resounding success with participation from over 100 top Ruby and Rails developers. Two more Engine Yard Hackfests are planned for the coming months.
The first event was held this past weekend alongside MountainWest RubyConf 2008 in Salt Lake City, Ut., where Engine Yard’s Ezra Zygmuntowicz and Evan Phoenix shared the opening keynote. After the conference, folks generally look to talk tech, shoot the breeze, and hack. They split off into small groups, grab dinner, and eventually end up in various hotel rooms, awake into the wee hours.
The Engine Yard Hackfest aimed to draw these small groups together, and facilitate a mid-sized, casual, expert meeting of the minds. As an alterative to having Rubyists chat in the brief windows between conference sessions, the Hackfest offered an open-all-night comfortable workspace, with free wi-fi, dinner and snacks, and expert community leaders for company.
"Ruby is quickly becoming the new programming language to beat and the community coalescing around it is growing even more quickly," said Lance Walley, CEO of Engine Yard. "Engine Yard is committed to helping strengthen the Ruby ecosystem. The Hackfests, we believe, reinforce this. They’re designed to be challenging, instructive, and most of all, fun."
Rubyists are invited to participate in Engine Yard’s upcoming Hackfests, which will be held alongside GoRuCo in New York (April 26) and RubyFringe in Toronto (July 18-20).
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About Engine Yard
Engine Yard provides the platform and expert support for deploying Ruby and Rails applications quickly and easily to the cloud—giving customers their applications on demand and providing peace of mind. The company’s expertise is built on its track record of innovation, including stewardship of the Rubinius and merb projects. Headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., Engine Yard was founded in 2006 and is backed by Benchmark Capital. Visit http://engineyard.com
