Pearson Announces Speakers and Sessions for Voices That Matter: Professional Ruby Conference To Be Held Nov. 17-20 in Boston

Pearson has announced the agenda and speaker line-up for its dedicated conference for the Ruby and Rails community, Voices That Matter: Professional Ruby Conference, to be held November 17-20, 2008 at Boston’s Sheraton Hotel.

Ruby is a dynamic, open source, object-oriented programming language with a focus on simplicity and productivity. Ruby on Rails is an open source web application framework for the Ruby programming language, which emphasizes getting started quickly and producing quality websites fast.

The conference brings together a robust group of speakers with substantial experience in building successful Ruby and Rails applications and systems. These speakers represent innovative projects such as JRuby, RSpec, REST in Rails, GitHub repository, and the Rails plug-in system, and case studies illustrating real-life applications from companies such as The New York Times, YELLOWPAGES.COM and ActiveMerchant (credit payment processing).

Obie Fernandez, who will chair the conference, is CEO/Founder of Hashrocket, Inc., a boutique web consultancy and product shop, and was formerly a senior consultant at ThoughtWorks.

The conference core sessions have all been carefully selected to address the topics most pressing for developers using Ruby and Rails technologies. The agenda is unique in that it is designed for professional developers, those who are either currently using Ruby and Rails for enterprise projects, or are considering its efficacy for upcoming projects.

Conference keynotes will be given by industry luminaries Giles Bowkett and Josh Susser. Giles is best known for writing the initial client-facing application for Hulu, the groundbreaking (and revenue-generating) video site, and one of the highest-traffic Rails sites on the Web. Josh will use his keynote to discuss what Rubyists need to know to fully leverage the power of agile and extreme programming techniques.

For a complete conference schedule, visit http://www.voicesthatmatter.com/ruby2008/schedule.aspx The most updated roster of speakers, including pictures and speaker profiles, is available at http://www.voicesthatmatter.com/ruby2008/speakers.aspx To kick off some pre-show conversation, Obie Fernandez has interviewed speaker Russ Olsen about his current work with Ruby, which can be downloaded here: http://www.voicesthatmatter.com/content/downloads/ruby2008/RussOlsen. mp3 (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

"The Ruby and Rails community has had the good fortune to see a handful of national shows emerge from regional communities,” said Conference Chair Obie Fernandez. "We are pleased that Pearson has responded by adding Ruby and Rails to its Voices That Matter conference series, which has established a strong reputation for providing excellent content and a great learning environment.”

"This is a dynamic time for Rubyists and Rails developers,” said Barbara Gavin, manager for the Voices That Matter conference series. "We’ve done our best to create an agenda that balances first-rate speaker sessions with networking sessions so attendees can talk about what’s most important to them.”

Those interested in attending or exhibiting can contact Gavin at Barbara.Gavin@PearsonEd.com.

The Voices That Matter conference series, organized and produced by Pearson, serves its reader communities and authors — the industry influencers and superstars in their fields — by providing a forum for learning and collaboration. For more information or to register, please visit: www.voicesthatmatter.com

About Pearson Education

The global leader in educational and professional publishing, Pearson Education is home to such respected brands as Addison-Wesley Professional, Cisco Press, Exam Cram, IBM Press, Prentice Hall Professional, Que, and Sams Publishing, which have as their online publishing arm InformIT (www.informit.com) -The Trusted Technology Learning Source. In addition, Berkeley-based Peachpit (www.peachpit.com), the publishing partner for Adobe Press, Apple Certified, and others, publishes best-selling books for creative design professionals. Pearson is also co-founder, with O'Reilly Media Inc., of Safari Books Online (http://safari.informit.com), the premier on-demand technology content library providing thousands of expert reference materials through a single point of contact, including expert technology, creative and design, industry and management resources in video, audio and written formats. Pearson Education is part of Pearson (NYSE: PSO), the international media company. Pearson's other primary businesses include the Financial Times Group and the Penguin Group.