Did you know that 90% of everything around us has traveled via a shipping container? Two years ago I didn't. Find out how two friends who knew nothing about the shipping industry were able to build and scale a system that tracks 85% of all containers that enter Haiti.
This is the story of how two developers who knew nothing about the shipping industry built a system that now manages 85% of all containers that enter the country of Haiti. Having to build a system for an industry which you know nothing about is already a challenge. Having to build it fast is even a bigger challenge.
There are as many opinions on how to develop and organize your code base as there are developers. Attendee will learn about how and why we chose to organize our code base, our decision making process, the results of those choices, and our overall pains of building and scaling a Rails application.
This is an ideal talk to be included in Railsconf. In addition to the talk being humourous and entertaining there is something in it for developers of all levels. The juniors will leave inspired on what is possible with Rails, the more advanced folks will leave with some real life experience to add to their toolbelt, and everyone will leave entertained.
I'm the best person to give this talk as this is the life I am living right now. My Co-Founder and I are learning new intricacies of the shipping industry on a daily basis and new requirements from our customers are coming in every day. This has lead to mistakes in our code base and modules that we have had to refactor but it has also made us develop a process that lets us move at a decent pace and keep our customers happy.
The main take away, and one that many developers forget, is that we don’t need to be perfect we need to be efficient.
I love the talk and I'm excited to see it. (You should submit it to RubyNation)
In the notes, I put in "This is an ideal talk for X..." because reviewers like to see that. I also added in some details about who the talk appeals to... everyone. There is a big push at ruby/rails conferences for things to be accessible to all levels so I tried to make that more apparent.
Having seen one of your talks before and know how engaging and humourous they are I think you could definitely try and add a bit more humour to the notes to make that more apparent. I'll definitely think about this more and give you some better ideas.
Alternate title: Move Over Docker! How To Manage Containers With Rails
People also tend to respond to emotion and I think you could also definitely make an emotional appeal to the reviewers... Talk about how Haiti was devastated a few years ago with the hurricane and after the hurricane it highlighted what a terrible state their container transportation was in... You and your co-founder were in the right place at the right time and are not only making things more efficient you feel great because you're contributing to the rebuilding. (Highlight some efficiency difference you've made.)