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Welcome, everyone. We're going to go over the Ruby Hero Awards tonight. I'm Michael Hartl, and I have Nathaniel Bibler here to assist me as my Vanna White for the evening. We have three different parts to this event. First, we'll start with the Ruby Hero Awards. Then, I have a special announcement to make, and finally, I'll discuss validation and recognition.
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As Chad mentioned, this is the fourth year we've been presenting the Ruby Hero Awards. As you can see on the screen, some of the recipients from past years are here with us. It's fascinating to look at some of these honorees, many of whom weren't widely recognized when they received their awards. Now, however, they are well-known in the community. The Ruby Hero Awards were established because, during my podcasting work, I realized there were significant contributions from individuals who didn’t receive the recognition they deserved. These are people who worked tirelessly in their spare time, often without much appreciation. They are individuals who certainly merited additional acknowledgment.
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So, we decided to create the Ruby Hero Awards to celebrate these contributions. The process works like this: we set up a website called rubyheroes.com and invite people to nominate individuals they believe deserve an award. Anyone can submit nominations along with a description—two or three sentences explaining why they feel that person should receive an award. This year, we had 465 nominations, which is quite impressive. However, we don't want this to become a popularity contest. After public voting, we bring the nominees to the previous year's Ruby Heroes, who make the final decisions. They deliberate and come to a unanimous agreement on which six recipients should receive the awards, and I'll share more about our award winners shortly.
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Before we proceed with the awards, I want to take a moment to thank our sponsor, O'Reilly, for their support in making this event possible. Let's give them a round of applause.
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Now, if I call your name and you're a hero, please come up here to receive your award and stand for a group photo at the end. I will start by acknowledging someone who couldn't be here today. This award goes to a person who contributed to the Ruby Summer of Code, specifically the Simple Ruby Deployment project, allowing them to work with Wayne Seguin on RVM. He did significant work supporting RVM, which culminated in the release of RVM 1.0, among other contributions. He also dedicates his time to a youth organization called Youth Tree, which promotes creativity and community volunteering.
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The individual I'm speaking about is Darcy Laycock. Let's have a round of applause for him. Hopefully, he's watching live from home. The next honoree wrote several open-source projects that you may be familiar with, particularly if you're an early adopter of CoffeeScript. One of his projects is called Beastro Car. He also created Liberty, an asset packaging library for Rack applications, and Evergreen, which facilitates running JavaScript unit tests within JavaScript. Additionally, he created CarrierWave, a flexible way to upload files in Ruby applications. Of course, I'm referring to Jonas Nicklas.
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Next, we have two heroes whose contributions focus on documentation—one has authored extensive documentation while the other has developed tools to improve it. I think it’s essential to share some powerful nominations they received. The first honoree comes highly recommended: "This dude has helped me on numerous occasions with odd syntax questions over IRC, and he doesn't even know who I am. He deserves a damn medal for his dedication!" Another appreciates how this honoree's tireless commitment to improving documentation has significantly impacted our community. Their contributions to Rails are exemplary, including a number of commits focused on enhancing documentation for active users. The individual I'm referring to is Ryan Bigg.
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Another honoree played a pivotal role in creating Yard, which has greatly facilitated the documentation process. Users have written passionately about him: "Yard makes it incredibly easier for developers to write good documentation and make it readily available." This honoree had a significant influence, leading to further projects like RubyDoc.info. The person we're recognizing now is Loren Segal.
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Now, regarding our next honoree, I'm excited to present someone who has picked up the torch from Why the Lucky Stiff and maintained several of his projects. They have worked on various initiatives, including improving the Shoes library and helping with Hacky Hack. If you haven't tried Hacky Hack yet, I highly recommend it as a great resource for learning programming interactively. This individual is also a key contributor to Ruby Mendicant University, which has effectively educated a new generation of Ruby developers. The honoree is Steve Klabnik!
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Finally, our last recipient of the evening has a remarkable background, including a PhD in theoretical physics. His contributions to the Ruby community have been deeply impactful, particularly through his book on Rails, 'Railspace,' which has inspired numerous developers. Additionally, he developed the Inosi project, which served as an excellent example of a Rails application. This year, he has been recognized yet again for his significant contributions to our community. Let's give a round of applause for Michael Hartl!
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Congratulations to all our 2011 Ruby Heroes! Now, moving on, I’d like to discuss the importance of appreciation in our community. Screencasts have been a valuable resource in our field, and our community has thrived on them since the early days. I want to take a moment to acknowledge the many people and organizations that have contributed to the flourishing screencasting culture in the Ruby community, from Pragmatic Studios to individuals producing valuable content. I believe that education and sharing knowledge through these mediums will empower future Ruby developers. There is so much we can do to keep the community strong and vibrant!
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As we foster this culture of gratitude, I encourage each of you to express appreciation to at least three people during this conference. Sometimes, recognition for our contributions is less than we might expect. Consider reaching out to someone who has helped you or inspired you in your journey and say, 'thank you.' This could be for creating a helpful library, a gem, or a tutorial that made your work easier. I assure you, those simple words can make a significant difference in someone’s motivation.
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Lastly, I want to extend an invitation to connect with me if you have a project, a gem, or any tutorial you've recently published that you'd like more people to know about. I've been recording stories on Ruby 5, our twice-weekly news podcast. Please don’t hesitate to reach out, and let me help you share your work. Thank you all once again for being here, for your support of Ruby Heroes, and for your commitment to fostering a vibrant and helpful community. I truly appreciate it.
