Sessions at Strange Loop 2011 about DSL

Monday 19th September 2011

• fog or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Cloud

  by Wesley Beary

  Cloud computing scared the crap out of me – the quirks and nightmares of provisioning cloud computing, storage, … on AWS, Terremark, Rackspace, … – I mean, where do you even start?

  Since I couldn’t find a good answer, I undertook the (probably insane) task of creating one. fog gives you a place to start by creating abstractions that work across many different providers, greatly reducing the barrier to entry (and the cost of switching later). The abstractions are built on top of solid wrappers for each api. So if the high level stuff doesn’t cut it you can dig in and get the job done. On top of that, mocks are available to simulate what clouds will do for development and testing (saving you time and money).

  You’ll get a whirlwind tour of basic through advanced as we create the building blocks of a highly distributed (multi-cloud) system with some simple Ruby scripts that work nearly verbatim from provider to provider. Get your feet wet working with cloud resources or just make it easier on yourself as your usage gets more complex, either way fog makes it easy to get what you need from the cloud.

  • Cloud
  • Deployment
  • DSL
  • Ruby

  At 10:30am to 11:20am, Monday 19th September

  In Gateway 4/5, Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark

  Coverage slide deck

Tuesday 20th September 2011

• Teaching Code Literacy

  by Sarah Allen

  Programming is a life skill. Kids needs to learn how to code for the same reasons that they need to learn physics, chemistry, and foreign language. They need to understand how their world works. We need to stretch their brains when they are young. But kids don’t care about all that, they want immediate gratification, but they are also motivated to take the tools they see on the web and put them to use for their own amusement and self-expression.

  How do we craft a language to meet this goals? or should we? Sarah Allen will share how she made a little language called “Pie” for web and mobile game development. She’ll share positive and negative reactions from her test audiences. You’ll learn a bit about how to create a domain-specific language (DSL) in Ruby, along with more general ideas of what works (and doesn’t) in the creation of a new language.

  • Children
  • DSL
  • Education
  • Kids
  • Ruby

  At 10:30am to 11:20am, Tuesday 20th September

  In Arch View, Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark

  Coverage slide deck