Ruby Conf 2013 - Opal, A new hope (for Ruby programmers)

By Forrest Chang A short time ago, in an internet not far away ... It is a period of Javascript revolution. Rebel Ruby coders, striking from an obscure repository, have won significant victories against evil Javascript Empire. During the battle, Rebel Ruby coders have managed to duplicate the Empire's ultimate weapon, the use of the same language on both server and client sides, but this time with a language with enough meta programming power to make the most elegant DSLs on the planet. Pursued by myriad Javascript options, the Rebel Coders race home to their repositories, custodian of the code that can save their people and restore freedom to Ruby Coders everywhere. --- Do you have mixed feelings about the Javascript Revolution? It is a truly exciting time with many options and opportunities. Unfortunately, the language of this revolution is Javascript. "Javascript is the path to the dark side. Javascript leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." - Yoda, if he were a coder With all this Javascript goodness, what's a Ruby programmer to do? One word - Opal. Opal is a source to source ruby to javascript compiler, corelib and a runtime implementation that currently passes 1716 rubyspecs w/a reachable goal of passing them all. You might be thinking, yet another language that compiles down to Javascript. Why should you as a Ruby Coder board care? Matz once wrote: "For me the purpose of life is partly to have joy. Programmers often feel joy when they can concentrate on the creative side of programming, So Ruby is designed to make programmers happy." As another Ruby, Opal is designed to make programmer's happy Here's the top 8 reasons why Opal will make you, the Ruby programmer, happy 1. It's just Ruby, and a viable one 2. Greenspun's 10th Rule, Opal Edition 3. Solves things the Ruby way, making the programmer happy 4. Frameworks, we don't need no stinking frameworks (but we have some) 5. Tools you already know and love 6. Easy integration with Ruby web frameworks 7. Awesome In Browser tools 8. New possibilities This talk will go over those 8 reasons and more. There will be live code demonstrations. Opal, this might just be the droid you're looking for. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss Javascript goodbye. Coming a computer near you. Help us caption & translate this video! http://amara.org/v/FG40/