Tonight was the monthly London Ruby Users Group meeting (kindly hosted by at the Fotango offices), with guest speaker Chad Fowler.

Although Chad had prepared material, he chose to just stand and speak to the 20 or so people present.

It was interesting to hear that, despite initial concerns, he believes that Rails code exemplifies what Ruby can really do. People coming to Rails from other languages are unaware that they are using advanced Ruby idioms. They are using advanced concepts without realising it - there is no distinction between basic and advanced in Rails.

He also mentioned that he is working on a large Rails application which uses Ruby metaprogramming to provide a more manageable codebase. I hope that he will be able to share some of that with the community.

Chad also sneakily announced that Ruby Central intends to do a European RailsConf in London, this September (14th & 15th). In the pub, he mentioned that they already have several notable speakers lined up including DHH and Jamis Buck.