David Parry

I've been deploying Rails apps for 8 years, in all sorts of production environments. From quick 'n' dirty simple apps on Heroku, to complex, database-constrained reporting systems, to high-traffic sites for millions of users. Maintainable, clear, performant code that has been comprehensively tested is a thing to be proud of! I'm particularly fond of building real-time systems that use Websockets, because they feel so responsive and fun.

The main things about Ruby are: MINiSWAN, Principle of Least Surprise and Developer Happiness. Matz (Ruby's creator) is known to be a very friendly, helpful and nice individual, hence "Matz Is Nice, So We Are Nice". Principle of Least Surprise is something I apply daily to my own code, and aiming to think this way makes me a better programmer. You should too! And Developer Happiness! One of the few reliable metrics to predict how productive a developer will be. And, one of the primary goals of the Ruby language. A Happy Programmer is an asset to society.

I use CoffeeScript on a daily basis to build all my front-end code, and occasionally in Node.js. I also like to apply a structured approach to code design, making the most of CoffeeScript's Object/Class features, and thoroughly testing the business and display logic using TDD frameworks such as Jasmine, Teaspoon and others.

Elixir has me more excited about programming than I've been in decades. Reliability, performance and clarity: rarely do we see such a powerful combination.