The talk I, Erik Kastner, gave at Rails Conf 2008: Microformats for fun and <s>profit</s>

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2. A Spy in King David’s Court
What my time in the Rails community
has taught me about how to beat it
Erik Kastner <kastner@gmail.com>

3. Microapps for
Fun and Profit
Erik Kastner <kastner@gmail.com>
metaatem.net

4. Microapps for
Fun and Profit
Erik Kastner <kastner@gmail.com>
metaatem.net

5. Microapps for
Fun and Profit
Erik Kastner <kastner@gmail.com>
metaatem.net

6. I’m lovin it

7. Facebook

8. Flickr

9. NOT
Microapps

10. Twistori
http://twistori.com/ by Amy Hoy & Thomas Fuchs

11. Foamee
http://foamee.com/ by Dan Cederholm

12. Down for everyone or just me
http://down4.net by Alex Payne

13. Befuddlr
http://befuddlr.com/ by Amy Hoy and Me

14. Tasty Planner
Started as something of a Microapp - built for Rails Rumble
http://tastyplanner.com
by: Josh Owens, Chris Saylor, Bruno Miranda and Kevin Burg

15. Spell with Flickr
http://metaatem.net/words

16. Hide an Image with CSS
http://metaatem.net/highlite

17. Peglist
http://peglist.metaatem.net

18. Band Named
http://bandnamed.com/

19. “Microapps”

20. Micro
micro
noun ( pl. -cros)
1 small : micromachines.
ORIGIN from the 80s MicroMachines

21. App
app
noun
short for web application.

22. Crux in
One Sitting

23. Rails
Camping
Sinatra
Merb
Mongrel
Bash, C, Perl, even straight html

24. HTML

25. Even PHP!

26. “For Fun”

27. Play

28. Learning

29. Working with
folks who rule

30. “and Profit”

32. $$$

33. $$$
£££

34. $$$
£££
€€€

35. Adsense
• Easy
• Geeks don’t click ads

36. Beg
• Put a pay pal button up and be done
• Talk about how “hard” you worked

37. Sponsor / Patronage
• Kind of like begging
• Kind of like ads

38. Better than
money

39. Reputation

40. “Personal Brand”

41. Experience

42. Making a
Microapp

43. 3
Easy Steps

45. Design

46. Design
Develop

47. Design
Develop
Deploy

48. Design

49. Design is Hard

50. Twistori

51. Foamee

52. Develop

53. Rails
rails bookr
cd bookr
script/generate scaffold book
title:string description:text
rake db:migrate
script/server &
open http://localhost:3000/books

54. Sinatra
mate bookr.rb
require 'rubygems'
require 'sinatra'
get quot;/quot; do
quot;Hello Therequot;
end
ruby bookr.rb &
open http://localhost:4567/

55. Foamee
• Made by a non-coder
• Built without a twitter library

56. Deploy

58. Just Do It

59. Just Do It
Real Artists Ship

60. Just Do It
Real Artists Ship
Ready, Fire, Aim

61. Just Do It
Real Artists Ship
Ready, Fire, Aim
Get Real

62. Just Do It
Real Artists Ship
Ready, Fire, Aim
Get Real
Release Early, Release Often

63. Twistori
• Built in 6 hours
• Amy wanted to “Ship something”

67. Tasty Planner

68. Don’t repeat
Anyone

69. Don’t repeat
Anyone
• Use libraries

70. Don’t repeat
Anyone
• Use libraries
• Steal code (when permitted)

71. Don’t repeat
Anyone
• Use libraries
• Steal code (when permitted)
• Get help

72. NIH Rules

73. NIH Rules
• Don’t learn 2 (or more APIs) to use 1

74. NIH Rules
• Don’t learn 2 (or more APIs) to use 1
• Don’t learn 1 API when 0 will do

75. NIH Rules
• Don’t learn 2 (or more APIs) to use 1
• Don’t learn 1 API when 0 will do
• READ CODE!!!