RubyConf 2017 CFP

Thank you for your interest in speaking at RubyConf 2017! The conference is November 15-17, 2017 in New Orleans, LA, USA.

Please read through and follow ALL guidelines below to boost your proposal’s chances of being accepted! If you have questions about any of these guidelines, you can reach us at rubyconf@rubycentral.org.

Topics

We'd love for you to come share your knowledge with ~800 of your closest colleagues & friends. We welcome all talks related to the Ruby programming language, from the mainstream and basic to the niche and obscure.

The only exception: if your talk is primarily about Ruby on Rails, then please don't submit it to RubyConf. Hold off and submit it to RailsConf in Spring 2018 instead. Thanks!

We require all selected talks to comply wholly with our Anti-Harassment Policy. If you have any questions about the suitability of your talk, or anything else in this CFP, email us at rubyconf@rubycentral.org.

Proposing a Talk

Talks should be 40 minutes long, which can include time for questions. If you want to take questions, we'd encourage you to plan for 30-35 minutes of presentation and to leave the rest of the time for questions. All talks should be lecture-style presentations.

Proposals can be submitted through August 28, 2017. We will be accepting talks on a rolling basis: the earlier you submit, the more likely you are to receive feedback on how to amend your proposal, which betters your ultimate odds of acceptance. Ultimately, our aim is to have every proposal responded to with an acceptance, waitlist, or decline by September 18, 2017.

For those of you new to speaking (but passionate and knowledgeable!), worry not: we love first-time speakers and are happy to help you out! If you want to learn more about how to improve your talk submission, this post and this one are good places to get started. For more information on how RubyConf 2017 proposals are selected, read the "About the Review Process" below. If you have questions after that, we're happy to answer them or aid in other ways -- just let us know!

Tracks

In addition to the general program, we also have a few themed tracks at RubyConf. These tracks have specific guidelines to describe the talks within them. Not every talk belongs in a track. If your proposal doesn't fit neatly in one of the below tracks, either tag it as General or don't tag it at all. However, if you do feel that your proposal might fit nicely within one of the below tracks, tag it with that track name.

Track Guidelines

All the New Programmers

We're incredibly lucky to have so many new programmers in our community! All freshly minted and full of vim and vigor. In this track, we're looking for talks to help new programmers understand things like: how to progress in their careers, how to understand a potentially new environment of working on a team of programmers, how to cope with new stresses they'll encounter along the way, as well as other topics of interest for new programmers.

Bug Report

To this track we bring our bugs, our head-scratchers, our befuddled masses yearning to be fixed. If you’ve ever fallen down a rabbit hole of failing tests or production-level errors and come out the other side with a MacGuyver-like construction of duct tape or metaprogramming, a lesson learned, and a song in your heart, then this is the track for your heroic tale.

Comparative Ruby

For some of us, Ruby was our first programming language. For others, we worked in software for many years before discovering Ruby. But when it comes down to it, how does Ruby truly compare with (or fit in among) other languages? According to Matz, Ruby evolved from Perl, Smalltalk, and Lisp, and it has in turn influenced several other languages in the programming ecosystem. Talks in this track should explore the differences and similarities of Ruby and its design patterns with those of other languages. Possible themes to touch on would be the functional programming aspects of Ruby, the equivalent of Ruby tools like Rubygems in other languages, your own lessons learned from transitioning in or out of Ruby from another language, or the nitty-gritty differences among the various programming paradigms.

The Future of Ruby

Is Ruby dying? For new programmers, is learning Ruby an asset? The future of the Ruby industry is constantly being called into question. The language is seemingly under threat, whether from a more performant low-level language or a flashy new JavaScript framework. Talks in this track should explore what's going on in the Ruby industry and what we can do, if anything, to keep the ecosystem thriving.

Human Factors

The hardest parts of creating great software often don't involve a computer at all. In this track, we want to hear your stories about people working together to do amazing things with Ruby. Whether they're from an open source project striving to include new contributors or a team evolving from dysfunction to delivery – talks in this track should share lessons learned, memorable experiences, and all the grit and heart it took to come together and do great things with this language we love!

Inside Ruby

What goes on behind the scenes when we run our Ruby programs? For a language that is such a joy to use, there must be a lot going on under the hood. Perhaps you’re curious about how tokenization and parsing work? Maybe you want to find out about Ruby’s virtual machine? And where does the C code come in? Talks in this track should explore these topics, with knowledge that can be applied to Ruby development and beyond, to other programming work as well.

A Realm Beyond Ruby

​​Ruby is what brings us all together, but there are many non-Ruby things that set us apart as individuals. What do you know a lot about that many of us don't? What do you think is fascinating that you'd love to share with us? Perhaps you've studied something that's not directly related to programming or you spend your free time on a quirky side project. Whatever it is, this track is your chance to entertain fellow Rubyists with stories that come from a realm beyond Ruby.

Ruby and Its Friends

Ruby is rarely used alone, almost always bringing along its friends, such as databases and, increasingly, other services. Just like playing with friends vs. playing alone, this means additional coordination is required... but having friends along can also make hard problems easier. For talks in this track, we want to hear about using Ruby in distributed systems environments. What techniques have you used to make it easier? What pitfalls should others following in your steps expect?

Ruby on the Fringe

Ruby is one of the most popular languages for web development, DevOps, and general scripting. But some people use Ruby for stranger, less obvious purposes. Talks in this track should explore the more esoteric side of the language -- applications that are (way) outside the norm, answering the question "what are the weirdest and most wonderful ways you can use Ruby?"

Testing

The topic of testing is never without its opinions, and thus the discussion of it in Ruby continues. Whether it's unit tests vs. specifications, black box vs. mocking vs. stubbing, or integration tests vs. everything else, talks in this track should go over techniques for writing high-quality Ruby.

About the Review Process

Proposals will go through two rounds of evaluation. The first-round review will be blind — reviewers do not have access to your information, only what is in your proposal, to keep basic biases out of our calculations. Please respect this process by keeping your biographical information out of the proposal itself.

In the second round, proposals that have cleared the first round will be reviewed along with your information. The purpose of this round is to evaluate proposals alongside your past speaking experience, relevant credentials, and anything else that you provide that would help our committee see what a great job you'll do. The program committee is heavily committed to selecting a diverse and well-qualified group of speakers.

During the first round, program committee members may have questions and feedback for you about your proposal. The CFP application allows for two-way correspondence without revealing speaker identities. You'll receive an email notification when a reviewer leaves feedback for you. Please reply promptly and consider adjustments when requested. Our committee will have hundreds of proposals to look over, so you'll want to be sure that you're not a process blocker.

Every proposal submission will be responded to, whether or not the talk is accepted. Please only contact us with questions on this if you have not heard back by September 18.

What You Get

Speakers at RubyConf 2017 receive free admission to the conference and an invitation to a pre-conference speaker dinner. Speakers also receive access to a Slack channel for all Speakers and the Program Committee, which can be used for talk prep (including requesting assistance and talk reviews) as well as check-ins with others.

Note: We do not offer travel or accommodation assistance for Speakers.

Whether or not your talk is accepted, if you submit a proposal, we'll reserve a ticket space for you. So even if the conference sells out and your proposal isn't accepted, you'll still have the chance to buy a RubyConf ticket. Instructions on how to do so will be in the email that we send to you.