ChicagoRuby: Downtown - Ruby Code Performance Tweaks; Lambda and Closure

Ruby Code Performance Tweaks
by Kurt Stephens

What are some things you can do to your Ruby code to make your apps run faster? Kurt Stephens of Enova Financial will show us a few:
Little code changes that speed up your applications.
Raw benchmarks on different Ruby platforms.
Areas where Ruby platforms can be improved and how.

Lambda and Closure: Horrors of the Computer Science Mythos
by Justin Love

Lambdas and the related property of closure can be powerful tools, and they lie behind a lot of magic in Ruby (as well as other languages). Unfortunately, these tools are often misunderstood by those who didn't cut their teeth on Lisp or Haskell. The talk will cover the most common syntax, several ways of looking the concepts, and common patterns of use with several examples drawn from popular ruby libraries. Visit http://github.com/Jus... (http://github.com/JustinLove/ruby_closure_examples) for examples and to get a head start on this talk.

After most downtown meetings we head over to Elephant & Castle (185 N. Wabash) for refreshments & fellowship. Join us for a few minutes if you have time.

WindyCityDB
Registration for WindyCityDB is now open. WindyCityDB is a full-day gathering for all who are excited about NoSQL databases like CouchDB, MongoDB, & Redis. The early-bird discount runs until May 16, 2010. Visit http://windycitydb.or... (http://windycitydb.org) for details.

Please use your real name when you RSVP for downtown ChicagoRuby meetings. Reason: We are required to give a list of all attendees to the security desk prior to the meeting. If the name on your ID doesn't the match the name on the RSVP list, then Aon security (http://www.cuberick.com/2008/12/history-of-security-at-aon-center.html) will not let you in the building. Sorry for the inconvenience, but those are the rules of the Aon Building.