I have always been interested in electronics, but I never had the time to learn more about it. It all changed with the advent of the . The Arduino makes playing around with electronics so easy and so much fun that I simply did not have any excuses any longer.

When I told my publisher that I was playing around with the Arduino, they immediately offered me a book contract. They wanted me to write down all the things I have learned and discovered and they wanted me to write a book that introduces absolute beginners to the exciting world of electronics and the Arduino.

The book is available in beta already, so if you’re interested in the electronics and/or the Arduino platform, have a look at it!

It takes place 24-25th July in London.

I will give a talk and I hope to see you there!

Nick Sieger, for example, blogged about his observations at QCon. He wonders why Ruby is not used more often in big companies, although he thinks Ruby already has everything it needs to be a successful enterprise software development platform.

I totally agree with Nick: Ruby and Rails are ready for the enterprise and it’d be great, if more CTOs would think so, too. And like Nick I do not know exactly why it is not more popular. Some people think it’s because only mediocre programmers work for big companies. I don’t think so, because I know a lot of smart people working in corporate environments. Guy Kawasaki brings it to the point in his great new book “Reality Check”:

There are a lot of guys and gals inside established companies who are as innovative and revolutionary as their bootstrapping, soy-sauce-and-rice-subsisting, external entrepreneur counterparts.

I think many companies use Ruby and Rails already, but don’t talk about it. This is really a pity, because Ruby urgently needs more success stories. But most big companies still have massive communication problems and it’s usually difficult for corporate developers to speak or blog publicly about their daily work. Too often they aren’t allowed to say anything about the tools and techniques their employers are using.

Fortunately, these politics are changing slowly, so be prepared to read more about some interesting Ruby and Rails projects that have been developed in really big companies

The book is for enterprise developers who’d like to benefit from using Ruby and Rails. Among other topics it shows you how to process XML documents efficiently, how to use asynchronous messaging, how to make your applications more secure, and much more. Have a look at the table of contents to see, if it contains something interesting for you.

Sample chapters and the full table of contents can be found on the publisher’s web site.