So last night was the first Rails project night of the year and you know what ? I don’t think I talked to one person about Rails itself other than the cursory “what do you do?” type conversations.

What *was* interesting is I had no less than 4 different conversations with people about their professional development, be it their ideas or their careers - challenges they’re facing, how to tackle things etc. It was kinda amazing, and made me realise just how important these project/pub/*camp evenings are. Being in a startup, or freelancer you don’t have access to people to bounce ideas off, nor have access to professional development or HR teams. Last night really hammered this home.

So if you’re a team leader, a seasoned development vet, have built a business or two, etc and have a passing interest in Rails, you could do much worse than head out to one of the RoR related events, or any tech events, in Toronto. Ask someone what they do and you never know what kind of conversation you might have..