Hillary Hueter demonstrates how to validate user interfaces with Watir. Learn how to write scripts that automate common functions (clicking links, selecting options from a list, filling out forms, etc.) and how to use Watir in Cucumber or RSpec tests.

Matt Aimonetti introduces the latest version of Ruby -- Ruby 2.0. Find out what's new in Ruby and what it means for your Rails applications.

Greg Price was frustrated by how long it takes Ruby 1.9.3 apps to launch, so he decided to dive in and fix things. By using general techniques for profiling and fixing code, he was able to make app launching in Ruby 2.0 twice as fast. Greg shares his techniques and shows how they can be used for any performance problem in MRI or a C extension.

Ruby on Rails 4 offers a number of useful new features and also breaks ties with a lot of old Rails baggage. Ben Hughes talks about what's new in the next release of Rails and shows how to prepare your existing Rails 3 apps for the upgrade.

Chris Kelly returns to SD Ruby to give a talk on Ruby metaprogramming, starting with the Ruby Object Model and working through the most common metaprogramming callbacks.

James Miller explores writing and testing JSON APIs with Sinatra and rack/test. Authenticate, handle errors, set proper HTTP status codes, customize headers with pagination and rate limiting data, and mount it to an existing Rails app.

Jonathan Neddenriep shows how to migrate a production application from MongoDB to Postgres without losing your mind or your data.

We live in a fast society, so why should our apps be any different? Richard Schneeman from Heroku demonstrates how to optimize your Rails app for speed and scalability -- on both the front end and back end. If you wanna go fast, this talk is for you.

Matt Aimonetti shows how to serve up web pages using Puma, a multithreaded, easy-to-use Ruby web server. Based on Mongrel, Puma is a small library built with Rack that provides a very fast and concurrent HTTP 1.1 server for Ruby web applications.

Scott Motte demonstrates how to build an API for your next web application using the power of Node.js.