Just over a week ago I attended FutureRuby in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. From the single track of talks to the significant-other program to the unique post-conference parties, I have never participated in a better conference. I was especially pleased that four talks were being presented by Harvest customers.

The breadth of discussion at FutureRuby was incredible. If you are able to find a similarly diverse field of talks in a conference remotely near your area of expertise, I highly recommend it. You will be surprised to find how easily you can relate disparate topics to your career.

A quick rundown of presentations by Harvest customers after the jump.

FutureRuby was kicked off with a slide-free presentation by Nathaniel Talbott, of Terralien. Talbott waxed philosophical and political in his call to owning the means of production. Nathaniel’s talk is an interesting read for any entrepreneurs out there.

Nitobi was well represented by Brian LeRoux, Rob Ellis, and Brock Whitten. Their talk was on building device-neutral mobile applications using PhoneGap, a project in which Nitobi is heavily involved. PhoneGap is an extremely exciting project that should lead to more apps being built across the mobile space.

Dr Nic Williams made a 30-hour trek from Australia to present on the second day of FutureRuby. His talk about managing OSS overload was full of humor and utility. Dr Nic represents Mocra. It is plain to see Mocra will continue to be a force in the Rails and iPhone development worlds.

FutureRuby is the first conference I’ve attended that has steamrolled to the finish line, with the final five talks getting progressively better. Jonathan Dahl rocked his talk about programming and minimalism. Dahl provided a quick lesson on the changing form of literature and music throughout history. That he was able to relate literature and music to useful tips on programming made his talk really sing. Dahl runs Phronos, which has several intriguing projects to its name.

I met many other Harvest customers at FutureRuby. It was great to meet you all! InfoQ recorded the FutureRuby talks. Look for them online over the next few months.