Holidays D-1, I'll do my homeworks for the Railsrumble

Haa, holidays are coming. I’ll be ending in North of France, enjoying Belgium beer, Nathalie’s grand parents fresh vegetables and … will be a bit disconnected. This will be the occasion for me to put some order in remaining/waiting projects.

But, as last year, I’ll compete at the RailsRumble this year. My app? PlanetToaster.

So I’ll do my homeworks, and try to be organized for the DDay.

What if learned so far from last year is :

• 48 Hours is not so long!


• You need to prepare your timing as much as your application itself. This year I’ll try to come with a detailed schedule for every 30 minutes/1 Hours.


• Prepare your assets. Prepare your icons (CC) prepare your wireframes for EVERY pages, even the so forgotten 404 / FAQ.


• Don’t overestimate your capacity. During these 48 Hours, you’ll under pressure, and your brain will not work as fast as you want.


• Register everything. Domain name / Emails / Twitter /


• Only use gem that you know. It’s not the time to have trouble with something you’ve never played with (like myself last year and the Timezone broken in Rails …)


• Do your tests, but not to much. This will be time consuming (at least for me flying solo).


• Prepare your ring. Prepare your desk and computer, clean everything and just keep what you need for the rumble.


• If, as me, you have pretty rubbish design capacities, try do go as simple as possible. If your app worth it, you’ll still be able to improve it later.


• Commit early, commit often. This will help to keep trace when your brain will start to burn.


• Sleep well, the 2 days before.


• Enjoy it as much as possible. Even if we are all behind our screen, this is a fantastic opportunity to (virtually) meet new people. And there is a great satisfaction after the 48 Hours to see your works live.

So in a nutshell, prepare carefully your application development process, prepare your time schedule, prepare everything you can before the competitions.

I’ll be back from my holidays the 14 of August. Have a nice week!