I’m tickled pink, er, red to report that I just received confirmation that my automation with Ruby talk proposal has been accepted for the O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) in August.

I (heart) Ruby, and the number of real-life applications being built with Ruby is on the rise, thanks in large part to the Rails juggernaut. Thankfully, the Ruby community has crafted good tools for automating many of the chores that go along with building and supporting these applications. And the Ruby language lends itself well to quickly automating repetitive tasks on any project.

My Getting Off the Treadmill talk will cover at least the following:

• Using Rake and Test::Unit to create a one-step build and test process.
• Continuously building and testing your code with DamageControl. (Hey, it’s written in Ruby.)
• Packaging, deploying, and installing applications with ease using RubyGems.
• Using Ruby to generate project metrics and synoptic displays.
• Turning step-by-step manual chores into push-button Ruby scripts.
• Monitoring builds and running programs with email, RSS, your cell phone, and other feedback devices.
• And I’m sure I won’t be able to resist showing off a Rails application (or ten).

Yes, I’ll bring my lava lamps, X10 controllers, orbs, and any other yummy automation gear I can scrounge before the conference. (Airport security can pry them from my cold, dead fingers. Well, maybe not.)

Hope to see you there!