Strong HTTP mapping, however, is offered for Rails, Pollak added.

The event was conducted in the "Unconference" style, in which presentations are given in an informal, ad hoc basis by attendees; there is no submission of papers several months in advance and no pre-set agenda. Attendees gave presentation on topics ranging from Rails security to deploying Rails to abate global warming.

Demonstrations were offered on a multitude of projects based on Rails, including , a social networking site featuring photos, video and blogging; , a search engine; and Ozmozer, which enables information-sharing by aggregating links and RSS feeds in a mashup style. Dunn showed , which melds a wiki with content management.

A developer of DropVolley.com, which is a social networking site for adult-league tennis, said Rails proved more productive at his current place of employment than Microsoft's .Net technology.

IBM is using Ruby on Rails in efforts such as its project, which involves development of a wikipedia-like system for business processes. Users can record and play back scripts. But the company thus far has made no commitments to releasing any development tools for the Ruby on Rails crowd, said Steve Cousins, senior manager for IBM's User-Focused Systems Research Group at the San Jose site.